Dr. Kates makes me laugh inside to myself. She's all business about facts and getting results. My previous doctor abruptly retired. I brought myself to Dr. Kates because an ER doctor told me I had lung cancer. My body was like a broken down car. I could not talk without coughing. The ER doctor and the x ray technician were convinced I had lung cancer because of the presence of a spot on one lung. As an aside, I told Dr. Kates I have problems swallowing. I thought I was not yet at death's door, but I was coming up the drive and could see death's door. I could see Mrs. Death waving at me from the upstair window.
Dr. Kates gave me medication for the cough, ordered comprehensive blood tests, sent me to a otolaryngologist to get my throat scoped and a pulmonologist to check out the spot.
The blood results came back. "Low in vitamin D, B, thyroid problem and you got to get off the carbs. You're pre-diabetic.", she said. I smiled to myself. She wasn't scolding me, but I naturally thought, "Hmmm. I've been behaving badly." She put me on supplements, the thyroid pill that all us old people take and sent me off to get a sonogram of my liver to make sure it wasn't blown. I was not feeling happy with all of the news of my blood work. This was in November. When I left, she said, "We are going to get you fixed up and back in order!" I thought, "I'm her project. She's going to fix me. Great!"
The otolaryngologist scoped my throat and put ballon down there to open it up a bit so that I can once again wolf my food as I am wont to do.
The pulmonologist gave me a bank of blood tests to discover that my problem was an inflammation caused by an allergic reaction to juniper. (I had earlier shoveled several truck loads of juniper chips without a mask.) Another specialist scoped my lung and did a biopsy of the spot. It turned out to me nothing.
It is 7 months now after I came limping in to visit Dr. Kates. Yesterday I looked at my "report card": my blood results. Everything is normal again. The glucose is at the low end of normal! Dr. Kates fixed me!
I wonder why earlier doctors did not discover my vitamin deficiencies, the thyroid problem and the pre-diabetic condition. I don't know. I just appreciated that Dr. Kates gave me the bumper to bumper check up rather than just focusing on the lung problem that I came to her for. I appreciated that she did not hesitate to pass me on to the specialists to get the lung and throat problems attended to.
When I was getting blood drawn earlier, I questioned if I was getting the proper tests done. "This is for Dr. Kates, right?" I said, "Yes." "Well", she says, "Dr Kates is picky about things being done right, so I always double check. You are getting the right tests." I laughed to myself again: Dr. Kates terrorizes the phlebotomists into doing a good job. No, they just respect her. So do I, and if you value your life, so should you.
Someday they might make a movie about Dr. Kates. If they do, they will get an actress like the young Kate Mulgrew who played Captain Janeway in the Star Trek Voyager series. read more