Medical situation: What would you do?

[bradly1101]

If I can stay awake for another hour I get breakfast. I have no idea how long or how many days it's been since I had real food. As you can see in the 1st post I'm already about 40 lbs. underweight and it just keeps dropping. Eek! Food please!

 

[Thebobo]

I'm not concerned about gout scouts, and neither is my medical 'team.'

Yea got it, So when do you get your test results?

 

[bradly1101]

Yea got it, So when do you get your test results?

They showed me one of the multiple x-rays (no apron was put on me), and my elbow looks totally normal. I asked the nurse if she could see anything, and she said that infections don't show on x-rays, only CT scans, which of course prompted my question, "Then why the x-rays?" They have the same answer for lots of questions, "You have to ask the doctor."

As far as I can tell there are no doctors here aside from those precious few seconds in the ER the 2nd time. If I had seen a doc the first time, I doubt it would have been burst internally like that via external manipulation, or that I would have been sent home, or that anyone would have used baby-talk with me.

I asked if any infection showed in my blood other than HIV but was told there were no orders for that. No CT scan is ordered, nor any relevant tests that I can tell, and I feel great aside from the pain, I'm eating fine, and my fever peaked at all of 99.3.

I'm on 1 gram of IV Vancomyacin every twelve hours. I asked, "For how many days?"

"You have to ask the doctor."

 

[Thebobo]

They showed me one of the multiple x-rays (no apron was put on me), and my elbow looks totally normal. I asked the nurse if she could see anything, and she said that infections don't show on x-rays, only CT scans, which of course prompted my question, "Then why the x-rays?" They have the same answer for lots of questions, "You have to ask the doctor."

As far as I can tell there are no doctors here aside from those precious few seconds in the ER the 2nd time. If I had seen a doc the first time, I doubt it would have been burst internally like that via external manipulation, or that I would have been sent home, or that anyone would have used baby-talk with me.

I asked if any infection showed in my blood other than HIV but was told there were no orders for that. No CT scan is ordered, nor any relevant tests that I can tell, and I feel great aside from the pain, I'm eating fine, and my fever peaked at all of 99.3.

I'm on 1 gram of IV Vancomyacin every twelve hours. I asked, "For how many days?"

"You have to ask the doctor."

Man sometimes ERs are great they hoover all you to fix you up and then the doctors vanish.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I've since learned that when that happens, the f-ing, damn, stupid spelling of my first name gets 'corrected' along the way, then the lab is lost, and if not claimed is purged.

This may be missing the forest for the trees, but I'd like to point out how incredibly f'd up that is, if it is indeed happening. There's no reason why, at any point, your name should be used as an identifier specifically for the reason you just cited. Patients should be recorded and recalled via an ID of some kind, linked to any/all information pertaining to you. How do they not retain that data, even mistaken data?

 

[bradly1101]

This may be missing the forest for the trees, but I'd like to point out how incredibly f'd up that is, if it is indeed happening. There's no reason why, at any point, your name should be used as an identifier specifically for the reason you just cited. Patients should be recorded and recalled via an ID of some kind, linked to any/all information pertaining to you. How do they not retain that data, even mistaken data?

I don't know. "There is no record" is all I was told. That was many years ago.

Recently I picked up c. diff. in the hospital, and it took 8 months to get it diagnosed. By that time my gut was trying so hard to shed the bacterium, bloody pieces of tissue were in my stool, and I truly felt so bad that I seriously called my doc's office trying to get the legal 'death with dignity' drugs. No dice, just torture.

During that time they eventually took a stool sample. Unlike my blood tubes, the stool sample label was hand written (by me), but according to my doc the lab transcribed my first name wrong. And it was accompanied by a computer-printed lab order with my name spelled correctly.

All I know is what I'm told.

That whole mess took up three of those eight months between voice mail hell and being told (again) that labs that don't come back are negative. Horsesh*t! Bigger, bloodier pieces of gore were in my toilet, and everything I ate went right through me. I really, really wanted to die.

Finally the doc looked into it. They found the lab. I had c. diff.

A friend asked his friend, the clinic's director, about it and was told that they are just too busy. I got that excuse a few times in the ER last night (plus, "I have a more acute patient" when I was trying to get some water and food in me, dehydrated and famished are extremely flimsy words for how I felt).

Too few want to get into medicine? Insurance companies being too stingy?

I'll be in a new city soon with a different hospital and new docs. It's a nicer area. I have hopes, but I try to keep expectations really, really low where healthcare intersects my life.

[sorry about the TMI stuff]

 

[lxskllr]

Sorry you're having so much trouble with the medical profession. Sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me, and I'd be raging if I were treated even half as bad as you were, very likely in jail...

 

[bradly1101]

Sorry you're having so much trouble with the medical profession. Sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me, and I'd be raging if I were treated even half as bad as you were, very likely in jail...

Yeah, I got mad once when my partner had a seizure (no hiv, but old, extreme brain injury) and was treated poorly. Big mistake. Gotta keep my cool.

Maybe it's the same game my dad plays; see how much Brad can take. Bring it on. I don't buckle or steam anymore.

 

[bradly1101]

You need that british actor doctor from the tv show that figures the crazy unexplained shit out

Nah, I get hero-worship way too easily.