Doctor, You're Fired!

Yes, for the next five years or so I would be in and out of the hospital for a week or so just to  hear the words you’re an enigma, so many times. I had pneumonia, thyroid, liver count to high blood count to low another yatta, yatta, yatta. Then a turning point, I woke up one morning feeling great, fixed breakfast for the family then I started to feel a little faint and with a fever. So I told my husband I needed to take a little nap, which he had learned that if I stop moving like that there was something wrong, well in about 30 minutes I was burning up and on my way to the Dr. I get there and he takes me in right away. He says this looks just like pneumonia but it can’t be because you can’t get pneumonia in thirty minutes and since I was fine yesterday, even painting and decorating my new home. So, because Dr Jacobson is so carefull, he sends me to the emergency room with the final thought that it can’t be pneumonia.

I go into the emergency room where my Dr has called ahead so they take me in right away, whats the first thing out of the E.R drs mouth, oh pneumonia you have to be admitted right away and you need a blood transfusion, to which I say absolutely no whole blood they already had I given them my durable power of attorney and no blood statement of fact, which told them that I would accept  alternative transfusions. I was in a lot of pain but they told me I would have to suffer unless I let them give blood, I than stated that I needed to go to the bathroom that’s when this young male nurse yells at me that if I let him give me blood he would let me go to the bathroom, I told him I was going to the bathroom one way or another he just had to decide if I was going in the bed or bathroom needless to say I went to the bathroom.Since their threats weren’t to get me to take the whole blood a  nurse tried something different, so she  comes to me with a clear bag that looks like water, I knew I already had I.V solution going so I wonder to myself what is she doing, so I ask her what does she has in her hand she tells me “don’t worry it’s something to perk you up” I ask her again what does she have in her hand, she says don’t worry about it just relax, well now I’m angry and suspicious so I tell her not to touch me until I know what she has the she proceeds to tell me ” it’s just a little blood” what I say, get that away from me, then she says to just lay there and be still. Oh no she didn’t right, and here I am 105 fever, my blood count is below 5  and I can hardly breath but that was not about to stop me to from screening to my mom “get the liason committee fast”! I then  pushed her away my mother stood up got her out of my room. Within 30 minutes the liason committee were at the hospital and in the next few minutes the head of the hospital. He came into my room and apologized profusely for the nurse, the men in charge of my blood decision came and asked me which nurse tried to slip the blood to me I pointed her out , to which they told her you need to thank her she just saved your hospital a million dollars without even going to court. She smugly walked away to which they told the administrator never have that nurse work on any of they’re patients because she had no respect for them and they’re wishes. He agreed and off to intensive care I went. This was a long night because I was right by the nurses station so Of course I couldn’t sleep because they were talking and laughing all night long of course I don’t begrudge them any because they have a very stressful job and they need an outlet for all the pain they see. So now my arms and legs are paralized…what next

