MY DOCTOR SCARES ME

Not that he's a scary guy. Marty (my doctor) is, in fact, an extremely nice man who almost always comes to the phone when I call and answers any question I have. It's just that what he says sometimes scares me.

Now I'm used to hearing good things from my doctors (except dentists). It used to be that I'd go for my physical and hear that my heart beat like a long distance runner, that my lungs had the capacity of someone in their 20s and that my cholesterol was wonderfully low. Come to think of it, Marty told me just those things again last year.

But sometimes, of late, I hear other things. Like certain changes associated with aging. Like screening tests that necessitate a followup. And lab results wildly out of tune with prior years. One lab test, in fact, was a doozie. It showed that my cholesterol was up by 200 points! When we retested 3 weeks later (during which time I was ESPECIALLY careful about my diet) my level was down by 230 points.

So nothing bad has come from any of this. But it always raises my anxiety level each time it happens. That sucks. And I worry that maybe this time....

So that's why my doctor scares me. Who knows what he'll say this time? Who knew, for example, what he'd say when I called for the results of the walking pneumonia blood test. If it was positive I'd have to remain on antibiotics for 2 more weeks.

I was, therefore, nervous when I called this morning. Marty came to the phone and asked how I was. "I'm well," I answered.

"No you're not," he responded. My gosh! What could he have seen in the blood work??
"You're getting better," he went on. "But I can still hear the nasalness in your voice." Oh, okay, I can live with that.

He got to the blood work. Marty doesn't quickly tell you the key results that you're waiting for. Instead he goes over ALL the test results, even the stuff you had no idea that you were being tested for. I learned that I didn't have diabetis, that my kidneys and liver were functioning normally, that my creatine (creatine?) levels were fine and that my glands were all doing what they were supposed to.

This was all good, of course, but I knew it had nothing to do with why my head had been stuffed, I had been coughing up junk and that my lungs were out of sorts. Trying to look at it in the best light I thought that I was building up positive momentum to the pneumonia results. How could that be bad if all the other stuff was good? On the other hand, maybe Marty was just trying to balance the negative with the positive. Sure your lungs are screwed up, so just try to use your other, healthy, vital organs more.

I could hear Marty turn the page. "And the pneumonia results are negative." No pneumonia! No more antibiotics! It was likely viral. I was still not fine, still just getting better, still unable to run Sunday's marathon...

...but at least there was nothing new to worry about!