Patient: Still in captivity. Captors still administering beneficial agents that relieve great discomfort, thereby reducing my urge to flee. Was studied today by loud, humming metal sleeve, but was released soon after being injected with strange-feeling substance. Something tells me I should continue to comply with their demands. Hmmm. One uniformed captor just delivered vanilla ice cream and honey graham crackers. Wonder if they are again up to something . . . Guess I’ll go ahead and try this ‘dessert’… I may need the extra energy for this next day of adventures… Yours Anna.
Optional Information
Gender: Female
Age: 37
Already Tried: Everything except the coma treatment.
Doctor: Hello Anna,
Are you still in hospital?
Worried about you?
Dr. James
Patient: Yes, they are still keeping me here. I don’t know what to say except my head and the nausea are too bad. It will be okay, adjustments need to be made… Like no more heart medicines! I guess autonomic system reset a bit?
Doctor: Anna,
Thanks for updating me. I was very worried.
What are they assigning reason for nausea and headache? Is it related to the epidural? What are the medications they are giving to you?
Take care.
Dr. James
Patient: we do not know yet… Had a lumbar MRI late yesterday… I will keep you updated, and thanks for your caring…
Doctor: Thanks Anna.
Wishing you a very speedy recovery.
Dr. James
Patient:
Dr. James,
I am home tonight, didn’t make it home in time for my birthday. In fact, because they wanted to test my digestive system, you could say I had a liquid birthday cake!
Good news is I have no sign, I am clear, of any colon cancer. The worst news I think is that I have gastritis, so pretty good findings overall! There was some suspicion there at the end and just as my insurance wanted me to come home, there were more indications for me to stay.
I don’t know when I’ll be able to get an early morning appointment with Dr. Francis but it has to be in the next two weeks, because they only gave me a two weeks supply of my medicines out the door, and I had to use up what I had going in. I still have the headache and the nausea, but that doesn’t call for staying in a hospital. I’ll try to make sure it doesn’t get to not being able to keep anything down, but I don’t exactly have a plan for that?!?
We’re already into the Prep Project, so I’ve got to get in there and back to work on Monday. I’m glad I have at least one day to normalize things. I was starting to get easily irritated with the nurses, and they were starting to get easily irritated with me. The last one even got a parting shot, trying to tell me “I’m only 38, what am I going to do when I’m 78 and have been taking so many medicines for all of my life?” It’s only been two years, and who knows what the future will bring? The future will bring all kinds of things, and will likely bring as many good things as bad, but who knows in what areas?!?
Good to be Home… NOW I feel 38 for real!!! 🙂
Most Sincere Regards,
Anna
Patient: I have some observations that I would like to share with you some day, this time after spending nearly two weeks where I was almost alwasy conscious.
One odd observation is how quickly habits can develop: I noticed tonight at home as I used the bathroom, as I got up I looked at both of my hands to make sure all the wires and tubes and stuff were free, and laughed when I saw that there were none! But I laughed to think that after less then two weeks I learned to look for “clearance” before getting up.
Hospitals can do things so much better, just by remembering that it is human people they service!!! I saw this forgotten when I once politely asked the nurse to leave the door slightly open when she left, she opened it to say, with a huff, “I’m not out yet!” What was the purpose of that?!? I was only trying to be nice.
I should tell you about Antonio. He was such a good nurse, and when I told him that – he seemed stuck, he said so many patients said bad things. I don’t know why some patients take admission as a ticket to abuse whoever they might, maybe for once they feel a safe place and don’t know how to deal with it. Maybe that is why my hospital makes each patient agree that they know how to receive help if they are domestically abused. The world has a lot to learn yet, I feel.
Good Night, Dr. James, and it is so good to be Home…
Anna
Doctor:
Hello Anna,
Welcome back to home and a very happy birthday (belated). You are looking in good spirits. Have a great week-end.
I never agree more than this on anything else; medics have to change. We have to learn from the aviation industry; from safety standards to behavior.
Regards,
Dr. James
Patient: Okay, Dr. James, this is a funny thing!
They were hesitant to go ahead with the colonoscopy today because of no anesthesiologist. But I saw Dr. Steven there. The guy that gave me 14 sympathetic blocks. But who knows the rules. They don’t even seem to know always. It was nice to see Dr. Steven. I hadn’t seem him since the implementation of the continuous epidural. He was as real as he always has been. By that I mean – someone you can count on to get what you need, done – despite “protocol”. That word is bugging me. I do understand it’s necessity.
“Protocol”. Is that why nurses berate you for the doses of medicines you are to take? You, as a patient, really want to tell them that since they are not a doctor, you will wait until they are a doctor to weight their opinion. But you are not a human like that, you would not speak such a thing. You only tell them to consult the doctor if they have any questions about what is written. And for even that, you earn a little black fly on your shoulder. Because you have gone against the Unwritten protocol.
People are complex, and I am quite exhausted actually. I can still be stuck in the room, to the right – the blinds never kept out enough light. To the left, the door never kept out enough nurses!!! Embarassed I am bad to feel that. I really could imagine the ideal room, it doesn’t even need a television.
