Who You Callin' a Petri Dish?
Remember that nurse practitioner who diagnosed me with a condition I didn't think I had? I'd been trying all last week to get a hold of her about the results. She didn't answer my messages for a week and a half, because it turns out she was on vacation for part of that time. I asked that someone else give me the results, but the clinic refused to let anyone else do it. Grrrr.
On Friday, frustrated, I called my buddy nurse at the cancer center. I know that UCSF is computerized and that one doctor can see the results of tests ordered by someone else. So I talked her into giving me the results. As I knew, it came back negative. I DO NOT HAVE THE CONDITION SHE DIAGNOSED! Sometimes patients know their bodies, go figure.
Today the nurse practitioner finally called me. She offered no apology for the wait or for ignoring the messages I left before her vacation. Nada. She just immediately launched into her vacation stories and then said, well, your test is negative. Stop taking the medications she gave me. End of story.
I said, "What should we do about the rash? It's painful and we don't know what it is."
She said that we wait and see. I asked, "So, this is like when I had diarrhea for seven days and no one wanted me to take anything to stop it?
Her response was, "You're a Petri dish for us. We just see what happens. You're still eating--you're not starving, so you're okay right now."
And that was that. The compassion overwhelms me. I wish I'd known before that no one would be terribly concerned about whatever pain and disruptive problems I'd go through. I would have stopped calling and started treating myself!
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