Mom on the mend after surgery

Thank goodness that’s over. My mother finally had surgery to remove a minor skin cancer. Now she has a backwards question mark carved into her face. I take her back to the doctor Tuesday for a follow up appointment. Then it will be a matter of time before the next health disaster.
It takes all three of her children to take care of her. We each have our specialties. I am in charge of anything that requires someone to stay overnight with her. I am also in charge of keeping track of her health history and allergies. My brothers duties include seeing to it that she has groceries and assorted drugs such as rat poison, I mean her blood thinner. They also do lawn care and provide taxi service.
I wasn’t aware that my chores had expanded to include keeping track of her health history until my brother phoned with a number for me to call to answer a set of questions from the hospital. I still don’t understand why they didn’t ask us all this when I took her for the pre-op consultation the week before. Mom can’t hear over the telephone so one of us automatically handles anything that requires that type of communication.
She made it through the surgery in record time and she was back home by lunchtime. My brother and his wife met me at her house and after making sure she was fine, we went out for dinner. I spent the night and left the next day after running some errands for her and leaving her with supper.
I still do not understand why this was such a complicated thing. When I had the exact same kind of skin cancer, in almost the same location, my family doctor diagnosed it and removed it during the same visit. A few minutes and it was all over.
Not so with my mom. Her family doctor diagnosed it as a wart and told her not to mess with it. He didn’t even offer to remove it. When it grew, her doctor said it had gotten infected and turned into a boil because she messed with it. After weeks of treating her for a boil, which kept getting bigger and uglier, her doctor sent her to a plastic surgeon.
The plastic surgeon had tried to reschedule her appointment, but none of us knew that until after I had gotten her to the office. After I threw a minor hissy fit, they referred us to a dermatologist. The dermatologist took one look, said skin cancer and did a biopsy right then and there. A couple weeks later we had a definitive diagnosis of which kind of skin cancer. But since they didn’t take her insurance it was back to the family doctor who wasn’t the least bit helpful.
Then it was on to the plastic surgeon and we finally had a surgery date scheduled for after the surgeon got back from her honeymoon. Now we just have to get through the post-op appointment and that should be the end of it.
What I do not understand is how two doctors can be so different. My doctor took one look, diagnosed the problem and took care of it in a matter of minutes. Her doctor misdiagnosed the problem repeatedly and it was months before the situation was resolved. If we lived closer I would see to it that she had a different doctor who took her concerns more seriously.
The real problem is that we have to rely on others. I didn’t go to medical school. If a doctor says something is nothing to worry about, then I don’t worry. The problem occurs when they are wrong. Everybody makes mistakes. But we don’t expect our doctors to keep making the same mistake over and over. Our lives depend on their knowledge and expertise.
I am relieved that his mistake didn’t cost Mom her life. At least not this time. Maybe that question mark carved into Mom’s face will remind me to ask more questions next time I take her to see her doctor.[[In-content Ad]]