After stumbling out of bed yesterday morning, I decided it was time to email the Hormone Doctor. I had slept on an off until 11:30 AM and when I finally did get up, my legs gave way and I fell in a heap on the floor. I was so tired that I could hardly catch a deep enough breathe so that I could hoist myself up off the floor. I basically slept through the whole day finally waking up at supper time with just enough energy to get up and walk around for a while.

Why are there so few good endocrinologists in Canada like the Hormone Doctor? At times like this I wish I was an American. The Hormone Doctor’s very prompt reply to my email reads in part as follows:

“Interesting. What meds are you taking again? It looks like you have primary mineralocorticoid deficiency (low aldo and high renin). It would explain your nausea, lightheadness and fatigue. I would repeat the renin and aldo after lying down for about 10 min and standing up for 30 min. Maybe you can fax me the lab results. I’ve never seen a dex test (he is referring to the dex test I had done in Calgary) like that but would get a morning cortisol and ACTH and also fax the results. I would be on some estrogen prep. Your antimicrosomal antibodies indicate Hashimoto’s.”

Now the “fun” part begins; trying to convince No Name to run the tests that the Hormone Doctor recommended. The last time I tried that, Squirt told me in no uncertain terms that, “American doctors exaggerate all the time”.  The Hormone Doctor faxed a requistion to the hospital in my community with a list of the tests for me.  The Hormone Doctor and I waited for weeks without a word about the test results.  I finally called the provincial lab in my province only to be told that they had dumped all my blood work and urine samples that resulted from the tests ordered by the Hormone Doctor.  The excuse given by the director of the provincial lab was that they did not process tests ordered by American doctors.

What happens when a person becomes to tired and sick to fight the system? What happens to a person when the doctors do not have the capabilities to put two and two together and come up with four? Is my province the dumping ground for all intellectually challenged doctors?

Quite frankly this “old boy’s club” way of doing t that is so prevalent among our physicians has to go. This business of never wavering from a previous doctor’s diagnosis has to go. Squirt explained it very clearly to me when I first asked him for a second opinion. Squirt told me that he had no problems referring me to another endocrinologist or doctor of internal medicine. However, he did tell me that I might be the one that would have problems. According to Squirt, the doctors that I would be referred to might not have any respect for me and my problems because I had asked for a second opinion. Basically the thought pattern of these so called healers is that if a patient has the bloody gall to ask for a second opinion these healers will be sure not to differ from the original doctor’s diagnosis or non -diagnosis. This is exactly what has happened to me.

Squirt referred me to Blonde Bimbo. I asked for a second opinion. Squirt, after warning me about the negative effects of a second opinion, referred me to Leprechaun. This delusional man, whose chair was much too big for him, gave me not quite 10 minutes of his precious time. He was much too busy ruling his little kingdom. Next came Supercilious and he gave me 5 minutes of his precious time. Then there was Dingaling who was told not to investigate me for Cushing’s but to find something else. He obliged by diagnosing me with right sided heart failure. And the list goes on. Of course not one of these doctors would even consider looking at my so called diagnosis and reevaluating it.