Doctor Dammit

When you're just fed up with doctors
Who don't listen, care, or try
And pain has made you go insane,
Lose your cool and cry.

When every doctor's clueless
And your future is in doubt
Then here's a little dammit doll
That you can't do without.

Just grasp it firmly by the legs
And find a place to slam it.
And as you whack the stuffing out,
Yell "Dammit, dammit, dammit!"

If "dammit"s not a word you say
Then wring its little neck
As as you rip its head off
Shout "Oh heck, oh heck, oh heck!"

You may have gathered that I'm a bit frustrated with doctors. Yesterday was yet another disheartening visit to check the status of my "functional" cyst, which measured 6 cm last month and just under 5 cm this time. By the way, the five weeks between these two appointments is the longest I've gone without a doctor appointment in 3 YEARS! I wish I could have enjoyed it more, but I was in pain more often than not.

No doctor has ever had anything more useful to say about these frequent painful cysts than "Huh. I dunno". So very little is known about functional cysts that there's no effective means of preventing or even treating them. To make matters worse, my other issues - endometriosis with resultant infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss - also leave doctors stumped. There just isn't enough known about these conditions (why they happen, how they work, how to treat or prevent them) for doctors to be of much help to me, even if they tried.

Endometriosis has long been recognized as a serious disease in women, and yet there is still so much about it that is unknown. Certainly progress has been made, but you'd think it would get more attention and research given the fact that 10-15% of women suffer from it.

Imagine that 10-15% of men suffered from a painful, chronic, and progressive disease of the reproductive system. Imagine that the drugs to treat it made them hormonal basket cases and killed their sex lives. Imagine that the disease would often lead to multiple surgeries and the lopping off of a testicle or two just for starters. I suspect that enormous amounts of money would be devoted to the cause. The best and brightest in the field of medicine would be on the case. The road would be long but they would act swiftly and boldly to find effective treatments and ultimately, a cure.

Great advancements would have been made by now if men suffered this way. Instead, women are still being dismissed and patronized when they talk to their doctors about the pain they are suffering. And there's no hope for a cure any time soon. Dammit, dammit, dammit !