So I’m going around on high doses of  pregnazone ,Metrosilex, Harmon replacement therapy, Ulcer Medicine that was caused by the other meds, and a few more just for good measure. Mildly coping day by day periodically in the Hospital for a week or two. Then one day I was walking in the mall with my husband because it was his day off and I wanted him to enjoy it although I felt as if all my muscles had been on a marathon run all night but I had gotten pretty good at faking it so he was none the wiser …at least for a while then he stopped walking , he looked back at me and said “your walking like an old lady” that’s when I lied and said my muscles were just a little sore and I picked up the pace  that worked for about 30 minutes then my muscles gave me away because they started to freeze up and then I could hardly walk upright. So off to urgent care at the hospital so they took my blood and gave me moltrin and sent me home. I went out to a movie, I’m still in denial, of course my cell phone was off. By the time I got home my daughters were freaking out, they said the hospital called 2 hours ago and told them it was imperative that I get back to the hospital right away and go straight to the emergency room and that was 2 hours ago and they call twice. My daughters and mother have been around me and my hospital escapades long enough to know that if a hospital calls once and tells you to get there it’s bad when they call twice your dieing. So off we go to the hospital and to the emergency room give them my name and they take me in right away and a Dr comes in right away to tell me my CPK was at 750s and it’s suppose to be in the 30s and  to cover themselves because they let me leave their urgent care with this type of result, he says they must have had a bad blood test so they to retest it, so more of the old poking and testing, well the Dr doesn’t take long to come in and tell me that I’m to be admitted right away because now it’s at 2500s and since I’m already on pregnazone they can’t figure out why this is happening and they called in a specialist. Yea, that’s right, another specialist that will walk in my room say a name ask me a few questions poke here squeeze there and then say “you’re an enigma, this doesn’t make sense , have you had a blood transfusion lately” usually in that order. Then they will spout out a name scratch their head and leave with a questionable look on their face. Although some are better at hiding their expressions than others, that’s my world, and this time was no different. He came in asked me if I was a marathon runner or into extreme sports, well I said I do have 3 teenage daughters and that is pretty extreme with them all in high school. Why do you ask I say, because he says you have poliomyelitis and that is a rare disease that comes from extreme sports and over taxing your body or a blood transfusion. Hum, again with the blood transfusion, but he was surprized when I told him I was shopping earlier that day and was still walking around without  any strong pain meds but I reinforced  that I was use to pain but what I wasn’t use to was not being able to bend my arms and legs. He spouted something like be glad you have a high tolerance to pain and if my CPK  go up anymore I would have to go to another Hospital for more test. Low and behold my CPK  jumped to 55,000s so down the hill I went to my favorite caffeine free hospital but guess what they changed the rules now if your in the hospital you can have coffee with caffeine (I would like to think I had something to do with that but I know better). So more test and prodding, can you feel this squeeze this, push this, yatta yatta yatta, but now they want to do a muscle biopsy the tells me and that will mean about a .018 inch cut into my left leg and test it for positive results. I say ok whatever I agree so the next day I go into a brief surgery when I come to I feel like I have a chunk out of my leg but that’s impossible it was only .018 inch cut right , wrong, they took my bandage off and there is a  4 inch gap, so I asked the Dr what type of ruler were you using or should I say tape measure because that cut is over 4 inches and by my ruler that’s way different that .018 inch he quickly dismisses himself and another Dr comes in and I ask him ”how long would he say this cut is on my leg he discloses a little over four inches so we agree that my eyes aren’t failing me I asked him what happened to the .018 cut he explains that sometimes it takes more. I say are you kidding me that’s the best you can come up with, this is not my first hospital ride so tell me the truth, did he get a little excited and want to chew on my leg , I said relax if I  going to sue a hospital I’m not going to do it because you let a rookie Dr. try out his new little knife. Now that I have him flustered where it’s hard to think of an excuse, he tells me it’s defiantly poliomyelitis, well now I have living proof forever with 4 inch scar that I have a prognosis, not to sound arrogant as the Drs., it’s just that when you’ve been though the medical ringer as much as I have you can tell the difference between being hung out to dry and being cleaned out both of which are no fun. He does follow that with we have  a new experimental injection drug I want to try it’s been used in studies with promising results, I had to agree because what else is there. I was there for about a week I remember because of two reasons one the released me and it was thanksgiving day so they were having a potluck party and they forgot to take out my I.V. needle and I didn’t notice it until I was halfway home before I realized it (that’s when you know you’ve been in the hospital to many times) so I pulled it out myself second they gave me an experimental drug with strict instructions to make sure I took another shot the next day, I go to my neighborhood  pharmacy to get the prescription and he tells me that because it’s an experimental shot that he will have to get a special prescription and it will take 3  days so I called the hospital who prescribed it and they told me I would have to come back there and go  the emergency room and be admitted again to get the shot . Can you smell a money plot? I could so I called my pharmacist and he arranged to get it for me which meant he had to go down the hill and wait for the order, like I said find a good pharmacist who cares, who is willing to go the distance and care. I got the shots from him for a while until it stopped working then  off to the “specialist” again.

