One Hopes for the Best

When sending a massage client off to the doctor for a symptom check, this massage therapist always hopes for the best. It isn’t easy to say to someone: "This seems like something that the doctor needs to know about. I want you to get this checked out."

But it is part of the profession. It’s happened a dozen or so times in my career as a massage therapist. For example: A 50-year-old male with sternal pain who hadn’t been to the doctor in 20 years. Another, a 40-year-old with a swollen neck lymph node. A man with a swollen ankle on the left side. Another with a nagging cough.

All is well, they reported later. I like to reply: “Good you have done the right thing for your health - and the health of the economy by running up a bill.”

So all is well. Then a client I have seen regularly for 15 years came in with shortness of breath.

So I sent her off to get checked. A week later, she told me the tests of her heart came back OK and nothing amiss in the pump room.

Well, that was two years ago. Last weekend the same client, who has not been able to walk regularly because of a swollen knee problem, called me to tell me she had another episode of shortness of breath after a walk.

It was really strange, she told me. “I felt a lot of pressure on my chest and tightness going up the left side of my neck. My upper arm ached. It wasn’t normal.”

As it turned out, she has a 90 percent blockage in the left anterior descending heart artery, a bad spot as it feeds the muscle to the main pumping chamber of the heart. She is scheduled for a stent insertion this week.

Sorry to hear that, I said. Then I thought, was this related to her shortness of breath from two years past?

As it turns out, her test two years ago showed a 75 percent blockage in the same artery. “I remember I called the nurse and she said the test came out fine,” she said. “I don’t know if they made a mistake or if they thought that was OK.”

I wonder. Two years is a long time to have a cloggy artery. I know tests aren’t perfect, and neither is medicine, but now I’m wondering if everyone who gets an OK from the doctor is really OK. As a massage therapist, you rely on the experts, and assessing symptoms is all we can do.

“Well, you did the right thing,” I told her. “Don’t worry about it now. Just get it taken care of. You can sort this out later.”