The Quack is In

I went to my primary care physician this morning to find out what was wrong with me. I do want to start off by disclosing that I had moved my son from this group a little over a year ago due to not being satisfied with their level of service. So my trust is not 100% with them.

Regardless... The nurse came in first and I told her why I was there. I said that I had a test result come back that I was concerned about and wanted to discuss with the doctor. Easy enough.

When the doctor came in, I gave her the story and she expressed no alarm. It definitely put me at ease. The fact that my glands are tender to the touch and maleable means that there is no cancer. In cases of cancer, the glands would be hard and not tender to the touch. This is one of the dangers - you do not feel any pain until the glands are so large that they interfere with your life. This is exactly what happened to my father. His lymph nodes were the size of baseballs and my mom sent him to the doctor.... Non Hodgkins Lymphoma.

But since I was there, I continued to rattle off symptoms. She sat and nodded.

I finally pressed about a spot on my back that has been bothering me and possibly the cause of pain shooting down my leg. She felt my back and said, "Oh, that's a benign tumor. Did you have a rough labor [with my youngest who is now one]?" I said, "No, it was easy." She nodded and said, "Interesting. Well this happens in about 10% of pregnant women."

I open my mouth to ask questions and was met with, "Hold on a minute." She grabbed her stuff and left. I thought she was leaving the room to go get an information form on my condition... or SOMETHING.

But the door opened a few minutes later and the nurse came back in. "Alright, you're all set."

I walked out. Completely alarmed. Paid my $20 copay and got in the car before I thought....

WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?!?

I was pretty much in shock. I called my husband almost in tears. She used the T word. Granted, the word "benign" was in front of it. But still. We talked through it. Should I call an oncologist? Dermotologist?

I call my chiropractor and leave a message. This is the man who for the past two months has been trying to help me through my back and leg pain. His response was that a benign tumor was something that was not supposed to be there. So it should be dealt with. And he was disgusted by how I was treated.

Tonight I went to my chiropractor and we discussed options. What is this benign tumor? What do we do?

It could either be the cause of all of my pain. Or something else is going on and my body has tried to correct it, in that process growing a benign tumor. Isn't the human body amazing?

So, I got the name of a surgeon from my chiropractor (their kids play together so he had to call his wife to get the name of the practice the surgeon works in!) and I go next week to start the process.

I am still a bit in awe of my day. I was so emotional today. You would think that I would be so happy over the news of not having cancer that the news of not having cancer didn't alarm me. (Did you follow that?!) But instead, the customer service I did not receive stayed with me and haunted me.