2. A pain, a doctor, a diagnosis

   Late in 2010, a year and four months after he'd finished the last radiation treatment, he first spoke up. Typical of many males, he'd waited more than a month before he told me he'd been having this pain.
   That's what he called it: this pain. 
   I can't exactly describe it, he said. It's just this pain when I urinate. Well, actually, after I finish. Then, there's this pain.
   I immediately recalled a pain I'd had many years earlier. The doctor had diagnosed it as cystitis. So, I told him about it, describing it as a spasm that occurred the instant I finished urinating, as if more urine wanted to be released, but couldn't. A urinary tract infection, I said. Then, You've got to see a doctor.
   He reluctantly agreed, and we made the appointment.
   Let me add a disclaimer here: most doctors don't have a clue about what happens to the human body during or after radiation treatments for cancer; they only know the procedure works--it cures the cancer and keeps the patient alive.
   So, although we didn't realize it at the moment, we didn't have a high expectation that the doctor would arrive at the right diagnosis.
   The doctor behaved normally at the appointment (and I regret that I didn't insist on accompanying him into the examination room); took the usual vitals; asked a few questions (but didn't listen to the answers); took a urine sample and ran a cursory check on it. A Urinary Tract Infection, the doctor said after seeing bacteria, blood, and protein in the sample. I'll send the sample to the lab for a more thorough test. And here's a prescription for an antibiotic: Ciprofloxasin. It will kill the bacterial infection.
   If I'd been in the examination room, I'd have asked when he needed to come back for a follow-up.
   There was no follow-up. There was no referral to a Urologist. And even though his medical record showed HISTORY OF CANCER and even though he told the doctor, I think this might be related to the radiation treatments I had a year or so ago for prostate cancer, there was no referral to the Radiation Oncologist.
   So, he and I were on our own to determine if the antibiotic was working. It's a scary feeling to realize that one's doctor is too busy to pay close attention to one's health issues.