First, let me say that I am not asking for medical advice. I am under the care of my PCP and am paying the big $$ for that. I guess I am just looking for social advice, a shoulder to cry on, words of wisdom, or just to vent.
Over the past year I have been having a problem with blood in the urine when I go to see my doc. He makes it a point to have a ua done every time I go there. Most of the time there is a small amount of blood, not visible, but enough to be a concern. He wants me to go to a urologist to make sure we are not dealing with cancer. The problem is that all the uros in this town use an exclusively female assistive team. The testing for my condition will probably involve a cystocope, something that usually requires assistants.
I have nothing against women, trust me I really don't. I just have this mega problem with modesty. The reason for this is due to a horrifying experience I had when I was a teenager in high school when I was a patient in a hospital. It's a real ugly story. As a result of that experience, I have a very serious primal fear of being in a medical environment and being exposed and touched in any intimate way by females. It's absolutely terrifying and beyond my ability to fully articulate just how bad this is for me.
My doc says he knows how I feel, and that he has had other male patients bring up the problem in the past. He said he has a patient who had decided to just live with a painful condition rather than go through treatment. I guess it would be like a female patient going to her gyno and finding an all male assistive team. Or going to get a mammogram and encountering all male techs. Even without any particlar modesty issues, I think most women would find this uncomfortable at the least, and most likely just plain unacceptable.
My doc is trying to find a urologist in neighboring towns who might have some male assistants working there. I believe he is really trying, but so far no luck. I went to one of the local urology clinic's website and they had a contact email. I loved how they said "your concerns are our concerns." They never responded to my very polite email. :angryfire I am sitting here with a potentially life threatening condition that I can't get treated for and it's really depressing...
When you figure that urologists are the primary provider of reproductive health of men, it just makes sense to have some males working there to assist on those procedures that require them. Granted, they treat women too but the patient load for urologists is about 70% male, based on what I've seen in the waiting rooms.
Please don't think I am anti female because I am not. I just think there are times when men are best treated by other men just to get the comfort level up to a reasonable point where they can accept care.
Advice, opinions, what should I do??? :monkeydance:
