Don't try this at home
I love the Internet and can entertain myself for hours looking up absolutely useless information.
Even though I'm just pigging out on tempting tidbits of data, I like to think I'm growing more knowledgeable about obscure topics. But it's not real knowledge gained from education or experience; it's more like pseudo-knowledge. And you know what they say: Pseudo-knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
Take that pseudo-knowledge, combine it with obsessive access to a limitless database, and you can scare yourself right out of your cotton-pickin' mind.
When we first realized our son David had something unusual going on with his jaw, I immediately turned to the Internet. I wanted some answers to still the questions in my mind. Also, for some reason, I thought that unless I was armed with a possible diagnosis, our family doctor might dismiss David's problem as no big deal.
Earlier, David had done his own search of WebMD and diagnosed his problem as TMJ, which our dentist quickly ruled out. You think I would've learned.
I arrived at our April 4 doctor's appointment with a ream of printouts about aneurysmal bone cysts, confident that I'd found the answer. But I didn't even get the chance to pull them out because Dr. Cholmondeley looked at the lump on David's face and was immediately worried.
Of course, I was so off-base in my diagnosis, it wasn't funny. Frankly, the idea of a tumor never even crossed my mind. Who gets a tumor in his face?
Over the weeks, as we've been handed more information, I've googled new, and scarier, terms: "sinus tumor," "angiofibroma," "lymphoma," "schwannoma," "sarcoma," "spindle cell lesion," "rhabdomyosarcoma," "fibroblastic tumor," "fibromyosarcoma," and the latest, "spindle cell neoplasm." Sometimes I combine those with words like "prognosis," "treatment," "life expectancy."
All I manage to do is frighten myself to the point that I can hardly breathe.
During our April 8 appointment with Georgetown otolaryngologist Dr. Kenneth Newkirk, our pastor Beth Neubauer, who's had some experience with cancer, cautioned us to stay off the Internet.
"I don't mind if my patients go online," Dr. Newkirk replied. "But call me if you see something that bothers you. There's so much out there that doesn't apply."
In other words, I was to wait for some official confirmation before throwing myself off Key Bridge.
But Dr. Newkirk was right. A lot of the stuff online is just plain old. I'll be reading about a cancer study where none of the patients lived longer than six months, and I'll start to hyperventilate. Then I'll notice the article was written in 1968. Whew.
Deep breath.
Of course, that doesn't stop me from torturing myself. I'm determined to find something that will put my mind at ease. Unfortunately, I'm looking for answers in a place where I'm not likely to find any.
What I'm really searching for is a Web site that states unequivocally, "Patient [David Buck], 19-year-old male, presented with a large benign growth in his left sinus that was easily resected with no long-term side effects. He went on to live to be 100."
It's possible that we could get news similar to that. But we won't find it on the Internet. The news will come from our doctors, based on reports from hospital pathologists.
David had a second biopsy on Wednesday, this time at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. The pathologists, stumped after the first biopsy, decided they needed more tissue before they could make a definitive diagnosis. We hope we'll know something by the middle of next week.
Still, as the days go by, I can't help but get on the Internet and try new search terms. Maybe somehow, as unlikely as it seems, I'll stumble on some little-known discovery the doctors have missed.