Entry I
Welcome to the first in what might be a continuing series of musings and ruminations from the mind of a head full of useless information. Well here we are, 2008 an election year here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. and one of the hot topics is once again health care. Here in America we currently have a system in place that, depending on whether you have insurance, can ensure you’re fixed up in a jif, or possibly left in the hallway of the E.R. for 7 hours. More on that later. Our neighbor to the north has a system that, according to some, if implemented here would result in no small time in piles of dead or dying Americans rotting in the sun. My brother spent the better part of last summer driving through Canada, en route to Alaska and he didn’t report seeing any large piles of dead Canadians anywhere, they actually seem fairly happy with their system. But I digress, the thinking here in the U.S. is that if you’re lucky enough to have health care, you’ve got no worries. But a lot of how you do simply depends on how lucky you get when choosing your Physician. I myself, have been quite fortunate in the area of Dr.s and hospitals. My children were both born at St. Charles and I have spent many hours in the E.R.’s of both St. Charles and Mather and have always received excellent care. The Doctors at my primary care physicians office are wonderful, professional, caring Doctors. For example, being as overweight as I am, with a family history of heart disease, I am still actually alive. Whereas, If I’d received the same level of care my girlfriend received last week, I’d be getting my first guitar lesson from Hendrix right now. I want to say for the record, my girlfriend is the healthiest person I’ve ever met. My children will come over routinely harboring germs colonies of the latest strain of strepta-cocta-pnumonia-bronchial-pox, and she never, EVER, gets sick. I imagine her corpuscle’s have little Wonder Woman bracelets on them, effortlessly swatting away germs and laughing. So it was a source of some concern last month,when she began to complain of feeling disoriented and dizzy. At first I thought it was due to florescent lighting, or perhaps she was spending too much time at her desk staring at the computer. But after a week off the condition persisted. She went to see her original Primary care Physician, a person for whom the initial part of Hippocrates oath (First, do no harm) meant, play it safe, don’t do anything. He pretty much dismissed her systems and told her she was fine, but should probably have blood work done. Last Monday, she went to see a new Dr. someone who asked questions and seemed to be genuinely concerned, that something perhaps might be wrong. He followed up by referring her to specialists who;d be better able to asses her condition. Unfortunately, her condition got worse, and Wednesday, she had to be hospitalized. At this point, I want to express my gratitude to the folks from the Fire dept. in our town, who responded to our home and took
her to the hospital. As it turned out, this was the best care she would receive that day. When we arrived at the hospital they took one last check of her vitals before turning us over to the E.R. staff. I won’t mention the Hospital’s name here, only that their E.R. is named for a beer distributor, which turned out to be a clever marketing ploy on their part as I has to chug down the better part of a case later that night to quell my anger at the lack of treatment and attention she received. She arrived at 3:45pm and things started badly when she was left in the hallway because there were no rooms available,but we were told she’d get one soon. “Soon” at this place must have some other meaning, because over the next 6 and a half hours she was left in the hallway, even though many rooms opened up time and again, often remaining empty for nearly an hour. We were greeted by Jabba-the-nurse, who immediately chastised her for crying. I imagine she thought that when you’re stricken with an unknown ailment that leaves you unable to raise your head off the pillow or walk across the room without falling, you should just greet that with a cheerful smile and a song. When told she needed to use the restroom, Jabba replied “OK…go” When informed that she was unable to walk without falling over I was told to escort her. (I should point out here that I have severe osteo-arthitis in both knees and walk with a cane) Well with the help of my girls Dad, who had recently arrived, we got her to and from the loo. When my girl threw up, it was I who got to carry her little bucket around trying to find someone to help empty it. Finally, Jabba looked at me and directed me to a waste closet where I could empty and clean the bucket. An E.R. Doctor came over to see her. This person, and the guy who cleaned the floors were the only two competent, caring people we encountered that whole time. She gave her some medicine, which didn’t relieve the dizziness, at least took away the nausea. ordered blood work and a cat scan, the blood work was done almost immediately, the cat scan, well it took a while. As the hours began to roll by I approached Jabba to see what the hold up was. “That’s a different department” I was told, which really isn’t an answer. When I asked if she could find out when we might be seen I was again told, only more slowly as if perhaps I didn’t understand her the first time, “That’s a different department”, as if it was located in another town. This different department was maybe a 15 foot walk from her desk. I got the feeling Jabba wasn’t fond of walking. I say this because over the hours we were there I saw her get up maybe 4 times. I did get to hear her describe, in great detail, the doings of practically EVERY reality show on television to her colleague’s, perhaps this is part of her job description. Anyway a little later on she ambled by to tell us we had to leave for an hour, as our presence would adversly affect their shift change. I asked if my girl would receive her CAT scan during this time and was told no, they were far too busy during shift change Not wanting to mess up this smooth running machine I left. During this time the Dr. came by and when asked when she could leave, told my girl that as soon as she got her CAT results she could go. When told she hadn’t yet even gotten the CAT scan, the Dr. got a look of exasperation across her face and left and very soon after that, she was taken for her CAT scan. I returned precisely an hour later, relieved to find that her test was done, but miffed that she was still in the hallway. She was told she’d have the results of her CAT in 30 to 60 minutes. We waited patiently, but apparently during shift change my girlfriend developed the power of invisibility, because no one ever came up to her. After 90 minutes I asked the nurse for some help and got none. After 2 hours I asked another nurse who walked away and 2o minutes later came back and told us the test looked fine and as soon as the Dr. signed off on it we were free to go. After another half hour. my girl staggered over to the nurses desk and asked for a little assistance in getting signed out by thr Dr. “Who’s your Dr.?” they asked. “I don’t know, no one has been to see me since shift change” Well where do they have you. “ARE YOU KIDDING?” (she was getting a bit excited now) “I AM RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR DESK, AS I’VE BEEN FOR THE LAST 6 HOURS!!!” The Dr. must’ve heard this because he came over shortly thereafter, looking like the late Wally Cox as Mr. Peepers and stammering just the same (I think the stammering was because he was afraid my girl would eviscerate him if he didn’t help her) He told us things we already knew and said he would write us a prescription for the medication she’d been given earlier. I said that was great except that it was now after 10 pm and there were no 24 hour pharmacy’s near where we live. He said that the hospital does not dispense medicine and that we should wait until morning. I tried to explain to him that once what she’d taken had worn off, she’d be virtually unable to move and this would make obtaining the script very difficult he must’ve felt empathy for me. (Or perhaps it was the extremely homicidal look in my girls eyes which convinced him). Either way we were soon on our way home with an extra dose of medicine. So after nearly 7 hours there it was. 1 blood test, 1 cat scan and a dose of medicine. Combine the time for those and it’s maybe 25 minutes. And we still don’t know what’s wrong with her. We have an appointment with a specialist this week. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.