For those of you just joining, you can catch the start of the idiocy that was my medical treatment here.

After my time with the unfortunately board certified Dr. Mark Fesenmyer, (which you can read about here) I had another appointment with Dr. Katherine Foley. 

So, this should be prefaced with Dr. Foley’s sheer ignorance. I asked her, and I don’t mean I asked her in a roundabout, obscure way, I mean I asked her flat out, “If you don’t feel qualified to treat me, please recommend someone else.” Do you want to guess what her response was? Her medical assistant called me and left a voicemail saying “Dr. Foley feels she is fully capable of treating you. It is your right to get a second opinion, but Dr. Foley feels she is fully capable of treating you.” 

That’s why I titled this section “Ego is the Enemy”. What kind of statement is that? Overconfident surgeons are unfortunately a dime a dozen, and I scored big with Dr. Katherine Foley. That is a profound level of egotism. Her medical assistant told me I could get a second opinion, but Dr. Foley could treat me. Well, clearly she couldn’t. 

After weeks of feeling like crap, I went to my primary care provider. An amazing Nurse Practitioner named Elizabeth Case saw me. She called bullshit on everything! She told me none of my symptoms are normal, and questioned why no blood work was done on any of this. I didn’t even think about it. I trusted the surgeons to make the best decision for me. Oh man, thank god for nurse practitioners. She had a gamut of blood work and a couple of CT’s done. 

After weeks of the untreated infection I most likely picked up from Dr. Katherine Foley’s colonoscopy and seton placement, my body was damaged. My prostate was enlarged. The Crohn’s disease was worse than when we started. My hair was falling out, I was sleeping 10 to 14 hours a day. I felt like crap. It is just so upsetting, because if Dr. Katherine Foley’s ego didn’t get in the way all of this could have been avoided. 

So once again, I called Dr. Katherine Foley’s office. I asked, just to make sure, that she never ordered any blood work. I was right, she did not. So when I saw her in person, I told her how pissed off I was. Her response… “I would think something was wrong with you if you weren’t furious.” She went on to apologize. Telling me how it was her fault she never thought to do blood work. She admitted this was her fault. 

When I mentioned, my intestines were worse than when we started because she missed the infection. She told me, “Don’t worry, that is typically isn’t permanent.” She offered me advice on how to deal with her screw up! Her opinion meant less than nothing to me at that point, so I don’t know why she felt the need to open her mouth. Did she think I still valued her advice? After her best advice was, “Hang in there.” Is she an idiot, or did she think I was an idiot?

Everything I had been through was her fault. Her apology was profound. It was also infuriating. She skipped some really basic stuff, because her ego got in the way. She went on about how it was her fault she never thought to look for an infection, and she was so sorry. She even noted the dramatic improvement of the setons now that I was on antibiotics. She looked like a dog you caught chewing on your shoe. As she should have. She made me sick. She made me think I was dying. She did that to me. Her ignorance cost me months of grief, pain, and suffering. Her Ego did that. Dr. Katherine Foley’s Ego did this to me. 

Now, I did ask her to give me that lovely apology in writing. She did not. I can’t say I’m surprised. What I realized was, this is not Dr. Katherine Foley’s first time at the rodeo. I think she has done this to multiple patients. After I asked for the apology in writing, I didn’t hear from her for weeks. She ignored every single one of my questions, and at this point in time, I had a lot of questions. I took a long hard look at the treatment she provided, and you know what… I was appalled that I let it go on. I should have gotten the second opinion sooner. She lied, she tried to cover up her lies, and she did all to my face. What a pathetic person… but that’s for my next article. Trust me, I asked a lot of questions about my treatment, but got no answers, but we’ll get to that in part 5. 

Thanks for reading! 

PS. As an added bonus, you can read the google review I left of Dr. Foley.

The headline image for this article got some great reviews on Reddit!