This particular post has been a challenge to write. Not that I’ve been stewing over it wondering what to say, but trying to explain without over explaining. You’d think in a blog that I write myself with no actual limitations on how much I write, I’d feel the freedom to elaborate fully. The truth is, with a sufficient elaboration, the entirety of what has happened on our road to Tennessee could probably be a book. I know my wife has enough material on her own for that.
Last year we finally found a path forward. A doctor finally looked at my wife with some sense of concern and worked hard to get us moving. Being taken seriously is quite the motivation. It was our first sense of hope for a while. I can’t fully discount the doctors behind us, but the reality was they fixed what they could and let her go. He got us into specialists, he seemed engaged in my wife’s health even when she was messaging him, and he seemed to genuinely want to find the problem. That ended up being the problem.
The doctor had done it. He’d finally determined what he believed was her issue, then disappeared. I wish I could say figuratively, but literally the guy seemed to disappear. He put a life altering “possible” diagnosis and the next appointment we’re starting over with a new doctor. I still can’t believe how it all happened when I look back at it. This doctor, who we attributed the findings of my wife’s disease, walked away from us.
Doctors see a million patients. I get it. But this was not just some issue with the thyroid he couldn’t do anything about. This is a systematic disease that having a primary doctor who understands it is essential. Every visit could be a new symptom. Every symptom could be a progression of the disease. This doctor disappeared.
Its moments like this that are so easy to abandon the journey and sit on the path. We were there too, but the one thing the doctor had left us with was his diagnosis. We couldn’t ignore it, and even though the doctor left, the diagnosis became our new horse, pulling us to more questions, but also finding answers along the way. Our new motivation was finding a specialist for Systemic Sclerosis.
Jacob Gittins 