Thursday, January 31, 2008

Patient/Doctor Relationship

I am going to write about a few things that have been on my mind. There are two sides of the story when being a patient and being a doctor. I, fortunately am very understanding of what doctors must go through. Having been in pharmaceuticals, I became great friends with many and learned about the struggles that they have to go through in the medical "political world". The insurance hoops, malpractice suits. We are now living in a world of CYA (cover your ass) syndrome. And I hate that it has become that for them. There are a lot of patients out there who go in seeking drugs, or truly have something mentally wrong. The Medical Community becomes jaded. I can certainly see why.

However, as understanding as I am. Truth be told, I am their patient and I have to put my life into their hands and a LOT of trust goes into that. Sometimes, I don't speak up enough for myself.

Maybe it is the Southerner in me that I am not as outspoken as I should be when it comes to what is going on with me. My family always says that I could have a leg cut off and bleeding profusely, but, will still smile and try to crack some kind of joke with the nurses and doctors. They get mad because they think no one will take me seriously. I am like "why do I have to be rude to someone even if I am hurting?" I actually understand now after being in the hospital SOOOO much lately.

It is me now that is starting to get jaded.. Now, I simply don't trust the medical community and that is not a good thing. Unfortunately, I have had some really bad experiences in the past with ER. 3 years ago, I had horrific pain. 2 ER visits and was told it was stress and acid reflux. I all but laughed in their face. I knew that my pain was not that. I made it through another few days and got to my gastro's office and he was about to do an endoscopy on me. But I was so weak and in so much pain, that he sent me straight to the hospital. HIDA scan showed I had a dead gallbladder. So much for stress and acid reflux.

Second bad experience was when I was pregnant with my second child. Around 28 weeks, I started having horrific migraines. Blinding ones. I was hurting and in a lot of pain. I assumed that it was from being pregnant. One of the rotating doctors came in and I told him what was going on. He told me that it must be stress and I needed to relax.

2 weeks later, I am in really bad shape and thank god saw my normal OB. She checked my urine, and kidneys and all of that. Well....diagnosis...eclampsia. Almost died in the hospital because of my blood pressure being so high and my sweet little girl had her lungs collapsed. She spent time in the NICU, while I spent time on heavy medication to keep my body from shutting down. Well, sir Dr. NOW, I am stressed because of this.

Third bad experience, chronic pelvic pain. ER...finds nothing. Sends me home. I know something is going on. Finally, get a diagnosis....ovarian tumor.

Now, I just had the gastric bypass 3 1/2 months ago and have been in very bad shape for all of that time. My surgeon (who, honestly I think is a great guy) basically tells me this is all in my head and it must be from fibromyalgia. A trillion visits to my Gastro and Kidney Specialist later, plus numerous ER visits. I have acute colitis which was causing the bleeding and a kidney obstruction.

I honestly want to be a good patient and take my surgeon at his word. But, with so many bad experiences, how do you begin to trust again? I am being serious. I want to know. Because, I know that now I am either having another pancreas attack or hernia. But, I refuse to go to the ER because I absolutely am not going to spend anymore money on being told that it is in my head.

How can two jaded people (the surgeon and the patient) come together and find a solution? Can it happen? You tell me...

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