Ride ‘em Broncho …

Ride ‘em broncho-scopy. It seems that’s what Señor Pulmonologist will be doing on Tuesday the 12th @ 7:00 AM. And I guess metaphorically I’ll be the bronco. Okay. A new doctor, for a new day, with a new test. How can you go wrong with that? I guess I could come up with a few answers. So … yes … Dr H is going to knock me out, shove a scope down my throat, have a look see, and mine some samples while he’s in there. I can hardly wait! Then he’ll send them off to be mused at, sliced diced and julienned …. and I’ll have to wait another week to get those results. This all seems to just drag on. To top it all off he also wants to send me for an echocardiogram to be certain granulomas haven’t started forming in my heart. He also suggested I see a ophthalmologist. Now I was going to make that journey on my own … but now with a little prodding … (move along there bronco boy!) I’ll make that appointment sooner than later.

If I wasn’t scared enough, he offered that statistically I’m not the correct skin color or age to get this disease. But hell, I knew that! He offered me a couple of similar, yet worse diseases to “chew” on while I was sitting there in a daze. At this point the names of those diseases just went in one ear and out the other. Then he asked me if I ever worked with beryllium. I replied … well come to think of it … yes … or at least beryllium copper. Does that count? We use to “bright dip” it in straight nitric acid in my family’s electro plating shop. So by now … my mind is swimming. He then asks me … was this recently? I said no … and he said … “Well … it may be something else we need to look at.” OR NOT!

When I first came into the office, he didn’t want to do a bronchoscopy. He said, “… why would I do that? That’s how I make my money.” This guy said a lot of thing that sounded so off the wall. It put me on the defensive. Now that’s how everyone should be when their in a doctors office. After it was almost over he asks me to take off my shirt, he was going to go look at my x-rays & my CT scan. After what seemed like forever, he comes back in and listens to my lungs. He tells me to put my shirt on, and to meet him in his office. He wants to show me my CT scan & talk about it.

He was so pleased because he just got this new computer with multiple screens to look at CT scans. He was so proud of his new computer I thought the guy was going to hand out cigars! He thought he was part of the digirati or something. Yo .. doc .. step off! So he starts showing me my lungs … slice by slice. He starts showing the place where he sees infiltrate, or other things that should not be there. They look very long and string-like, maybe even feathery. I’m not liking this too much. He’s now showing me all the lymph nodes that are enlarged. And plain as day he does a 360º turn around. So Joe … I think we’ll have to set you up for a bronchoscopy and I’ll biopsy your lungs while I’m in there.

Be careful what you wish. You might get it. Ride ‘em bronco!