A Curious Doctor's Visit

I suppose that's not exactly the correct title of the post but it is related to a doctor's visit.

When I came back from Springfield from Christmas, I got a cold. It lasted like 10 days. I was fine for a couple of days and then I got another cold. That one lasted for about two weeks. I developed a cough that just did not seem to want to go away.

I went to the doctor. He said things seem to be clearing up but to be on the safe side he gave me a z-pack. The cold symptoms went away but the cough just did not seem to want to go away. I coughed most of February.

So back to the doctor I went. He listened to my chest and couldn't hear anything. He seemed to think it was post nasal drip from the six weeks I had had a cold. To be on the safe side he ordered a chest X-ray.

Off I went and got a chest X-ray. I had it done on a Friday and the following week heard back from my doctor. He said there seemed to be a little fluid on the lung. Then he commented that there was a lot of scaring on the right lung. I explained that was in my mid-20s I had problems with my lung. In the end a lobe of my lung was removed. I also told him all the conditions I had in the lung. I won't go into detail here but needless to say it was an odd assortment of conditions.

The doctor said I should have a follow up in a month or so just to see how things were.

A week ago from this past Friday went for another X-ray. The X-ray tech asked me a series of questions before the X-ray. I went through the problems with my lungs. The thing that I thought odd was I'd done the exact same thing when I had the previous X-ray. I thought why don't they know this stuff.

The middle of this past week my doctor calls. What the radiology doctor had been concerned about was all the scaring that had occurred when I had the problems with my lungs all those years ago. I had to go through with my doctor what had happened. He said that this was a good base to use if I had any problems in the future.

I hung up and thought why am I asked this every time. Now I will say the original doctor that I had at this practice (I had to move to these people because of a change in insurance) left. But it seems to me that this information should be in my records especially since everything that happens in an office visit is entered into computer records. There doesn't seem to be any paper files.

What I find curious is why I need to tell this information — the problems with my lungs — at every step of this process. It wasn't as if I just said oh by the way 30 years ago I had a lobe of my lung removed. I told them precisely by name the ailments I had.

I find it a little unsettling that the computerizing of medical records, at least in this case, does not seem to have helped in sharing of my information. It makes me wonders if I have something of a more serious nature how well, if at all, that information would get to a doctor. Let's say for instance I'm not conscious to pass that information along to the doctor. Hopefully I won't ever be in that situation.