I am feeling this thing fighting sleep, like I felt every night that I eventually fell asleep there. To wild dreams, to dreams where the nurses said they heard me talking in my sleep. And I wonder all what I might have said, but they didn’t tell me anything. So I was left feeling exposed in a way, like they knew something that I didn’t know.
If I go lay down, I just wonder if sleep will come, they gave me some many drugs in there, and I asked the names of everything, I remember the names of everything. Fentayl came up a lot, Versed (sp?) next often… and I was a “cheap date” – I was knocked out before any procedures began. Once again, I don’t remember anything, and you know that bugs me. How can I have been there, and now conscientiously have been there?!? How?!?
But it’s all good, Dr. James, you know? You go through one door and come out another, all in the same motion.
Sincerely (still on whatever hospital time is)
Anna
Patient:Â Hello, Dr. James,
The funny thing about being “Me” is that until I was an adult, I only knew the U.S medical system as a military dependant. And that is a door that once you have stepped outside of… you are GONE. They don’t provide any transition for military dependants once they reach 18 (or college, but I was just over 18 when I got married).
When I first ever went to a doctor as an employee of the university, I didn’t know how to let go of everything I’d known. I still hold my entire medical records from the age of birth through marraige. I don’t think I am supposed to have them. I remember how I got them.
My father said I needed to go to bed. I guess I should.
Love shines brighter. One good nurse is lighter than nine lesser ones. And it is funny, because it is a simple thing they need to do, and an easy thing they need to give… nurses need to just forget themselves for a few minutes, and imagine they are their patients. Imagine if it I was speaking those words… “It’s cold in here and I still don’t have my pain medicine.” That translates to, “It’s too darn cold, and either… I hurt too much… or… I’m just simply mad that you didn’t somehow get my pain medicine.”
Nurses, a nurse with a bad attitude is to Medicine what little drops of water are to a draught… they are the front line of hope… maybe they do not realize this… maybe some of them get jaded, but I saw enough with smiles the size of their whole face, and I wondered how they could do that… how do you maintain such an optimistic front when others become bitter and caustic? In my world, it seems like a poet floating on a lily leaf amidst the sinking shoreside flowers. There is the Life that is so intact that nothing can make it wither or sink. That is the way I see things. The way I feel things would be to open my hand, if you were before me, and bow my head in all the innocence I had, and to welcome you to welcome me. So we could just be people. But I never even got close to as far as this abstract feeling….. most of the time. Beause there was Protocol. there were protocols, there were abstracts, and there were guidlines that for the most part prohibited even the beginnings of a human-to-human interaction. It wasn’t even a nurse to a patient… it was a provider to a (“whatever you call the insured”). I feel strongly about some of these things I feel, and trust me, they are less friendly to the patients than to the nurses. But in all these insurance and corporate messes (“tell me honey, is there a reason?!?”) the fundamental thing that I feel has been lost is the human-to-human element. Because if it was there, there nurse could communicate better to the doctor, the doctor would communicate to the patient.
I’m just a fool, Dr. James. I don’t have expertise in anything medical. So I’m just going to fake sleep.
I am calm and peaceful and happy, despite how it might sound… Innocent
Sincere Regards,
Anna
Patient: Dr. James!
I had the best appointment ever with Dr. Francis! He was booked but he worked me in, that was so nice! I am glad because I have no FMLA time left!!!
I told him I felt the best that I’ve felt in the last two years, and it is true! The headaches and nausea seem well managed with Fioricet and Ondansetron or Phenergan. I also had a very good appointment with Dr. Khan this morning, Back to work tomorrow… and my parents and sister leave tomorrow morning… Frown
Well, we will be leaving for “dinner out” and I need to finish getting ready. You are such a light!
I hope all things are well with you!
Sincerely,
Anna
Doctor: Anna,
It feels so good when you mentioned that things have worked for you and you are happy. All of you must have enjoyed the dinner.
We talked about one thing, other day; we can’t control the behavior of other people, but we can control our reaction to it.
Have a great day.
Dr. James
Patient:
Dr. james,
They sent me home from work in a cab yesterday. I’ll bet neither Dr. Francis nor Dr. Khan would believe it. So I tried to work everything out yesterday, and they are not going to get everything they want. They said I was incoherent, they said they could not see how I drove myself there safely, but they were not going to take a chance on me driving myself home. I see it as a way, I can’t meet some invisible set of standards. So I will try to see Dr. Khan again tomorrow, and get another note. And can’t imagine asking Dr. Francis to squeeze me in without an appointment twice in one week!!! But if something was wrong no one saw Monday, how could it have popped up Tuesday?!?
I made a mig mistake today by thinking it was Thursday, but for goodness sake! I’ve been on the bench for a while! And it cost me $120 to get the cab rides to my house and back downtown to get my car.
…
I don’t think about life being fair or not fair… I did get to walk out of the hospital after all. But I definitely have a strange life… or spend some time looking for the little hidden camera that would explan this bizarre behaviour from people who are supposed to be so in charge.