So I decided to try some alternative medicine, they can’t be much crazier, which included eyerodologist, chiropractic, acupuncture and others. The herbatalogist was very caring he started me on a vitamin routine, then a few days later I was so sick I called him in turn he called his Boss who said that I needed to stop all my vitamins and start eating chocolate drinking alcohol and anything else to destroy my immune system because they were building it up and that was killing me. I started to do that and got better right away. Back at square one,then I started to crave ice I mean the kind of craving that makes you drive to the best restaurant with crushed ice you can find. I was driving my husband crazy with the constant crunching on ice but I couldn’t help it .  Thats when I noticed a lump in my throat and it was growing quickly, I went to the Dr now he said it was my thyroid and he needed to check it out to see if it had cancer and since it was effecting my swallowing I needed to get half of it removed, back in the hospital I went.

I had part of it removed and gratefully there was no cancer and he told me I wouldn’t need to take thyroid medicine, My next Dr visit I told the Dr that I was gaining weight he told me to not eat so much, my husband had a cow because I already eat like a bird and I told the Dr I have gained 31 pounds in 28 days, he looked at my file and was shocked then put me on a thyroid medicine I lost the weight right away, so now what so far I have an auto immune liver disease, gall bladder, pneumonia, and now thyroid disease and I’m not finished yet because how does a seemingly healthy woman all the sudden get everything going wrong and why are all these Drs lost, but now with the  thyroid medicine my liver count is dropping , hymn what will the Dr say. Well at first he thought I was nuts but he thought he would play with me and test it out so for one month he put me on a high dose of thyroid meds, and then check my liver test then he lowered it for a month and retested it, guess what, I was not crazy it did help so now he asked if we could do it again for a medical magazine I said ok  so this went on for  4 months with the same results so he kept me on the higher dose even though it showed I had a higher thyroid count at least they weren’t talking transplant anymore, so whats next. I find a real Dr. who really cares he doesn’t always know whats wrong but if I need anything he’s there and takes care of me or sends me to whoever he thinks might help so to say the least I’ve been through all the specialist and universities on the east and west coast. I’ve heard all the talk from the Drs. saying how much they know and what they’ve done during their  careers but none of them knew what was wrong with me so I was always back square one. Except their was loyal and caring Dr. Jacobson to keep me going and ready to try anything to help and always researching for me. If it takes you firing lots of Drs to find that one special one that cares, do it , it means your life and it’s worth it. The right Dr. is a precious gem, treat him and his staff with all the respect and kindness you can because they a rare find, a needle in a haystack scenario. These types of Drs. aren’t worried about their egos or their pocketbooks only their patients.

So back to me, I kept having a high liver count, around 900-1200 so of course I was in and out of the hospital so I was told to go to Mexico to a clinic that they say could help me, well I thought I might as well try, so down I went to Mexico I met a lot of people with cancer that had been cured as well as other diseases. I went to one of the motels that would take me right to the Drs. office, so we have to be there by 7am fasting and they run test, discuss my test and come up with a plan. I would have to take some vitamins, a parasite pill for 10 days and a tonic. The parasite pill was a precaution because it is the most common illness. The tonic had a diet that I had to follow which consisted of no tomatoes, alcohol, vinegar, white flour ,pork and a few other things for  6 months to start. So I started the diet and tonic the next day, by the 7th day I started to break out in these large boils so I called the Dr who told me to stop taking the tonic. Which I gladly did because I hated the diet. I went to the Dr in america who tested my blood and my liver count was only about 200 so just that little time on the tonic had helped my liver greatly but the down side was the boils had gotten so bad that one I had to have surgery on and of course their not only on my legs one was in the worst possible place worse than a hemorrhoids. Ya that was fun, then I remembered the bible talking about Job sitting outside the gate with his boils, now I know why he was sitting when you have that many boils they go right to your bone and you can’t walk. But for a while my liver was looking much better. Then it started hitting my lungs, which they called pneumonia but surprise, their wrong again, but it would take longer and a lot more rides down the “ you’re an enigma” trail of  Drs to find that out. The next Dr was fun I thought he was nice until he went crazy and threw the file cabinet through the window of his office and was arrested so what else do I do? Where do I go next?

