Folks in the medical industry have a different way of talking than the rest of us. In recent months as my doctor visits increased substantially I found that each doctor, nurse or medical technician that I would deal with in regards to my kidney disease would ask a similar variation on a single question. usually it came out something like this:
"What brought on your kidney disease?"
Now to me, the simple layman, the question I heard was "what caused your kidney disease" to which I would look at them with my face half screwed and say (in my head) "your the fucking doctor... you tell me." What really would come out of my mouth was something to the effect of "Life" or "I don't really know."
At some point during the appointment with them they would be reading through something on a computer screen and say "Oh, you have IGA Nephropathy." Again I'm thinking to myself... "dude ya.. why the F do you think I'm even here right now?" But of course my politer side would actually just say yes.
One dude even printed out this whole report on IGA Nephropathy and handed it to me as if I had no idea about the type of kidney disease I had. And therein lies the difference between medical folks and laypeople. While we hear that first question as what caused your kidney disease... to the medical person it really means "what kind of kidney disease do you have?"
It was frustrating for the first few weeks while I got used to this... but now that I know better and have learned to speak at least a little mediceese... I always answer that question with a confident IGA Nephropathy. Not that I know much about it or how I got it.. but at least I look less like an idiot than I did in those first few weeks.
My name is Bil... and I have kidney disease
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