Many Americas are saddened to hear of Michael Douglas's stage IV throat cancer, and are probably as outraged as Catherine Zeta-Jones to hear that it took his doctors months to discover and diagnose.
I write this to shed some light on a very disconcerting trend in health care. In January, my mother complained of back pain in her middle/right side with a persistent and horrible cough. First, the doctor said it was muscular strain, no tests were done, and she sent to physical therapy for 2 months and given muscle relaxants and cough medicine. When that didn't work, she went back to the doctor in March, with unbearable pain, given a CT scan, which later we come to find out that there was an obvious cloud on her right lung. The diagnosis at the time? That she was possibly getting over a bout of pneumonia, but otherwise everything was normal.
Fast forward to June, she is still suffering excruciating pain. She goes to another doctor, who told her she had shingles. He also wanted to see the original CT scan from March and have her get another CT scan for comparison. She then goes to a pulmonologist (the ever necessary 3rd opinion), who finally determined that a biopsy was in order.
My mother now is battling stage IV lung cancer that has metastasized to her right rib bones.
Regardless where we stand in the health insurance debate, every American has the right to a complete accurate diagnosis from these professionals, which we would assume know inside and out the body's anatomy to determine any abnormality, and certainly to determine why there is a mystery cloud over a lung in a CT scan, or to investigate the cause of a cough instead of just handing out cough medicine. I think a walnut-sized tumor is something that would stand out in any test and would impulse a doctor to run further tests. We don't know the timeline of Michael Douglas's medical diagnosis; however, we should not just sit by idly while the US health care system slowly kills us. We turn over much of our financial and emotional resources to the medical industry, not to mention our trust, and what are we getting in return?
I ask each and every person that reads this post to DEMAND that you get the most precise and timely diagnosis. Do not just sit there while doctors simply medicate your symptom, whether it be throat spray for a sore throat, antibiotics for an earache that won't go away, cough medicine for a persistent cough, etc. Instruct them to dig deep the first time. Your life and health depend on it.
Because of what could either be insufficient training, or a side effect of the entire US health care system to begin with, my mother, Michael Douglas, and other Americans who are victims of a lack of insight and/or thorough medical study, are faced with a vicious illness that we hope they can beat.
