The Prostate Jackpot

I went to see Dr. Amalgam today.  (not real name, but sounds like it)  I needed a primary care provider, and although I had put off put the visit and procrastinated, I needed a primary care provider.  My experiences with local medicine have been bleak.  I was able to get my hernia repaired with no dire consequences.  All is well on the hernia front.  I drink too much, and such my gut probably is like a sieve.  Leaky gut they call it.  Okay.  Recently I had severe abdominal pain and went to the ER.  The ER doc was thorough and did a complete work up on me.  Labs, CT Scan, the works.  It beat having to farm all of that out.  Of course it cost a lot.  Each and every test came back quality.  My numbers all were good.  They found nothing.  Ouch!  Why was I in pain?  There are things that do not show up in the internal organs, say like muscle inflammation.  When Dr. Amalgam asked about doing lab work, I said I all ready have it.  March is only five months ago, and I do not believe my stats have changed much since then.  If anything I am better.  I told her I drink too much.  She was nonplussed.  When I told her of my enlarged prostate, she was off and running.  To make a long story short, the prostate jackpot appeared.  I have been through it before.  A slightly elevated PSA test, and suddenly you have cancer.  That means a painful prostate biopsy, fear of a diagnosis, and probably treatment for something the inventor of the PSA says can only detect cancer 3.5% of the time.  Then the PSA cannot distinguish between malignant and benign cancers.  Your chances of living unfettered with slow-growing prostate cancer are good.  Very good.  I know this, because I have been through this mill before with Dr. Flolan.  Hack.  Quack.  Mack, selling his wares, the ephemeral prostate biopsy guided by an ultrasound.  He cocks back a needle gun and shoots it through your rectal wall fifteen times to penetrate your prostate gland.  If you didn't have cancer, at least now you have a sponge instead of a sex gland.  Most men get infected, because feces in the colon covers the wounds.  I said, "No thank you." I agree with Richard J. Ablin, and for once wish only I could see a doctor who truly cared about my health and not the dollar.