A Letter to My Former Primary Care Doctor

Dear Dr. A:

You may or may not have noticed I am no longer your patient. My guess is, that since you are so busy you have no idea. But I now have a new primary care doctor who actually looks at me when I speak, and while I haven’t had to see him for anything other than an introductory talk, I am confident he will be attentive.

I have been beating myself for a long time about not being more assertive with you. When I saw you the day after my 65th birthday for my “welcome to Medicare” exam, I had already been experiencing unexplained weight gain and a distended stomach for months. So when I told you and didn’t really get a response I mumbled something like, guess I better join a gym. You agreed.

During that visit you literally didn’t lay a hand on me, and you looked at your screen far more than you looked at me. I left there feeling really odd at being basically ignored. But I let time go by and it wasn’t until months later, when I developed bad heartburn, that I reached out to you for a referral. More than a week went by and I heard nothing. So I did become assertive and went on line to find one on my own.

I saw the gastroenterologist the next day. I told her about the bad heartburn. She had me lie down and the first thing she did was put her hands on my stomach. Next words out of her mouth were “you need a CT scan.” She walked me down the hall and we scheduled one for later in the week.

She called me the evening of the scan, apologetic giving this kind of news over the phone, but she did not want me to delay making an appointment with a gynecological oncologist. A couple days later I saw one, and the rest of the story is still being written.

I later reached out to the gastroenterologist, thanking her for saving my life. So now, it’s time to reach out to you, for ignoring symptoms I had that you should be aware of. I would have loved to have caught this damn disease earlier, before it had spread and grown. While ovarian cancer is not common, I had the classic symptoms— weight gain, bloating, constipation, heartburn. You need to be aware of them. You need to be vigilant for your patients.

I doubt that I will actually send this to you. But for me, writing is part of my healing process. I will look back at this from time to time and hope that my anger will dissipate. And I hope I will stop beating up myself for not being more assertive. Anger and self destruction is not healing, and that more than anything, is what I wish for myself and the other countless women who have had experiences just like mine.