Whipsaw Days (Part 2)

[You should read Part 1 first.]

[Wednesday afternoon, February 16]

In the early afternoon, a doctor from ENT (eye ear nose throat) comes by to look at the gum sore. She takes a full history -- from a feeling five days before that I had burned the roof of my mouth on hot cocoa (completely plausible) through the current "hot spot" on the tongue side of the upper left set of teeth, about halfway back. She looks at it, says it's probably fine, but she will return with a more senior doctor to check it out.

Relief. It's probably fine.

A doctor from ID (infectious diseases) comes by to confirm that my pneumonia is almost certainly fungal. There is no way to be absolutely sure without surgically taking a sample of the lung tissue, and there is no way to do that safely in my condition, so we're going to go with how it looks on the CT scan. Fungal pneumonia is generally less worrisome than bacterial, and does not inherently pose an obstacle to a transplant. It does take a long time to clear up.

More relief. I don't have a pneumonia that's going to run wild.

The first ENT doctor returns with her more senior colleague. He approaches with a swab and asks me to open my mouth.

"I'm just going to take a look..."

"OW!!!"

"... and poke at it."

All that expensive and extensive schooling, yet the doctor has trouble with the basic temporal sequencing concept of Before. Before you do something to a patient, tell him what and why. If it's going to hurt, tell him how much and how long. BEFORE. Perhaps some remedial training from Bert and Ernie would be helpful.

Now he's casting about the room for "any sharp object I can use to take a piece." Happily (?), the other doctor has some sterile scissors in her pocket. He approaches with the scissors, but I'm ready this time.

"Stop. What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to take a small piece of tissue from the infected site so that we can analyze it more closely."

"How much is it going to hurt?"

"About as much as when I poked it."

I can handle that -- after all, I just did. And, perhaps because I know what's coming, it hurts less.

His preliminary conclusion: it's probably nothing, maybe some gingivitis from overly aggressive tooth brushing. But there is a dangerous fungus that spreads very rapidly that he needs to rule out. He says he is "99.9% certain" it is not that, but he will not sleep unless he has ruled it out completely through a culture.

I have a relaxed though not very good dinner. I have pneumonia, but it's not a bad one. I have a gum sore, but it's probably no big deal. I play some online Scrabble, answer some e-mail, go for a walk, have a shower, get ready for bed.

There is a knock on the door.

Read Part 3.