Don't think I don't want to know

So should your doctor dance around the nasty words or come out and tell you. Personally I like my doctor to just tell me what I have and what we can do about it. I was reading again (sorry, I'll try to stop sometime but please don't hold out too much hope here) and found that a recent study says that doctors often think they need to protect their patients from their diagnosis.

If you think about it, you weren't feeling right or your doctor suspected something and you had some fun filled procedure/test/surgery that results in a pathology report. Do you want your doctor to sugar coat the results or just come out and tell you? Personally I want to just be told. If they sent me for a fun filled adventure in the hospital, I already figured it out then that there might be something going on and have had some to digest this. Even if the doctor tells you 'we just want to do this to confirm and really don't expect to find anything' I'm already thinking worst case scenario.

Why am I such a pessimist here? Well, because I have gotten bad news a time or two already. At this point, there aren't too many more bad things they can tell me that would surprise me. My body seems to be falling apart years before it was supposed to and I know that these things aren't right and I have some good ideas of what's going on.

Now I will say sometimes I do get surprised. When I was told my mammogram needed a follow up, I thought no big deal. Then when they told me they found something, I still though no big deal. Then when they biopsied it, I started to know something wasn't right. But between my first mammogram and actual diagnosis was a period of about two weeks so I already had some time to adjust to the idea. The thoughts come to you when you are referred to surgeons and the like and given nice little piles of 'literature' full of details on chemotherapy and post surgical care.

Don't sugar coat my information or try to keep anything from me. Trust me, I can deal and want to know so I can understand what is going on. I prefer my doctors to tell me the 'truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth'. I ask direct questions and expect direct answers, so spill!