doctor: what’s your diagnosis
me: are you looking for an alphabetical list, The Greatest Hits, a pie chart, least square fit…
I can’t say with authority what the right order for this list would be because I’m not a doctor, but I would suggest starting with the diagnosis (or diagnoses) which have the most impact on your day-to-day existence and working your way down, Greatest Hits style–so, for example, if you have endometriosis that causes you severe pain, that would come above well-managed bipolar disorder, even if the bipolar is an every-day thing and the endometriosis proceeds in a monthly cycle. Of course, if you’re seeing a doctor for a particular complaint–suppose you’re experiencing chest and throat pain with a cough–I’d suggest starting with whichever diagnosis (or diagnoses) has the most immediate implications for that complaint. So for the chest/throat pain and cough, you’d start by listing, say, asthma, allergies, or an immunodeficient disorder, if one of those was applicable, and then work your way down your list from most to least pertinent.
…now that I’ve written all that, I’m realizing that this was probably a rhetoical question, so feel free to ignore me.
(via academicfeminist)
