Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Wait And See

The phrase "let's wait and see" is as old as the medical profession itself. This pronouncement evokes a strange mix of emotions in any patient; disappointment that no definite answers are forthcoming, and relief that nothing serious was immediately identified. Frustration at the process, impatience and worry.

This was my doctor's response at the end of my recent appointment. The appointment by the way that I desperately tried to get into as early as possible. The receptionist managed to squeeze me into a cancellation that opened up a full 2 weeks before my scheduled appointment.

Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your outlook), the pains I described in my last blog post had lasted for two weeks and then slowly subsided. Which means my appointment consisted of me saying essentially something to the effect of "Well, I was having pains..." to my doctor who scribbled notes about the description and duration of the pains. In the end however he suggested it may have been something acute (read: temporary) and said "let's wait and see" if it returns.

So, I'm back to my old situation. Feeling pretty good though a bit tender, and wondering what in the heck that was.

Thanks to everyone who wrote comments about their experiences on the last post- that really helped me to not be so scared!

1 comment:

  1. Hope it wasn’t anything too serious. Something similar happened to me earlier this year. I just started having some weird pain on the right side one week, which, of course, would freak out any experienced Crohn’s Disease patient, and went to the doctor. He felt around my side for a while and had me do a blood test, but couldn’t find anything wrong and suggested I wait a while and see what happened. He also suggested doing another colonoscopy, which I thought was a little odd and said no too, instead deciding about a catscan which would be a better way of seeing any inflammation. We never did end up doing the catscan though since I don’t have health insurance. The pain went away about a week later and hasn’t returned since, thankfully.

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