Thanks for asking

Posted 8/21/12

While looking for a clue to the pain in my gut two years ago, I was greeted by numerous medical professionals and their various tools. The emergency room doctors wanted to make sure I was not going …

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Thanks for asking

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While looking for a clue to the pain in my gut two years ago, I was greeted by numerous medical professionals and their various tools. The emergency room doctors wanted to make sure I was not going to die on their watch, and after they assured themselves of that, paid no more attention. My primary care physician suggested a test for H-pylori and was very pleased with himself when a test proved him right. Antibiotics cleared up the strange organism. The pain continued.

Gastroenterologist #1 suggested an endoscopy, which determined I might have a small tumor, called a GIST. He sent me to gastroenterologist #2 who recommended a CAT scan and an endoscopic ultrasound, maybe not in that order. I can’t recall. Anyway, after that, and being told by a nurse in the recovery room that “Yep, it’s a GIST,” the line went dead for a while because the hospital remembered me by my maiden name from when I was seven years old and had a mangled finger from building a fort in my backyard in Chelsea. So the GE#2 couldn’t find my records and neither could I. After about a month of frustration and fear engendered by Internet searches for a GIST (Gastro Intestinal Stroma Tumor), I finally cleared up the name snafu between the hospital and the doctor. I was told the tumor was not much to worry about after all, but I better get that aneurysm looked at, pronto!

The next referral was for a doctor who wasn’t on my insurance plan. Luckily, it was around the time I was updating the insurance plan for my husband’s business. I got to choose a plan that included Dr. Schwartz. I met with him in his (tiny) office at Mount Sinai. He had invited a few colleagues along to inspect my very interesting aneurysm. These are rare, I was told, but there was a new treatment that could save my life. Well, who would say “no” to that? Would it stop the pain in my gut, I asked? Hmmm, couldn’t say. We scheduled a surgical date with a Dr. Kim, who had designed the procedure.

At the hospital, I was prepped for surgery and then pushed into a row of patients waiting for their own doctors. A few hours passed. Finally, I was wheeled into the operating room. The resident who performed the surgery (according to my records) was no one I had met before, but I was told Dr. Kim was in the room and I seem to remember his face behind a surgical mask before I went into a kind a semi-conscious state. Semi, because I needed to be alert enough to do something on command, although I can’t recall what that was now.

The surgery went well. At the last minute, before an incision was made, the resident decided to “go in” through my wrist instead of my groin, a decision I applauded before and after the fact as it made my recovery that much easier. A year later, Dr. Kim recently declared the procedure to repair my aneurysm a success. “What about the GIST?” I asked. He looked a little hurt as he told me to see my gastroenterologist about that. Apparently, it’s not his thing.

So next week I will have another endoscopy and ultrasound to determine what, if anything, is going on down there. The doc asked me about the pain in my gut. “How’s it feel now? Still hurt?”

“Yep,” I said. But thanks for asking.

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