I waited until everyone had arrived before I handed my daughter the envelope. She opened it expecting another medical report, but the first page was the scan I had paid for myself in March. The consultant had circled a problem in my spine that none of the seven specialists had mentioned. Then she reached the letter behind it and read that the condition could explain the pain, weakness, and falls I’d been having for four years. She looked at me and asked why I hadn’t told her. I said, “Because you told me there was nothing wrong with me. I wanted to know what a doctor who hadn’t met you would say.”
She kept reading. The consultant had compared my current scan with the older ones. The problem hadn’t suddenly appeared; it had been there for years and had slowly worsened. But the strangest part wasn’t the diagnosis. It was the note attached to my old referral. The consultant had written that I had apparently declined further investigation in 2022. I looked at my daughter and said I’d never declined anything. That was the appointment when I begged her to take me to the pain clinic and she told me we’d already done enough. Her husband stopped eating. He had been the one who worked in the building where the referral was processed.
Then I put one final page on the table. It was a copy of an email sent from his work account four years ago, cancelling the referral in my name. My daughter stared at it and said her husband had told her I refused treatment because I was convinced nothing would help. He finally admitted he’d cancelled it because he thought the pain clinic would “encourage” my dependence on medication. I asked him why he had never told me. He had no answer. My daughter started crying, but I didn’t. For the first time in four years, I was standing without holding onto anything. I told her the consultant had booked my treatment for the following week. Then I picked up my envelope and said, “You don’t have to believe me anymore. The paperwork already does.”
