The Results – Bonfire Night – Bombshell
I’d asked my doctor to phone me, as I’d not heard any results for my IGF-1 value.
I was driving at the time, hurtling down the motorway, not far from our town. A few isolated fireworks were going off, celebrating ‘Bonfire Night’. I answered my handsfree carphone. It was my doctor. I was so glad to hear from him.
The conversation started off a bit strange, because he’d asked his secretary to phone me with the results while he’d been away a few days. She hadn’t rung me. Understandable because the doctor surgery had moved to a new building over the weekend.
He then explained to me that my IGF-1 value was off-scale. Without a pause I just said “that pretty much means that I have acromegaly then”. He said it would suggest so, yes, but I’d need to see an endocrinologist.
To make light of it, I then asked him about the recent move of the health centre and he said that it was the first time he’d been there this evening. They had a bit of fun trying to get into his room, not being able to find the keys at first. This made me feel so much better just imagining the more practical day-to-day matters of being a GP and just having a little glimpse of what must happen in surgeries. It took the edge off the news, and I’m very grateful for his call.
I went home, and told my lovely wife. We went out, drove around a bit to look at a few fireworks, then came home, closed the door and both sobbed and cried our eyes out.
