When last we were together our heroine was cruising along on a cocktail of pain meds & sedation drugs. Snowmen were being annihilated by her ever efficient flicks (‘cuz let’s face it snowmen are creepy…with their hollow black eyes & that inane empty smile).
Meanwhile the doctors were still stumped as to what was causing all the pain. After a battery of tests (all of which came back normal–see it’s a medically proven fact that I’m normal) and no answers I was more than a little upset. Not to mention that nobody bothered to tell me what the test results were. One of my nurses was super great (all of them were so nice to me) and filled me in on the parts she knew so I had the barebones idea that nothing big was showing up in the test results. Since there didn’t seem to be any answers the doctors (I had 2 surgeons, an internist, a gastroenterologist, an ob/gyn & her med student and a general physician) came by my room every day to see how I was feeling. This mostly consisted of asking how I was feeling (horrible & in pain) & then probing & pushing down on my right side asking if it hurt (Of course if bloody well hurts…holy grief that’s why I came into the ER in the first place. The dull aching pain from my rib cage to my hip coupled with the sharp stabbing pains in the area of the rib cage).
What did they think I was going to change my mind? Did it look like I was having fun?? Okay, I’ll admit that for the first 15-30 minutes after getting a brand new dose of Dilaudid I was pretty happy. Seriously with that stuff you could do whatever you wanted to me & I wouldn’t have objected….well I might have objected but probably not very hard. In any case Thursday was a day of waiting. I was waiting for the second surgeon to look over my charts & then visit me. It never happened. I spent the day drifting in and out of consciousness….I was so tired! Abe sat with me and when I was awake we talked, watched some telly & played on the interwebz. I was feeling pretty dejected by the time Abe left on Thursday night. We talked it over & agreed that if something wasn’t decided by Friday that I was checking out & going home.
Friday dawned with me in a stupor. A week of fitful sleep & much poking by nurses, aides & doctors left much to be desired. We waited all day for the second surgeon to come visit. In fact we waited most of the day for the general physician to visit. By the time they both showed up I was in probably the worst pain I’d had all week. Still they both examined me (by that I mean asked how I felt & then poked me where it hurt) & then decided that since there was no solid conclusion to why I was in pain etc that they would send me home with some prescriptions. So on Friday evening the nurse gave me an extra dose of pain meds, removed the IV & wheeled me down to the entrance. I had just spent 5 days in the hospital (without insurance) and the only thing I had to show for it was a hospital bill that I’m terrified of getting in the mail.
Thus ends the tale of my week in hospital. Putting the events to screen here makes me even more aware of how irritated I am that I have no answers. While the doctors did acknowledge that maybe my gallbladder isn’t functioning as well as it should they still don’t believe it’s causing the problems I’ve described. So I’m doing the best I can with what I know. I’m careful to eat very little & very specific kinds of food…like I can have lean meat (which I try to stick to anyway) or a chicken breast, I can eat Cheerios. I do know that if I cut out all the fat in my diet that I’m just as likely to have a gallbladder attack as I would if I ate a pound of bacon. The research I’ve been doing says that even with surgery I only have a 60% chance of feeling better. HA! No thanks, I think I’ll try something else first. I don’t mind changing my diet more…it’s something I need to do anyway. What I do mind is the idea of never enjoying food again…so I’m being more careful but allowing for little indulgences. I’m searching out alternative medicine such as acupuncture & acupressure along with stuff I may not have discovered yet. Modern medicine seems to be more about treating the symptoms (my pain) than eliminating the cause of it. Not to mention the cost of modern medicine. I’m not saying that doctors shouldn’t be paid well. I am saying that it’s beyond outrageous that a consultation with an ob/gyn that lasts less than 20 minutes should not cost $245. Seriously, that’s the one bill I already received….she spoke to me for less than 20 minutes & worked in a quick pelvic exam while she was at it & for that she gets $245. I’m not including the cost of any tests (mostly because she didn’t give me any) or lab work.
An side note to the hospital stay…I wish someone would have told me that I would feel like grim death after I left. It doesn’t seem right that I felt even worse when I left than when I went in. Saturday I did nothing but sleep with the odd trip to the bathroom thrown in. It took every ounce of strength I possessed to walk the 15 feet from my side of the bed to the bathroom & back. Sunday wasn’t much of an improvement… I slept through my nephews 4th birthday party. I’m feeling more like myself now…still with the pain but I choose to ignore it the best I can. What the future holds is anybody’s guess…right now I’m trying to get out & enjoy what’s left of my summer.
