Yet another Swift recruit

Way to go dude! Congrats. Did you get your two-year, or the one-year card where they tell you to eat healthy for a while and come back? The last DOT physical I had was done with a doctor that weighed every bit of 400 pounds. The lady at the check-in desk wasn't far behind. She couldn't tell me where to sign in when I got to the window because she was busy eating a piece of birthday cake and washing it down with a Mountain Dew. One of these days we will see a doctor getting around his office on a rascal scooter

 

Well good for you! It's an inconvenience to have to go through, but a good physical is something everyone should have. You never know what will turn up that you didn't know you had. It sounds like you must have been nervous. That's usually the case.

Sorry to hear that you didn't get the happy ending from the cute little doctor lady. I had a 400 pound man grab "my bearings." I had to pay 90 bucks for it as well. If the DOT wanted a 400 pound dude grab me there, I could have waited until the next time I rolled through the West Memphis Petro and had it done free of charge.

 

Do you really consider a DOT physical, a good physical?

It checks the very basics, at best.

It is nothing more than jumping through a few hoops.

 

My school of thought regarding this is that ANY physical is a good physical. Two of the big things they are checking are your heart and blood sugar levels. Those two things are going to get you quicker than anything else. When one or both are out of whack it will hopefully prompt a more thorough exam. I'm good at stories, so this gives me a chance to use my story.

Every job I've ever had has involved carrying a medical card. A few years ago, I went for the routine physical and failed. Blood pressure was all out of whack, and the sugar levels were coming in at 300 plus when normal is supposed to be around 100.

Doctor started doing tests, and didn't really find anything. Sent me for an X-ray and hat showed two nodules. Great, two packs of Marlboro Reds has given me lung cancer. But those showed up in a previous xray an they turned out to be scar tissue from pneumonia. He sent me for a cat scan to check it, which confirmed the nodules. Went for a pet scan to check to see if it was going to light up with the radioactive stuff they inject in you beforeand.

Doctor tells me good news and bad news. Good news was the nodules on my lung turned out to be scar tissue from pneumonia (which I already new). The bad news was that there was an 8 cm wide tumor on my pancreas. Tumor and pancreas are not two words that you want to hear in the same sentence.

Sent me for a needle biopsy next. They lay you down, using a cat machine, all the while a radiologist is using a long needle to go in and take out tissue samples. I ask him what's going on is "I don't know. I've never seen it before." Something else you don't want to hear.

Go back to my doctor and he said he "doesn't think" it's cancer because had it been I would have already been dead. Tumors don't get that big on the pancreas before hey close you out. He said the tests showed stuff called keratin in it. He said its the same thing as if you had a bump on your skin and squeezed it and a lot of white cottage cheese looking stuff comes out. That's what was in this tumor on my pancreas.

The only way to get it out is do what's called "a Whipple procedure." Because the pancreas is tucked up and back behind a lot of stuff, they have to be creative to get to it. They took out 90% of my stomach, the duodenum (connects the small intestine to he stomach), some of the small intestine, the gall bladder, the head of the pancreas along with the bile ducts, and then connect what was left of the small intestine to what was left of the stomach. It's usually a big thing and done at bigger hospitals with more than one surgeon. I was in the operating room for almost 10 hours. The surgeon told me that he tumor was actually 13 cm and had wrapped itself around the vena cava and was engulfing my abdominal cavity. The good news is that the pathology for he tumor came back as NOT being cancer. I'm one of the very rare cases of having what's called a "Lymphoepithelial" tumor on my pancreas.

I spent the first three months throwing up everything I ate and not being able to stand for more Han 10 minutes at a time. I was out of commission for almost a full year before I got we'll enough to pass my DOT physical again.

Before, I was taking medicine for blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, and weighed 403 pounds right before the surgery. I now weigh 175 and no longer take anything but vitamins and supplements. According to the BMI, I am in the normal weight for my height. I feel so much better and never realized how good it feels to be a regular size and not have all the issues that came with being obese. Had they not found that tumor. I would have probably died as it kept growing.

Now, that long read was why I'm a fan of ANY physical that requires more than just asking questions. When it comes to DOT physicals, use it as a spring board to check anything that might be giving you suspicion. It's certainly not the most complex health screening, but hopefully you get a good doctor with a little intuition that can pick up on something hat will make him dig a little deeper.

Im glad they dug deeper on me for sure!

 

Aren't you happy that you are not quite so deep anymore!

 

You are correct sir. Deep is good most of the time. As long as he appreciates it and promises to call me first thing tomorrow, it makes it a little better.

Seriously, when and if there's something going on inside of me, I want to know about. I want any interaction with a doctor to be as thorough and complete as possible. Point being that a bad DOT physical pretty much saved my life.