Healthy Care
Several times over the last few months I’ve awoke at about 2:00 a.m. with fairly severe back pain, sometimes abdominal pain too. It’s always lasted a couple of hours, then that was it. Something to be concerned about for sure, but we’ve had other more pressing things to deal with.
On Friday of last week, same thing, except for the couple of hours part. It seemed to hurt worse, and absolutely did not go away. Kids were going to daycare, I had a slow day at work, so off I went to Urgent Care for some drive-in medical care. I would have gone to my family physician, but I didn’t realize when I was assigned to him that he was a resident and soon would be moving away.
It’s a walk-in clinic, so I was the first one there and was seen immediately. They poked, prodded, asked some questions, did some tests, all good, to conclude I had a gall stone and would almost certainly need my gall bladder removed. The only question was now or later. This was around 11:00 a.m. My response was “There’s no time like the present, let’s go.”
After a bit, they concluded I needed another test. This was at the request of surgery, who had now been consulted. Although I asked, I was never quite clear what the purpose of this test was. If anything, the test proved that my gall-bladder was completely blocked which was a further indication for immediate surgery, or so the pamphlet I read beforehand seemed to indicate. However, I became convinced that the test was purely for stalling purposes, because unscheduled surgery on Friday afternoon wasn’t very convenient.
During that test, I finally got a little pain medication. I then returned to the clinic where I got more pain medication, the first two items of relief all day. This would have been about 2:00 p.m. A few minutes later, a swarm of physicians (surgical residents) came in to check on me.
My pain was better, amazing since I’d just received pain medication. They indicated that surgery on Friday night was difficult, because of the propensity of college kids to do stupid things requiring emergency surgery. Also, since my pain was better, that probably indicated I was going to get better and didn’t need surgery immediately. Revised plan was to admit me to the hospital and watch me until I got better. Surgery was scheduled on Saturday morning, if still needed.
Upon admittance, I was allowed hourly dosages of morphine, as long as I remembered to ask for it. Since I was still in quite a bit of pain, did those quite frequently. Finally, around 3:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, the pain had completely gone away.
Saturday morning, the swarm reappeared and confirmed that Friday night was crazy and it would have been difficult to get into surgery. Since I was feeling better I could just come back next week and have surgery when it was convenient. For them. When I asked about already being scheduled for surgery Saturday morning, they indicated that was just if I needed it and someone else had already been taken in.
So, revised revised plan was to come in to surgery clinic on Monday morning, to meet with the surgeon and anesthesiologist for consultation and consent. I asked if any of that could be done while I was already there, and they indicated that since the office staff wasn’t in it would be difficult.
Went to surgery clinic as asked on Monday morning then. Entire process took about 1.5 hours and everyone was helpful and friendly. Except that I couldn’t talk to the anesthesiology folks, but I had an appointment for 10:00 on Tuesday. Wouldn’t that be OK? No, it really wouldn’t.
In the end, went back to anesthesiology at 10:00 on Tuesday. That entire process took another 2 hours or so. From both meetings combined, I confirmed my address, health insurance info, and phone number 4 times, none of which had changed since I was there on Saturday. There was a grand total of 10 minutes of useful time for me, when I was being told about the procedure and the anesthesiology.
Finally, surgery is scheduled for 7:00 a.m. on Thursday. I need to be there an hour earlier, because it takes time to verify that I haven’t moved, changed my insurance, or changed my phone number in the last 48 hours. Also, I finally get to meet the actual anesthesiologist.
The care I’ve received has been great. People have been friendly and knowledgeable. However, I’ve had my fair share of hospital visits lately. In contrast to some other places we’ve been, the only worries about convenience since I first arrived on Friday morning, have pointed at the physicians/staff, not the patient.
If I’d have had surgery at around 2:00 p.m. on Friday, as it seems likely I could have, I would have almost certainly been recovered enough to return to work on Monday. As it was, I was in pain for another 12 hours, had to miss another 4 hours of work in preparation for the surgery, will likely be out two more days of work from the surgery, and had to invest at least fifteen minutes typing up this saga. Certainly was convenient for me. I’ll bet I get a discount.
On a side note, screw ku.