You are your own best Doctor:

There comes a point in ones life when one can distinguish what is serious and what is not.  When a pain or ache is real or not. I am not sure exactly when it happened with me, but I am my own best Doctor. This is not to say that I can say with any medical certainty exactly what "it" is, I just know when "it" is something serious and when it is not.

 Trust your instincts and never waiver.

I cannot tell you the number of times I have been misdiagnosed.  There is at least one person reading this who is saying, "oh no he didn't".  She in fact counseled me against writing this particular post- sorry.

  Time after time I have gone to the emergency room, a specialist, or my internist and been misdiagnosed.  I'm not referring to my current internist, he is wonderful. One time several years ago, I went into the emergency room.  It was over July 4th weekend and I had woken up with an incredible pain in my lower right calf. I called my doctor but he was away on vacation and his office said go to the emergency room. After less than a five minute examination, the doctor’s informed me I had tendentious.  He wrote me a prescription for 400MG Motrin and told me to stay off of my feet for three weeks and I would be fine. I told the doctor that I was not sure what was wrong but it was not tendentious, and asked him to run further tests. The doctor actually had the chutzpah to ask me where I went to medical school- knowing of course I had not. I shut up, swore underneath my breath, took the prescription and went home and did as he said. After a week of not feeling better, I called my own doctor and he saw me the very same afternoon.  He ran a series of tests and informed me I had in fact a DVT- Deep Vein Thrombosis, a series of blood clots, and that if I had moved it could have killed me in seconds. I was tempted to go back to the hospital, find the original doctor and rip him a new one. I didn't, but to this day it still bothers me. There have been two more recent instances where I have been misdiagnosed and, after the fact, been able to confront the doctors in question.  Their responses were "oops, we were wrong"- nothing more. No apology- nothing. What I find upsetting is the extreme cavalier posture they take when be delivered the news of their errors. There is no "sorry for damn near killing you". There should be a course in medical school in humility

 The fact that I have been misdiagnosed, more often than I have been properly diagnosed, is not lost on me. The fact I could flip a coin and mathematically do better than some doctors is not lost on me either.
If you believe your doctors are incorrect in their assessment of your health, speak up and speak up vociferously. It is your body. It is your life. 

  For all of you that either called or e-mailed me asking why I did not post last week, thank-you for your concern. I am well, or rather as well as I am going to get. Last week was an amazingly busy week, six separate doctors appointments, a ton of reading, ( I was recently hired on as a consultant for a computer storage company ) and I had nothing positive, nor inspirational, nor important to say. When I started my blog, I determined not to have this be my personal on line diary, but more of a resource guide and a means to help others, allow them to learn from my mistakes, and offer advice and encouragement. Last week there were no words of inspiration.

I promise to post on Thursday too.