Tuesday, January 27, 2009

My Official Diagnosis: "Cute As A Button"

I know I said I'd update the blog tomorrow, but since nothing will change tomorrow morning, I decided to tonight.

We saw Dr. Traverso, the surgeon at his office and his resident. It was a strange beginning, actually. He introduced himself to us and as nice introduction, asked what we did for a living, and where we lived. When Adam said, "Graham," the doctor said, "Why?" I explained that we move to Puyallup because of housing prices, then to Graham after Herb died and my mom moved in, although I couldn't figure out why he actually wanted to know. Suddenly he looked at Adam, after being excited that he was a contractor and said, "Come with me," then took him out of the room - leaving me with the intern! The Intern looked at me and said, " . . . distracted with the first question . . ." It turns out the doctor took Adam to look at a map of Washington State to see where we lived. His reason: he likes to know where everyone lives. Strange.

So after about an hour long consult consisting of my recounting my surgical history, the more resent "hot-potato" referral game for the last 6-weeks, and some poking at my tummy, he and the intern started reading aloud my previous surgical reports. They each would read a portion look at each other and say in unison, "so they left the blah-blah-blah," or "she has a blah-blah-blah," obviously painting a mental picture no one else in the room could see. He kinda' translated by telling me something we had never heard: I am totally unique, they don't know what's going on, and they need to run more tests. Then he followed it up by saying, "But you're cute as a button!" Thank you? Then he started dictating into his phone saying, "Patient is a 32-year old woman referred by Dr. Kozarek . . . presented with abdominal pain . . . history of . . . biliary system and surrounding structure is a (long pause) conundrum," and shut of the recorder.

So I like him, although he is a bit bazaar. He seems comfortable and confident, a little bit like a "fun Bob" yet one that drives his interns crazy, but is unwilling to do surgery until he has a specific goal with an executable plan. I like that.

Tomorrow, I'll have a CT scan because yep, the one I ruined Friday - missed the very thing they needed to see. So they gave me some Valium and an appoint for a redo tomorrow afternoon. And he wants a new test . . . a little piece of my poo to evaluate (gross). I have to keep it in the fridge until I turn it in. Hopefully Josh will not mistake it for left overs!

I feel good about our progress today; his ideas are in line with our intuition. Please continue to pray for our direction, and continued discernment of the doctors, radiologists and surgical team we've been teamed up with, and that together we'll find a cure. God has been good to us, and I have faith that his goodness does not end!

3 comments:

  1. I would venture a guess that the weirdest ones are probably the smartest. :) Sounds very hopeful!

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a relief to find someone -- as bizarre as he may be -- who seems to know what he's doing. Sounds like he's a visual person (ie, the map) and that's a good thing since he's going to have to look at a lot of stuff for you!

    And I love the title of this post -- Classic!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your doctor sounds like House...

    ReplyDelete