Scientific Proof vs. Conjecture

I remember my first visit with a Muskegon Cares HMO named Dr. Sprague who was also acting as chairman of the board of this HMO, and is also a board member at Mercy Hospital in Muskegon. While explaining my history and previous diagnosis and treatment for cancer I remember him interrupting me and mumbling that they didn't usually treat people like me for their cancer. People like me sounded like a very sexist and racial comment for a physician to make, I thought to myself. I then asked him if he knew the physician that treated me, Marjorie Mooney-Jacoby, and he said he had known "Marge" for sometime. From this statement I got a very bad premonition about what was ahead for me, and unfortunately I was right. I told him that I thought she was a pretty good physician the first couple of years I saw her. Dr. Sprague then listened about 10 minutes more to me and said, without any proof of coarse, that Dr. Mooney probably had made a mistake in her diagnosis. If this were so, why did I feel so much better after treatment, and why did she collect the BCBSM insurance money and never send them or I a letter saying that a mistake had been made? Dr. Sprague then promised me that I would never get any diagnosis/treatment for the lymphoma (such as a simple biopsy), or my medical files from Dr. Mooney, if he had anything to say about it. I then told him I was very hurt about his nonchalant attitude about such a serious diagnosis. I commented that I wished I could take a lie detector test, and that he and Dr. Mooney could take one too. He abruptly and sternly said that "not ever happen" on his part anyways.



As I sat in the Muskegon Family Care office I remember thinking that this was not his first time doing this, and that he obviously done similar things like this to other people in this area before. And both before and after my visit to the Muskegon Family Care Center I had been told by so many young black people that they couldn't get any help from the area physicians either for whatever problems they had either. Dr. Sprague almost seemed too confident that people would listen to and/or believe him over me, especially considering his reputation in the medical community. I remember looking Sprague in the eye and saying to him as I left the office that day, "You don't even know who I am" and he quickly responded, "I don't care who you are".



Since that time I have volunteered to take lie detector tests and although that offer still stands, not one physician wants me to take one because they seem to already have their mind made up by the time I get around to requesting a biopsy on my lymph node---a node that has been swollen for 7 years now. They all say that they don't think a biopsy of my lymph node is necessary, and that they think Dr. Mooney-Jacoby made a mistake in her diagnosis. In 2003, I received a referral to the U of M by my then physician Dr. Robert Strauss, but Dr. Scott Gitlin, the physician I saw, told me the only way to truly rule out lymphoma was to do a biopsy which Dr. Strauss refused to approve, and supposedly was required of him under Medicaid rules. Though I have also seen some psychologists and they appear to be less leery of me and more leery of the area physicians, which doesn't say much for the medical doctors and the "do no harm" oath they have all taken. As a matter of fact, one psychologist said to me that my case reminded him of a movie he saw called "Conspiracy Theory". He asked me if I had seen it and I said that I had not and asked him what it was about. All I really remember the psychologist saying is how this guy starts out with a conspiracy theory, which no one else wants to believe, but that turns out to be true.

One of the physicians I saw in Muskegon who refused to perform a biopsy on my lymph node or my skin, just died of cancer in 2007 (I am unsure of what kind he had though our local paper said he died of cancer). My mother said to me, "didn't you see this guy over at Hackley Hospital for awhile?" and read me the obituary. I said that I had and that he had also refused to do a biopsy or any other blood work for that matter. She said to me, under her breath and with her turned towards the floor, "well, I guess he got his didn't he".