Annoyed in Olympia

So this post is just a vent for my annoying day. Today is my normal day of getting chemo every two weeks, but it turns out my doctors office just happened to schedule my appointment this time around on my normal doctors day off. The problem with this is that my case is so unique and complex that a doctor not familiar with my case can't just fill in and accurately tell me what I need to do. On chemo days Dr. Ye always has to take a look at my blood labs and make sure they are high enough to be able to do chemo. If they aren't high enough, we put chemo off and generally go over to the hospital for a blood transfusion.

Well the problem today was that this fill in doctor takes a look at the numbers for the labs and immediately thinks, these are too low, we need to get him right over to the hospital for a transfusion, no chemo this week, etc. Well this would be the case for a normal patient. I am NOT a normal patient. My normal lab numbers are generally something that a normal person would not be conscious with. For instance my hemoglobin level that I posted about last week was at 7.2. For my fourth week out from the last transfusion, this is an INCREDIBLE number. I don't know that I have been that high after four weeks in years. But this doctor not being familiar with my case, he sees that number and told MaryEllen and I that he would like to send us over for a transfusion.

I called all of this before hand when we were waiting for the doctor to come in. I even told the nurse taking my vitals that there was no reason for me to see a doctor unless it was Dr. Ye because they wouldn't understand my case and would not give accurate treatment. MaryEllen told me not to get worked up quite yet since we don't know what will happen. I knew better.

So basically I just calmly as I could told the doctor that he should probably go call Dr. Ye before he did anything else because he basically didn't know what the numbers he was looking at meant in regards to me. Surprise surprise he came back a couple minutes later basically with his tail between his legs having to admit that I was right and he was wrong.

I swear I wish I could just get my doctors license so I could control my treatment for days when my doctor is gone since this is not even the first time I have had to tell a person filling in that they are overreacting and I didn't need to do what they thought I did.

Moral of the story for those not familiar with the medical field, take control of your own care. You know your body better than any doctor ever could and don't just take a doctors word for things. If you feel something is wrong with what they are telling you, there probably is something wrong.

Thanks for letting me vent.