The Rude Doctor

Self-respect saved my life.

I sat on the end of the padded exam table, feeling the thin, rolled-out paper crunch beneath my body as I shifted nervously, waiting for my doctor to enter the room. I never liked medical appointments: the constricting blood-pressure cuff, the needles, the endless waiting …

I considered killing time by selecting one of the periodicals placed on a nearby cart, but ancient copies of “Stamp Magazine” and “Highlights for Children” didn’t tickle my fancy. Hearing a muffled conversation from an adjacent room, I glanced around, taking in the blood pressure monitor, height and weight scales, defibrillator and an assortment of disposables and antiseptic supplies, all bathed in the room’s harsh fluorescent lights.

A few minutes later, I heard a brief knock on the door and, without hesitation, my doctor entered. Holding my chart was someone I’ll call “Dr. Carlson,” a diminutive fellow with a quick smile and a head of thinning salt-and-pepper hair. He shook my hand and sat down next to me in a rolling chair.

“Let’s see,” he said, opening my chart. “So … you’re feeling fatigued.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m not sure what’s going – ”

“Hold on, hold on,” Dr. Carlson said, cutting me off. “Just let me go over this.”

“Okay. I was just – ”

“Let’s first see what you have going on here,” he said abruptly, removing his bifocals and looking up at me. “After all, we’re not psychic, right?”

I stayed silent.

Dr. Carlson slapped my chart closed, grabbed a pen and notepad from his lab coat and said, “First off, are you on any supplements?”

“I’m on vitamin C and D, zinc, a multivitamin, quercetin,” I said. “Oh, and there’s B-complex,” I added before rattling off a few more.

While scribbling down my list of supplements, my doctor shook his head slightly, chuckled and muttered to himself, “Wow. They sure saw you coming …”

They sure saw you coming … The man was saying, to my face, that I was a sucker for purchasing supplements. This wasn’t the first time he’d been rude. But it was the last.

Seconds later, I burst out of the exam room, knowing that I’d never again see that arrogant troll. Red in the face and quivering with adrenaline overload, I sensed beneath my barely controlled rage something that, in retrospect, likely saved my life: self-respect.

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One spring morning three months earlier, I’d noticed blood in my urine. Shocked to the core, I grew weak in the knees and had to steady myself by leaning against the bathroom sink. At some deep, elemental level, I knew exactly what this symptom meant.

When I saw blood again a few weeks later, I called Dr. Carlson. A quick in-office lab test revealed more blood.

What my esteemed doctor, a man who’d taken the Hippocratic Oath and vowed to “First, do no harm,” said next left me feeling … elated.

“I think it’s dehydration,” Carlson said. “Drink more water and see me in six months.”

No cancer! I kept thinking as I skipped out of his office, before heading to the nearest 7-Eleven for a junk-food celebration.

Then came the fatigue, for no apparent reason. Followed by that medical appointment, when I mentioned my supplements, and the doctor’s rude behavior. They sure saw you coming …

That was the last straw.

Although I’d never been a shining beacon of self-esteem, I knew I was worthy of a more caring medical professional, someone who wouldn’t gloat while berating me every time I saw him. So I asked around for a good doctor.

One week later, when I informed the aptly named Dr. Young (who, I swear, looked like a college freshman) about my bloody symptom, he wasn’t rude. No, he was emphatic.

“Larry, you must see a urologist.”

“How soon?” I asked.

“Now,” he said. “No … yesterday.”

And so I did. After a routine cystoscopy (believe me: getting a camera snaked up your willy isn’t as fun as it sounds …), followed by a more-invasive exploratory procedure, the verdict was in.

Bladder cancer. Stage 3.

A month later, a highly recommended surgeon at Keck Medicine of USC found a second bladder tumor. When he later informed me that, based on the tumor’s location and grade, I had a 50/50 chance of surviving only five years, the decision to have my bladder completely removed was a no-brainer.

Lovely, right?

One option: Yank the cancerous bladder and wind up wearing a pee bag (clinically known as a “pee bag”) connected to a stoma for the rest of my life. (If you studied Latin, you surely know that “stoma” means “disgusting, easily infected hole in your abdomen.”)

Uh … no thanks.

So instead I underwent a “radical cystectomy,” a six-hour procedure in which my bladder was removed and a new one was constructed, right there in OR, from resected portions of my small intestine. The result: a “neobladder.” (Although “neo” comes from the Greek “neos” or “new,” less-formal folks in the bladder cancer community call it – I’m not making this up – a “Frankenbladder.” Gotta love that!)

Anyway, I can bladder blather on about the phenomenal surgeon and his wonderful team of professionals. And I can wax poetic about how I was so incredibly lucky to connect with a young, rising star in the cancer community, a doctor who has since become world-renowned for his diagnostic and surgical expertise. But that’s a story for another time.

Today, I occasionally wonder what might’ve happened if I’d lacked the self-respect to walk out on an incompetent doctor. Had I continued to put up with his rude behavior, thereby delaying critical treatment, I may be relating this little tale of woe from a permanent home, located on “the wrong side of the lawn.”

Perhaps I should thank Dr. Carlson. For if he’d been incompetent and empathetic, I likely would’ve stayed with him.

And it might’ve killed me.

Thankfully, I’ll never know.

Kudos to all the fine folks in my Write Hearted community who provided helpful feedback while this piece was being created: Dominik Gmeiner, Rick Lewis, Neha Patel, Kathy Ayers, Alden Cox and Genie Joseph.

This cute bladder doll (a “stuffed bladder?”) was given to me by my sister, Flori, who was instrumental in my month-long post-op recovery. I named him Billy. For the perfect gift guaranteed to amuse that special someone in your life who’s just had an organ surgically removed, visit iheartguts.com. Use the promo code “Larry’s Frankenbladder” at checkout. (Kidding about the promo code; but go ahead and try it! Ya never know…)