This one I wrote while a bit upset, and it is rather explicit. I still feel better for letting it out, and I want everyone who is told they have to have an amputation to remember: Second opinions matter!
OK, so. All this time, I couldn’t properly remember events leading up to my coma/hospital stay. I was going on half remembered things on events leading up to me losing my legs.. well, I was just going through an old FB blog I wrote before I went to the hospital for the last time, and I am thoroughly pissed.
I mean clean-my-sidearm-and-load-the-hollow-points pissed.
I wont re post that blog, but I actually wrote down a timeline up to the 26th of September, last year. I dont remember writing it, but I know I must have. I even have comments from friends telling me they hope I feel better soon….Let me lay out the timeline for you I just pulled from my blog.
- Thursday, 9-16-2010 BD attack started in mouth.
- Saturday 9-18-2010 Last day I worked, throat hurt bad enough I couldn’t eat.
- Tuesday, 9-21-2010 Went to DR in Bowling Green, prescribed pain meds and AntiBiotics. Mom came to pick me up and take me to Providence.
- Friday, 9-24-2010 Late Friday evening, I was taken to RMC ER by my mother. I stayed until Early Saturday morning in the ER. Here is what I wrote about it.
I was told I had a case of old fashioned thrush……So, I went through 4 bags of IV fluids, 2 dolauded/zofran (sp?) combo shots, steroid shots and other things while in the hospital….. I was rolled out to the truck in a wheel chair, new pain meds script in hand and a vile mouthwash for thrush as well.
- Saturday 9-25-2010 Early morning released from the ER
- Wednesday, 9-29-2010 Late night rush to the ER. My mother tells me I staggered into the kitchen and said “I need help”
- Thursday, 9-30-2010 Admitted to ICU from ER.. Coding, Coma… And the rest is history….
Why am I so pissed? Because I didn’t have THRUSH! I had a fucking MRSA infection! I was already at that time having a bit of trouble breathing. I don’t remember everything they did to me on that first visit, but it stands to reason that a competent ER doctor would have taken a throat culture for strep.. Don’t you think?
I know that strep and staph are different things, but what the fuck? From my understanding, a MRSA culture is a simple positive/negative test. Did they draw blood? Did the test blood? I don’t know, I can’t remember. They put in an IV line, so it stands to reason. You can damn bet that I got run for the basics in that blood test. Why no throat culture? How did the MRSA not show?
I do remember this. The doc spent no more than a few minutes with me, total. Nurses, yes, Doc, no.
If the doc had spent possibly a bit more time, or ran a few simple tests to confirm his theory, my ass might not be legless right now. Or fingerless, for that matter.
But Neil! You can’t know that!
Bull shit. Bull shit. Bull shit.
Arrogant fucktard doctor, takes one quick glimpse, calls it thrush, and sends me home…
This is the problem with RMC. It is a low class, triage hospital. Granted, the nurses, therapists and a select amount of doctors there are top notch.. Dr Kitchens and his team, for example, who saved my life after I went to ICU.
But there would have been no need for ICU if the doctor would have ran a couple of tests in the ER. Or actually admitted me for observation.
And while I am ranting about the hospital, let me just talk about that asshole ortho surgeon there. Donnelley. That mother fucker came to my room when I wasn’t even a day out of ICU, still dazed from my coma to tell me what HE was going to do to ME.
Not to mention he was 12 hours late for the room visit, and talked to me with no one else in the room…
I didn’t even have my own power of attorney. I couldn’t make my own medical decisions. That didn’t stop that old bastard from telling me he was going to take my legs off at the knees, take my fingers off at the palms, and then schedule the fucking surgery…
They found me in my room.. thrashing in bed, muttering “not viable… Just going to cut them off” over and over…
I had to be sedated, and then shackled to the bed to keep from hurting myself!
My old man goes and finds Donnelley, tells him not to do any surgery, and never come in my room again… His response?
He doesn’t have to talk to my dad, because my mom has power of attorney. He needs to talk to her, anyway..
Then why did he tell me that shit? why, if he knew that my mother had power of attorney, did he not wait until she was with me? If he would have been on time like he was supposed to, she WOULD have been there.
Why? Because he is an arrogant old son of a bitch. He needs to be put out to pasture. Could you imagine the shape I would have been in right now if we would have blindly followed his advice?
He is on a short list of people at the hospital right now that are not allowed to speak to me, go in my room, or look at my charts. Glad I am not there now…
And I hope to God that he retires before he does this to someone else.
I am going to have to request my medical records for the night of 9/24/2010 and see what doctor it was that treated me. I really want to know his name. And I want to make sure he will NEVER forget mine.
Now, some of you are going to say I am in some stage of healing/denial/whatever… Keep your psycho-babble to yourself. This is not about denial, or trying to find something/someone to blame. these are simple facts.
Like I said, there are some good doctors at RMC. But you watch. It is a continuing cycle.. The good Doctors do their residency there, and the get the hell out. Go somewhere else. Why? Even they know what kind of place they are working at.
and for those that might say I am being an asshole myself for saying any of this… Well, I will be more than glad to say these things to the Doctors themselves who deserve it. Trust me. When I go to RMC on occasion to visit the GREAT therapy staff there who helped me, I keep a look out.
One day, he will be standing in the lobby, and I will say my piece. And show him that I still have knees, because we were smart enough to stay the hell away from his ortho department.
Enough said.
Rant over.