For the most part the nurses are smarter than the Drs they work for, they definitely seem to care more of corse there is an exception to every rule. When this happens there’s something you can do, the first time I had a problem with a nurse in a hospital was right after I had a major surgery in 1992, they had just brought me out of recovery and to my room. It was probably about 8pm and I was unable to move I started to get sick to my stomach and here come the rapid throwing up I’m trying to call the nurse, when she finally got there she started yelling at me and told me that since I didn’t get the bowl I could just stay like that all night, I was too weak to move or respond but at about 7am another nurse came in and saw me and asked how long had I been like that I weakly said all night. You could tell she was visibly upset, later on that day I was feeling well enough to talk and told my Dr. what she did, he brought back flowers and the message that that nurse was not working there anymore. I was relieved but this nurse is not the norm and my Dr was very caring and he’s one of the few with that much clout to get a nurse fired that quickly of course I think the other nurse had a hand in it too.

the second time I learned how to get action was when my niece had surgery. It was scheduled for 9am at 12pm it still wasn’t done, then at 4pm the nurse said she didn’t think they would do it till the next day. At that point I went got a notebook and started taking names,  I asked who the head nurse was, I wrote the name down and asked what time the surgery was scheduled on the books and I notified them she had not eaten all day and had a I.V in since this morning and she was scared to death and not even a Dr had come in to talk to her. The nurse said that because she was on state assistance she was going to have take what ever Dr was able to it. I asked what Dr. was supposed to do it she wouldn’t answer. I told her that’s ok I would have my niece get dressed and go to another hospital and that I had a great attorney that would love this case. Needless to say my niece had her surgery and was treated very well. The moral is take names, dates times and notes it gets their attention. Now back to the ongoing drama of my cronic illness.

So lets talk about room-mate edicate, if your sharing a room with someone keep your moaning to a minimum, I was in the room with one lady, and I use that term loosely,(she did ask the nurse if she could service her clients there in the adjustable bed) the first night not so bad she was passed out, the second night she kept bugging the nurses every 5 minutes, she was pushing that call button wanting more pain killers then she accused the nurse of taking her drugs and not giving them to her, the nurse was very patient,  me not so much,  I couldn’t take it anymore, I got up out of bed marched over to her (at about 3am and after being awake all night)and said excuse me and told her that the nurse did give her meds.  but that I did not work here and I’m on major drugs and that I could legally kill her by smothering her in her pillow if I heard another sound out of her and no jury would convict me and that I was going for a little walk and when I got back I better not hear another word from her. On my walk the nurse she smiled  and I didn’t hear another word from that girl for the rest of the night so I got my sleep. If you have nice nurses don’t bug them, their busy, fluff your own dang pillow because if your room-mate keeps getting woke up because your being stupid, there are things we can do you will never suspect, and lack of sleep is a good motivator. Most nurses are your best friends when the Drs talking watch their eyes, if they roll them or look down in disgust that tells you if your Dr is a quack, the nurses know don’t make an enemy of them. There are a few nurses that shouldn’t be there and next I will share a few clues to pin point them and how to get them out of your room.

The special gown that they give you to make you feel totally at their mercy, you know the one that is only wide enough to cover a anorexic teenager, yea that one, just say no, I have a cute little silk  halter p.j. set, do they like it most the time the nurses do there are a couple that   don’t one nurse tried to tell me that I had to wear the gown they provided to which I told her that I would if I were in prison and the state was paying my bill. To which she asked me how I expected the staff to know I was a patient, I said if the needle I.V attached to my arm and my being in the bed with an arm band didn’t give it away that maybe they were in the wrong business. She got over it. I choose a halter because it’s easy to take on and off with a I.V, as for the needle when it’s in by hand and I need to take a shower I just remove the hose to the I.V. after I stop the fluid grab one of the Drs, rubber gloves but it on ask for some tape and tape the wrist and I’m good to go if it’s further up the arm take off the fingers and tape .(caution I’m a pro about stopping my I.V. if your not ask the nurse)The other thing is if you happen to have a room-mate now that’s a whole new subject and I’ve had my share of doozies, from a ministers wife to a hooker, yes it can get interesting

