Details - How Important Are They?

We received copies of our medical records yesterday from our former physician. Quite a book consider he's been my physician for over 17 years and my husband's for 6.

I sat down in front of the television last night and was perusing the xerox copies that summed up my life for over a decade. Interesting, sad and....what the hell?

Okay, I know doctors have a lot on their plates. But I realized as I was reading - there are some blatant errors.

For instance, I had to have a sleep study several years ago because of ongoing eye problem I had. The eye surgeon suspected something called "floppy eyelid syndrome".

Don't laugh. It really is an official diagnostic term. Okay, go ahead and laugh. We did.

Apparently if you have this comedic disease, you almost always have sleep apnea. So to rule out the aforementioned disease, I had a sleep study.

However, when reading the neurologist's report on the study, he states the reason for having the study as "chronic insomnia". Maybe they need to take time to look up the real reason instead of assuming.

There are more examples sadly, but I won't bore you. I mention it to remind myself and others that we have to be proactive in our medical care.

The physician you see - no matter how impressed you may be - sees hundreds of people a week. They are only human after all.

I can't really judge - I'm lucky to remember why I walked into the next room.