There are many times where I don't think I can do it, because I seem to be battling some kind of problem with food digestion and concomitant autoimmunity, perhaps bile duct blockage but the symptoms from what I read point more towards cancer
Obvious question - why aren't you seeing a specialist? Self diagnoses will lead nowhere good.
I think I explained that in my post:
But damn it, I don't see other good options. I guess I could leave the Philippines and return to USA try to get socialized medical care and then that might restore me to the level of function where I could hold a daily software engineer job again. Psychologically I seem incapable of making that move. I don't even have the energy to devote to thinking out that option and its impacts.
I'm tempted to go for a checkup here (there are MRI machines in Davao), but I don't even trust the doctors here in terms of diagnosis and certainly I would not trust them for any invasive procedure. Also I am trying to conserve funds and I have no medical insurance.
In short, I don't expect a quick solution. And maybe the prognosis will make me totally depressed. And I don't have the resources to deal with the problem in a way that I feel is safe.
The filipino surgeons butchered my eye. I could still see after being attacked in 1999, but they gave me an intern to do the first surgery on my eye at St. Luke Hospital in Manila.
Also when I was in my doctor's office after the hospitalization for the acute peptic ulcer, a younger (30s) American man was also awaiting checkup and he was grimacing with pain. My doctor had performed a "J-pop" (something about removing part of the colon and sewing together or something like that) on him some years before and had screwed him so bad that now the young guy was on permanent morphine.
The attitude of doctors here is callous, unprofessional. For example, in Sept I got an eye checkup at an ophthalmologist and he said poked at my right blinded eye and said something like "you might as well just remove that" or something derogatory to that effect. Also he poked at it very hard which didn't feel like it was good for the eye. I told him that the pressure in that eye oscillates depending on my overall health (and remember I was in horrible condition in August/September).
I don't trust the system here. And my mother has reminded me that I am unlikely to get along well with the doctors in the USA because I always want to ask questions and I don't like being dictated procedures until I fully understand them and get perhaps 2nd and 3rd opinions. But none of that I can afford.
And I certainly can't afford the lengthy down time.
My life options are very stressful. My rope is short. Difficult to explain to others who are healthy and in other circumstances. Sounds like an excuse until you walk in the other person's shoes. It is a self-inflicted circumstance, so I don't fault anyone but myself.
Let's return to the technical discussion.I attempted to make an appointment or walk in the clinic of a gastroenteritis / internal medicine doctor today. I proceeded to Brokenshire Hospital, Davao City at 11am and again at 1:30pm, and both the doctor Paolo Buenaventura and his receptionist failed to show up on the posted hours of M - F, 1 - 4pm.
The only other doctor was Alcasid which is the doctor who attended to me at Adventist Hospital in May 2012 during the acute peptic ulcer that I explained in more detail in the full version of the quoted post above. He office looks like toilet room (not even a bathroom). It is down in the basement and the office/clinic isn't even appropriately furnished (and the receptionist was addicted to her mobile phone and wouldn't even make eye contact). He is the one who screwed me up in 2012, because I told him about all the ongoing lower abdominal pain and issues and he said, "you must just be fatigued". No blood tests, no MRI, nothing. He screwed up another foreigner real bad as I documented in the full version of the quoted post above. He has offices at several hospitals and is always doing rounds at patient beds.
Also note I did make a special trip to Cebu in November 2012 to try to get a better doctor and testing. Unfortunately I was unable to locate a doctor that was available and so they did some general blood tests and other STD tests I requested. The blood test showed my lymphocytes were sky high. The STD tests had to be sent to Manila. I returned to Davao and they were supposed to email the results. They never did. I had to return to Cebu just to get the results, which were negative.
I am going to look for some other doctors at Davao Doctors and San Pedro Hospitals perhaps on Monday.
To elaborate on why I am hesitant to proceed with the doctors here in the Philippines notice how for this man who had pancreatic cancer the doctors were not able to be sure he had cancer until they had cut him open for surgery. Even with MRI, endoscopy, and ultrasound, even the Western doctors apparently can't see that area of the body well enough to see the tumor. And I don't know if I should trust a filipino doctor to do endoscopy on me. Maybe he will perforate my colon or organ in the process and make matters worse. I just have a huge lack of confidence in the doctors here.
Back in 1990s I broke my hand really bad when I punched a concrete wall after some local politician was acting very condescendingly to me in Moonlight bar in Davao (formerly owned by I think the daughter of Mayor Duturte who is now running for President this May). A doctor at San Pedro Hospital tried to make stint and cast for me, but this hand has never been okay since. He didn't even put metal stint or do the things really required to make sure it healed correctly. So unprofessional and nonchalant.
I still have a 1" hole in the top of my skull where I was hit with a hammer by a neighbor when I used to live in the squalor area (when my ex-wife made a fight about a hammock
Note that my feces is not light colored, nor oily. And my urine is not very dark, thus not precisely the symptoms for some pancreatic cancers. Yet there are other pancreatic cancers which have different or no symptoms (until they spread to other organs).
So my point is it seems nearly pointless to proceed on diagnosis while I am in the Philippines.And I don't think my funds are sufficient to go seek diagnosis outside the Philippines.