We were home about 6 hours when my daughter starts throwing up to dry heaves, so we go back to the hospital emergency room go through the test, to which this runny nose kid Dr. ask if he could talk to me outside of the room,  so worriedly I went outside the room with him and gave me his vast knowledge of what his diagnosis is, he says are you and your husband going through a divorce? To which I say your kidding right, no we have one of the happiest marriages and my daughter is a very happy little girl.. why don’t you just tell me you in your infinite wisdom don’t know what the heck is going on because that would have made you look a little less stupider, but I told him not to worry I would take her to a grown up Dr and come back to give him the diagnosis so he could put it in his little diary for future patients, so note to all you patients and parents of patients the ” it’s all in your head” is defined as ” I don’t have anything in my head” get another Dr, which is what I did only to find out that her spinal meningitis had shut down her digestive system so she was on soup for a couple of days and then slowly on regular diet and she was fine, as for my marriage still fantastic. Now back to my hospital connoisseuring…

When I had my first child the Dr. told me that if it turned serious would I take a  transfusion, I said yes saline solution albumen and others but not blood , my mother-law was an identical twin the only differance  was she received a blood transfusion and got M.S. I was told that the only thing you can’t get from a blood transfusion is pregnant and the red cross is very aware of the dangers but it’s a million dollar money-maker for both the red cross and the Drs. so they like to use it, I asked if that was going to be a problem, he said no that he would just have to be more carefull. So what about all those people who say no problem, hum you don’t have to be carefull with them. I digress, this comes in on part of my interview process, first I ask if they know about auto immune hepatitis if they ask how I contacted it I tell them thank you and have a nice day and I go to the next Dr.  The next question is what would he do if my blood count dropped and he was not able to give me transfusion with blood, if he says if you won’t take blood I will respect your wishes and let you die. I say thank you and go to the next Dr. I want my Dr to let me know what he will do and how he can do it. I also want to know how long he spends with his patients, if it’s 5 to 10 minutes he’s not for me. I need someone who’s worried more his or her patience other than the clock. Sometimes if it’s just a cold or infection that is easily detected that’s ok, but I also ask the Dr. if he has a dout  or question does he have a group of Drs that he brainstorms with if he gets offended I let him know that it is not him but I been through a lot of test and Drs so I need to be carefull. If he still doesn’t have an answer I go to the next Dr. You see nurses and hospital employees aren’t allowed to recommend Drs. but find the local pharmacies and ask the pharmacist who he thinks the best Dr is who is quickest to refill their patients prescriptions who do the people brag about the most and who is cursed the most, they know they deal with them everyday on both ends, so get a couple of pharmacist and their assistants ideas. Thats who has nothing to gain from who you get your prescriptions.

So, I’m up all night with my daughter and between my daughter and the ambulance, I had no sleep but at least I thought I can get some liquid energy. I went down to the cafeteria looked around and couldn’t find the coffee, so I asked where’s the coffee, the girl behind the register said it’s right over there, I replied no, I want the caffeinated kind. She rudely snaps back, we don’t have caffeine here it’s against our religion. I shot back well he your not very good at it because there’s caffeine in these chocolate bars. She than states well coffee is very bad for your body, to which I said and these cheetos and chips are good for you? She had no reply, so I angrily went back up to my daughter’s room. About that time the so-called spiritual adviser, a.k.a.minister, came in and asked me if I had any questions, and by know you know me and I have plenty of questions and I’m not afraid to ask them. I asked him where in the bible does it say that the coffee bean is cursed but the coco bean is good, to which he replied well there is nothing in the bible that says that, so I said your church makes up laws that are not biblically supported. He said well I could say that, but that’s the way it is, to which I said before you start forcing laws and blaming on it God all the while charging thousands to stay here you should at least have your facts straight. Then I told him to go do research to find out why they invented this law and that’s when he can come back, I never saw him again, however the nurse was listening she came in the room and said that the nurses didn’t agree but she did do some research and found out that the law came from an old law about black being cursed because of Cain there by making all things or people black bad. I know crazy right, not to mention the law on mustard. She called me to the nurse break room and told m heres the coffee you can help yourself t as much as you want. That was great so for the rest of the week I had free coffee until they released my daughter who seemed to be doing fine…