“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(“Dr. K. visited at 1:30 PM. Explained the dangers of vasculitis to Jane—possible damage to internal organs—start treatment before that happens, if necessary. Jane’s finger looked better. [No results in yet of blood tests taken a week ago at St. Joe’s. Tests sent to Rochester.] Jane got more and more depressed and scared as Dr. K. talked, I could see it, in spite of suggestions we’d agreed on before her visit. Toes look okay. It seems that we may have to just get away from doctors and their suggestions as much as possible. Dr. K. wants Dr. Sobel from Ithaca to examine Jane Friday even if blood tests aren’t in yet: “I can give him the results over the phone later.” I wanted to postpone visit to emergency room “till test results were in,” but Dr. S. won’t be at St. Joe’s next week. Peggy Jowett came as Dr. K. left. I helped her put Jane on the waterbed. Jane had cried a bit after Dr. K. left and before Peggy came in, and I’d tried to console her. Now Jane burst into tears on the waterbed: “I wish we’d tried harder with our own suggestions and ideas....” Crying didn’t last. Dr. K. said Jane could take a couple of aspirin if necessary in the middle of the night. I told Jane we could still use our own ideas. I also wondered—but didn’t say so—why those ideas had allowed the whole question of something like vasculitis to develop to begin with—or, for that matter, the “arthritis.” Jane also cried on the waterbed that now “it would be harder to do anything on our own, because we had to deal with the medical establishment too,” as well as our own beliefs. Dr. K. told us Jane wouldn’t feel any results from the 100 mcg Synthroid tablets she started on last Monday for a long time—that the effects from the increased dosage were “weeks away.” I wondered if this was a contradiction, because on the phone last month, Dr. K. had said Jane’s thyroid function was almost up to par from the medication she had been taking, meaning that it had acted quicker than “weeks away.”....)

That position had so many facets that it was hard to follow—that they were hard to follow—and even I had difficulty keeping track of the continuing saga of medical detail. Doctor Kardon had come that afternoon. I told myself I’d react only to constructive suggestions, but I soon felt knocked down by her interpretation of events. No blood test results had really come through yet (from St. Joe’s last week). She had said earlier they would merely give indications that vasculitis might be present or might not be present—they wouldn’t say yes or no.

In any case, she wanted Dr. Sobel to look me over Friday (tomorrow at 2:45 pm). Then we were to get together when the blood tests results came, to discuss treatment, even if the vasculitis showed no further appearance, she disclaimed, it very well could invisibly attack the body, affecting internal organs in the most disastrous fashion. So taking a drug to prevent such a future development seemed the better side of wisdom to her—but not to me, not to Rob. How could my body have gotten so bad again in one fucking week—or had it? My fingers had been red before, though never that blue, when I’d been typing, and the condition vanished. But all of a sudden my physical condition did seem horrendous, and I looked at her kindly concerned face, I’m sure, with appalling dismay.

The medical tests along the way proved that I did not have some of those most frightening conditions. Other tests that I recall made it clear that my heart and liver and internal organs were in good shape—but Doctor Kardon had seen them newly threatened by the vasculitis, and I felt, “My God, what a merry-go-round of disastrous expectations must everywhere color the medical profession and its practitioners and patients.”

[...] She talked about a possible blood clot, “other causes,” and mentioned vasculitis, a condition that results in restricted capillary blood flow to the extremities, and can accompany arthritis. She’d suspected vasculitis when Jane had been first admitted to Arnot Ogden early in February, but tests had ruled it out. [...]

[...] Dr. K. was fairly sure it was vasculitis, “which never gets better,” etc., from her point of view. [...]

[...] We’re hoping the tests do not show that vasculitis is involved. [...]

[...] While we were there Dr. K. called him and gave him the results of the blood tests begun in the hospital the week before: One was normal, one said vasculitis could be present, the third one didn’t work—so after all of that the results were very meager and frustrating. [...]

[...] Again, I thought the visit at least preserved the status quo for us, since I could see that more and more Jane was turning against the idea of preventative drug treatment for vasculitis, say, or anything else. [...]

[...] It wasn’t until we returned home Friday afternoon that I began to see how upset Jane had become by thoughts of arthritis, vasculitis, angiograms, clots, drugs, operations, etc. [...]

[...] She might have added that she also laughed because neither did she have a brain tumor, cancer, vasculitis [an inflammation of the blood vessels], or any of several other diseases the doctors thought might be present. [...]