Dr. House... with morals.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened."

~Matthew 7:7-8

As you can probably tell from my previous post, we haven't had much luck with doctors.  I've been praying, and praying, and praying for a doctor that would work with me and be able to figure out what's going on, and our lack of progress has been very frustrating. My GI doctor is awesome, but now there's a lot going on that's out of his area.  However, I'm pretty sure that God has provided me with the doctor that I've been praying for!!!  I say "pretty sure" because I've only had one visit with him so far, but he seems awesome.  He really did remind me of a caring version of House.  I guess putting the words "caring" and "House" together don't make much sense, but my parents and I have been using a lot of House analogies.  I've always liked how House writes everything down on a whiteboard, ponders things all night long, and is never satisfied until he can diagnose the patient.  The doctor that I saw on Wednesday is in the same building as crazy "Ms. Happy Pills," except he's an actual doctor, not the PA (I've figured out that they are also a family practice, but the normal healthy people who just have a cold or the flu are the ones who see the PA. This guy works with the really sick people.).  I had printed off a huge list of all of my symptoms and tests that I've had done and gave it to the PA during my last visit, but she didn't really acknowledge it and shoved it in the folder with all of my records, so I thought it was long gone. But... when the doctor walked into the room on Wednesday, he had the sheet that I made AND he had already written all over the entire thing.  I was very excited as soon as I saw that. One of the first things he said was "There is something going on, we're not even close to getting to the bottom of it yet, and we still have a lot of tests that need to be done." That was music to my ears, especially after hearing "All of your tests are coming back negative, so you really need to stop having them done and just take these pills" the week before.  For the first part of the visit, he kept asking me "what's bothering you the most?" I would tell him about something, he'd right stuff down, look through my stuff, and then ask me the same question again.  We talked for awhile, and he was concerned about the flank pain that I've been having since last spring, but I told him that it wasn't very bad pain and that my primary doctors ignored it because my urine samples were "normal." Thankfully, I left him a sample too, so he went to the lab that they have to see if it was normal, and... he came back and said "There's blood in it. That's not normal." So, either we have a new thing going on or my other doctors have been missing it. Neither of those would surprise me.

Because of a combination of a few of my symptoms, he was concerned about my kidneys and bladder, so I had another ultra sound on Thursday morning. We're still waiting for those results. I also have to see a cardiologist on the 27th to have an Echo done because I have a ridiculous heart murmur.  Heart murmurs are pretty common (and a lot of times aren't serious), but at this point we can't risk skipping over anything, seeing as every organ in my body seems to not want to function properly... and besides, echos are actually really cool.  A picture of your heart shows up on a screen based on sound waves that the thing they rub on you picks up.  It also doesn't hurt at all, so I'm happy. Although, I'd be happier if all of these visits were free...

I feel much better (mentally) now that I have a doctor who knows that there is something going on and is very determined to figure it out. He's also extremely nice, and he's very good at listening.  Internists are specialized in dealing with adult diseases and multi system diseases, so they're very good at looking at the big picture and putting the pieces together.  I'm pumped. God is good, and He does answer prayers... in His timing. I'm still learning that my timing isn't the same as His, and sometimes that drives me nuts... it takes a TON of patience, especially during the very difficult parts of life.

I still have a fever and I'm not doing any better physically, but having a smart, caring doctor puts us a lot further along than we were. I was actually hoping to post something that wasn't related to doctors for once, but this is very exciting for us, so I couldn't help it!