Doctor M. was not wearing a lab-coat. I would have found her a lot more reassuring if she were. She had her nose buried in a stack of papers.
"If you're not willing to make changes to your lifestyle, cutting out caffeine. . . "
"I have cut out dairy and coffee." I cut in, feeling that had been a rather drastic change.
She shook her head. "Dairy doesn't matter."
"Nevertheless, I have cut it out, and it did help. For a time."
She shrugged. "Whatever. Here's a list of things you should try to avoid." she said, pushing over a piece of paper with a long list of foods printed in a menacing shad of red. Apples. Canned beans. It was the same list she'd given me four years ago, which I remember made no difference whatsoever.
"These are all pretty disruptive," she acknowledged. "I suggest you try gluten first."
"Gluten?" The pit opened up and swallowed me whole. Gluten is in absolutely everything. In bread, in spaghetti sauce, in breakfast cereals, in beer for God's sake. I envisioned my new life eating nothing but liquefied Soylent Green through a straw. I wondered how that was less disruptive than just avoiding apples.
"I'd like to put you on a different set of pills, which should help with your swallowing. This one you'll have to take twice daily."
I grumbled. I'd only just started the last set which my gp had given me, at a hundred dollars a bottle. So that was how it was going to be done. One doctor would give me one set of pills and another doctor would give me another set of pills, all in the space of week, before a single test or examination had been done. I may as well have gone to my banker.
I mean, she is right. You've got to take the doctor's advice, change your diet, take your pills. I just wish they'd stop treating six years of stomach pain like indigestion, stop acting like I didn't know the difference, and maybe lift their noses up from their laptops just for a minute or two. I'm not against taking pills, but I'd much rather know what the condition is first. The doctors seem to prefer giving the pills first, then guessing what the condition is after. I don't expect them to wave a magic wand and make the problem go away; I want them to tell me what the problem is. Maybe that takes a period of investigation, even experimentation. Maybe it won't always be obvious. But if they'd just look me in the eye and talk about possibilities instead of sending me home with another pile of antacids, I'd feel a lot better about it.
And stop assuming what I am or am not willing to do, that would help to.
