We see doctors to seek answers, gain reassurance, or to gain certainty about our health. No one goes in without a little nervousness. What if they find something? What if the test came back positive? What if it’s malignant?
What you don’t go in expecting is to stump the experts.
My sisters, mother, and I have been in and out of hospitals for roughly the last 14 years of my life. We’ve also spent the greater part of the last 3 decades trying to figure out why my father, a normal, active 44 year-old man suddenly dropped dead on his exercise bike one late afternoon in March of 1993. 6 years after his death, my sister and I started exhibiting signs of what they then thought was a heart problem. Our doctor began conferring with doctors across the country trying to understand what they were seeing. 2 years of diagnostics, 1 year on medication, 10 years with an implanted pacemaker defibrillator and my sister and I still find ourselves with more questions than answers.
Diary of a Cyborg is my way of chronicling this medical mystery as we work with doctors to solve a 21 year old mystery. We explore what happens when the medical world, typically a source of answers and direction, cannot offer an answer to your questions but can still offer treatments to the symptoms. We explore this dichotomy through personal interviews with members of my family, an interview of me conducted by other members of my crew, as well as video diaries done before, after, and during diagnostics, surgeries, and hospital visits.