For a while Dr Ted was my family doctor. He took care of me and my father. Here are a couple of highlights of what you get.
On one occasion, my father stubbed his toe and gave himself a nasty gash. He's diabetic, so this is something not to be taken lightly. When he saw the gash, he was visibly repulsed by it, so much so he couldn't even bring himself to touch my father's foot. He made me manipulate the foot so he could "examine" it at a distance. Couldn't even be bothered to put on latex gloves to have a look.
Look, I get it. Callused, working-class feet are not the prettiest sight to look at. But my Father's feet were clean, and he was wearing fresh socks. I could look past the initial repulsion, but not the unwillingness to do his job like a professional and examine his feet proper.
This brings me to myself. I went in to see Dr Ted about unusually low energy levels, and I had this weird tickle in the back of my throat. I'm not someone who likes to go to the doctor a lot. For better or worse, I have a suck-it-up buttercup personality. He asked about recent changes in my life and determined that it was just stress and nothing to worry about. He was on his way to scooting me out the door when I followed up by asking about the weird tickle in my throat.
He acted like he was going to take a look, but really, all he did was shine a flashlight into my mouth for half a second and say you're fine.
Flash-forward six months to a year later. The issues with energy levels are getting worse, especially when exercising. Turns out I have a hyperthyroid. It causes exercise intolerance, which is where the low energy comes from. One of the symptoms is a swollen thyroid gland. Guess where the thyroid gland is? Right around my throat. Though not immediately dangerous, my resting heart rate was 110 beats per minute. If exerted myself and pushed that too high, it could have led me to have a heart attack.
And because of that lag in getting diagnosed, I had to be miserable for over a month while I got tested and diagnosed by a different doctor. For the most part, all I could do over that month was sit and think about how crappy I was feeling. Before this, I always thought I was a fighter and would fight to the bitter end no matter what I was faced with. But no, I got a small taste of what true suffering was, and now I understand my true limits are and why some would choose not to go on. Over the course of that month, I lost over twenty pounds of muscle. And it took me years to get back my strength and feel even close to normal. read more
