A Diagnosis

Shannah and her sore chest cavity went to see Dr. B. Tuesday afternoon. After listening to my breathing, tapping here and there, and asking question after question, the diagnosis is inflamed rib cartilage. Remedy? Time and Aleve.

Here's my personal diagnosis: Dr. B. is a bit of a curmudgeon!

We've gone to Dr. B. for a few years now because his office is convenient 5-minute drive/10-minute walk/45-minute crawl if you're too ill to drive away from our home. We also determined that we'd not select our "permanent" family doctor until we purchase our house and could find someone who was on the loop.

It's amazing that these reasons are enough to keep us going back to Dr. B. (not that we go to the doctor very often). He is the most cantankerous man I know.

Dr. B. loves to prescriptives. We try to avoid it unless it's absolutely necessary. Dr. B. continually tells me all of the many reasons why I am wrong to avoid prescriptives. Thankfully, his P.A. is more holistically-minded.

Dr. B. doesn't want to hear any WebMD theories. Today he actually told me, "I don't know why anyone bothers to go to the doctor any more if they are going to look things up on WebMD." I didn't tell him that I just read a study that found WebMD gives an accurate diagnosis 80% of the time.

But the real kicker came at the end of my appointment. Dr. B. wanted to do a quick lab test to make sure I'd be ok taking a higher level of Aleve (I was successful at avoiding narcotics...though that might have been a fun way to cruise through the holidays!).

After going over my treatment, Dr. B. said, "Ok, this treatment assumes you're clear to take Aleve. I want you to go potty so we can run a quick test."

Was I really told to "Go potty"?!?

Kelly told me last night that I should have looked at Dr. B. and said:

Will that be #1 or #2, Dr. B.?