Sick of Hospitals

Monday night at about 9pm my husband got a hold of one of my GI doctors.  He heard me shrieking in the back ground and told my hubby to take me to the hospital.  We got their and checked in.  We sat, me openly crying, for 2 hours before they brought me back in a wheelchair, because I could no longer walk.

My husband asked for someone to help me, the nurse put in an IV port, took my urine and said she'd talk to the doctor about pain meds.  This is pretty standard when people are screaming, or obviously in severe pain.  The nurse came back and said the doctor wouldn't let her give me anything until he saw me.  The couple of time this has happened to me, the doctor was in with in one hour.   3 hours latter and I'm still screaming, now the nurse says all of the doctors are busy with a trauma. OK,  at 2:30, 5 hours after I was first "brought back" my husband says he HAS to leave.  He has to go to work in the morning and take my son to school.  We call my friend she shows up at about 3:30 and we still haven't seen the doctor.  Nurses keep giving us excuses about why, even though I can here them in the room next to me. 

6:00am TUESDAY morning, I have now been their for 9 hours, the doctor shows up.  He starts pushing and prodding my abdomen, I start screaming again.  He leaves, I beg for something for the pain.  The doctor comes back and says that my regular pain medication is sufficient.   WHAT!!  If my pain medication  was working for this, *I* wouldn't BE here!!

THEN,  I figure it out.  He said that according to my chart I didn't "DR jump" I've had the same pain doctor for 4 years.  THAT meant that he had looked at my medical FILE, not just my chart.  When I was there the week before, for the same reason, again told by a doctor to go, the DR that treated me informed me that she felt I was going through WITHDRAWL from when I had Menegitis because I was geting a lot of Dillaudid at the time. 

The fact that this pain had been going on since August, that I had left the hospital on Jan 6  That I hadn't returned for more than a MONTH with the stomach pain, that withdrawl from a serious narcotic happens fairly quickly, when it happens and that it is CONSTANT not random and has a lot of symptoms I didn't have.  The fact that I wasn't taking Dilaudid for fun and wasn't getting it outside of the illness, hospital made no diference.  The fact that she and the rest of the staff had just saved a guy from ODing from snorting Heroin 5 minutes before this didn't make a difference either.

Whatever that woman put in my record made this doctor's decision before he even saw me.  Then he took one look at my girlfriend, who'd just been yanked from bed, who is ill herself and therefore SUPPER thin, and is missing teeth due to both illness and a bad orthadontist, and decided that I wasn't just a junkie I must be off the street because the only thing he DID offer me was something  to eat.  Over, and over, and over. 

Doctors are human, they are shapped by their experiences, just like any other person.  However, they should also be aware of that fact.  They should know that they can have colored world view, and take their own personal steps to prevent it.  Basing a diagnosis on another doctors diagnosis is wrong.  If you think that their diagnosis is correct, fine, but run at least one or two simple tests to see if it's correct, or it their might be something else.  Don't base a diagnosis on a person's appearance, do drugs affect the way you look?  Absolutely, but doctors, more than anyone, should know that illness can cause a lot of the same physical problems. 

MY personal appearance is fine, until you scratch the surface.  Then you figure out that my WHOLE body is swollen, and that my stomach isn't fat, it's DISTENDED.  Take a minute and you'll figure out that this has been going on for a long time and that I am only now seeking treatmentm for it.  That I have had chronic pain for years and that I take some fairly strong prescription medications, and that I have been with the SAME doctor for years.   That I don't WILLING go to the hospital, unless I'm in labor.  (I fell down tbe stairs and broke my tailbone in three pieces, my mother had to call my office behind my back and physically force me to get in the car.)  I spent a lot of time in hospitals as a kid, not with good memories.  I HATE HOSPITALS!

I am neither a junkie, nor in withdrawl.  I am in PAIN, and I need HELP.  I need someone to figure out what's going on and I need it to not take 3 years.   I need doctors to overcome some of their less helpful human traits and remember that their is a person, most likely in pain, scared, and unhappy, sitting on the table in front of them.