The Day the Earth Stood Still . . .

The Day the Earth Stood Still . . .

I showed up for my appointment, filled out some paper work and waited the usual 15 minutes past my appointment time. Someone finally came out and collected me and deposited me in an exam room. Dr. Eller came in and I went over my symptoms, he asked about my medical history, whether I’m a smoker (2 packs a day for about 2 years 34 years ago). He poked around a little and then told me he wanted to scope my throat. He put some stuff in both my nostrils and said it would help with putting the camera down through my nose. I wasn’t too excited about what I was about to go through, but figured we might finally find out what was going on down my throat.

After a few minutes I was ready and Dr. Eller slipped the camera into my left nostril and began the exam. We both watched on a computer screen as he exited my nasal passage, past that hangy thing in the back of your throat and finally to the back of my tongue. Then a huge lump appeared to fill the screen. It was red and white and a bunch of colors in between. It looked like the blob from one of those 1950s science fiction movies. I asked him what that was, and he said that wasn’t supposed to be there. A knot started to form in my stomach.

Dr. Eller continued to examine my throat and once he was satisfied he’d seen enough, removed the camera from my nose. He sat down and said he wasn’t sure what the growth was on the back of my tongue but said it could be CANCER !!!!!!! The knot in my stomach got bigger and I think my heart stopped. He said he wanted to do a biopsy to make sure of what the growth was. I agreed immediately and asked when. He said we’d have to check the schedule, but in the mean time he went over the medications I was taking and told me to stop everything but my cholesterol medication. He walked me out to a nice lady that took care of setting up Dr. Eller’s procedures and went over the calendar with her. When he told her to reschedule someone else so he could get me in earlier the knot in my stomach got bigger. He set me up for another appointment for the 24th of Dec 09 to take care of the same day surgery paperwork and to draw blood, do an EKG, and a CAT scan. The surgery was set for 8 Jan 2010.

The Day I Went to the Doctor

The morning of 25 Nov 2009 was like any other day, up at 4:30 am, take a shower, brush teeth, clear throat, spit blood . . . oops, wait a minute spit blood? That ain’t right. This had happened a couple of times before over the last 8 – 10 months, but normally while I was traveling and by the time I got back to San Antonio I’d forget about it. But I was in town, so I decided to call for a doctor’s appointment once I got to work.

I’m retired Air Force and I work on an Air Force base as a government employee. As a retiree I still can utilize the Air Force medical system. I called for an appointment and they told me they had no openings for 3 weeks. I told them what my problem was and when I mentioned bleeding they recommended that if I wanted to see a doctor today to go to the emergency room. I didn’t like that idea, I’ve been to that emergency room and it always ended up being a long wait to see a doctor. It’s one of only 2 trauma centers in town, so unless you’re spurting blood or have an exposed broken bone you wait, and wait, and wait.

So I went to the emergency room, told them my symptoms and waited. I was there 4 hours and saw 3 doctors. They seemed more concerned that my blood pressure was elevated and they checked that every 30 minutes. They did the usual throat exam and took an x-ray of my chest, but found nothing unusual. One of the doctors said he’d give me a referral to ENT. I thanked them all and went on my merry way expecting to get a call for the referral in a day or so. That didn’t happen.

I waited a few days and didn’t hear anything. The wife didn’t like that so she began to call around and see if she could get them to get me an appointment. I got an appointment with ENT on 18 Dec 09.