Better get a good night’s rest?!?
Somehow Still,
Anna
Doctor: Anna,
I do not think this points to anything serious and I do not believe in this incoherent theory either. Especially when you were seen by two doctors; and I can tell you, they can’t miss anything not normal.
Just relax.
Dr. James
Patient:
Dr. James,
I need some good advice. And you know all the implications.
Dr. James… first off during the EEG, when I was told to hyperventilate, massive nausea came over me.
But the worst thing. The reason they were right Tuesday. I blanked out and found myself across two lanes to the left. I could have killed people. I might have. So I need very serious advice.
I want to talk to you. this is not funny, not a game, everything is up for loss, Dr. James.
In the same way as trauma, this was a near trauma, and I have to act. Or …
I think I am less afraid, I am more afraid ,,, mortifiabley afraid that I might negligently kill.Dr. James… can you tell me that I will not kill someone?
I am on my knees, the tears , I want to tell you more, please … there is more but it is the end of my career. You should believe me, I have no reason. It feels like I have cuts.
I was asked to hyperventilate in the EEG, and the nausea was so powerful, overcame me. I think that I am going to lose… to … I felt faint, I felt like I was going to throw up. What do I do? I think the way is to exit out gracefully… before I hurt anyone.
Sincerely Me,
Anna
Doctor: Anna,
I am very worried. But I think there is nothing, which can’t be treated.
Dr. James
Patient:
So, who do I tell this to? Dr. Francis? Dr. Khan? Neurologist? Dr. Richard already recommended I stop driving, the EEG was supposed to disprove this, but the nausea hit me hard. The person doing the EEG said most people don’t get nauseous when hyperventilating.
I would love it if there was a pill I could take, to replace a pill I take, to correct this. Everyone but Dr. Francis keeps telling me I am taking too many medicines, but then they just keep precribing me more. Neurologist precribed me Topomax (Topiramate). PCP precribes me the most. Dr. Francis hasn’t adding anything new in a long time.
When I calm down from the fear, I just want a safe place. Since I am not evil in the heart, I know I can trust my heart to guide me. But there is knowledge that I lack.
Thank you for giving me me hope….. *hug*
Sincerely,
Anna
Doctor: Dear Anna,
Medicines can be culprit and obviously they cannot be solution to everything. There has to be a point where your get the maximal benefit with the minimum medications. The side effects, adverse effects and their interaction, I can tell you are unpredictable, in an individual, despite lot of research and big medical literature. We all are unique and respond uniquely to the medicines, which no doctor can anticipate.
Just remember, that you are very strong. And you can pull through anything.
I have immense faith in you and your strength.
Be patient. Be calm. This will pass out.
Dr. James
Patient: Here is “little Anna” again, Dr. James. A woman not knowing quite what to do. It doesn’t seem like there is any answer shouting out at me, “This is right! This fixes everything!”
Maybe there is a term for minimal epililepsy, or limited convulsions? So far the neurologist just put down : Other convulsions? I want to ask for appropriatrate time from everyone. Dr. Francis. WARNED about rushing to a conclusion, and it makes perfect sense now, but for what “Now ” was six hours ago, Oh that my tongue had been stuck on the roof of my mouth, and refuses to come down from there, It is more like knowledge you cannot ignore, I think it may be PTSD because I wish *I* was in charge of it – If I could do something with it than *I* could defeat it.
I’m sorry… still just me. Still with highest regardgs for you….
Anna
Patient: Dr. James,
I wonder if it is still beneficial. For now, rhw score is not in my favor! I went to the ER last night again for excessive vomiting based on Dr. Khan suggestion, they gave me fluids, took blood, and gave me something new clled “Reglan” – that doesn’t – look promosing. I can’t pell worth a heck, if you knew how many typos
I was making, wow!!!,
And I am ordered rto bed rest, not to work, yet a dr visit. possibily to go back inif I do not keep anyhing down today. S bed rest it is.
Work is going to be mad. When do I give up?Am I straesstiing myselfing into this? I know I am stressed to little bits!
Ah! Need to need relax. Deeeeeeeeeeeep brreaths. Try to forget I am forgrt I am scared.. . .
Anna
Doctor: Anna,
You need rest. I am not sure what is going on but things are still not sorted out, it seems. And don’t get scared. Eventually everything would settle. Do not think much about anything and do not stress yourself. Please relax.
Dr. James
Patient:
Hello, Dr. James…
I think I am getting rest, Things are definitely not sorted out.
If you could imagine, the medicines haves done something to my brain. If I have something epilipeptic, it will be gone. ? I may be using long-term-disability.
Spelling is an incercerdibl effort for me. I think about it, read it, read it, readit again, again.. My parenrents are comening in just a numbber of dayds. Everything whill get right then. Please be patient with me. I am lost betweeenn the visioun and the letterus. But I just know it whill ghet rhight in days. When I don’t think aout spellllingtwo much ten it is nut … look, I have to go, okay?
Anna