Health “Care” System

So what is health care like in your part of the world?  Is it any good?  If you ever come to visit me, don’t get sick. It is not only a friendly warning. Its an edict to be followed closely. Stay healthy if you are here.

Health care where I live sucks shit. I know first hand. I have been shuffled along in the system for 10 years or more. Because I have multiple health issues, doctors tire of me, quickly. Or they belittle me and make me feel insignificant and small.  Or they stop giving a shit and I end up where I am today.

Why is this?  Is patient load that heavy?  Are doctors not taught the “care” part of “health care”?  And what about nurses?  I have dealt with some that were so rude I wanted to slap them. With a chair.

We just had a change in government in my town. For 19 years we have been under the thumb of a government who took a broken down system and destroyed it. I am hoping, with all my heart, that this new government can begin to mend what is sorely in need of mending. I can be contacted to be on whatever committee is needed to offer suggestions to improve this joke we call our Health Care System. Just contact me via this blog.

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Harumph

You would think that health care professionals nowadays would understand when you are too ill to come in for your appointment and do things to accommodate the patient. Apparently, not where I live.

I had an accident on Friday and avoided going to the hospital. I have the home visits doctor coming out to see me. I had wanted a conference call set up between myself and two of my supports. I was told no, that I had to attend my appointment and be examined there. Um…that‘s why I called the doctor to my HOUSE???

I could tell that they were royally PISSED at me for being assertive and saying I would not be attending. But you know what?  I DON’T CARE.  I don’t feel well and I don‘t feel comfortable in that establishment.

There are other mitigating factors that are having me slowly starting to hate my surgeon. One being that she seems adamant not to have my mother at my appointment. I’m sorry you dislike her, madam, or find her a nuisance. But she has navigated these waters before and is my guide and my rock. How DARE you exclude the only person in my life who knows what I’m going through??!!

Also, I am starting not to trust her. She came “highly recommended” to me by two specialists that I trust. Yet it is 10 weeks later and I am flat on my back still recovering from what looks like a surgery gone wrong. Something happened while I was under anaesthetic and I am 100% sure this “highly recommended” surgeon did not perpetrate it.

So I was belittled and made to feel rather small because I am too ill to make it in to my appointment. Is this how other cancer patients are treated in my town or is the privilege just mine?  I know what I have to do and what is right for me.  They had zero right to make me feel small for my choice. The patient is in charge. Not the medical people.  Respect should be key. But I will speak more about that later.

All I can say is, if you live in my town, may you NEVER have to go what I am going through.

Regrets

I knew nothing about hysterectomy before I had it.  Actually, scratch that. I knew I couldn’t have babies and that I wouldn‘t have a period. That was it.

I surprise myself when I think back to how eager I was to have this surgery.  I think after three long years of wonky and painful periods, I just wanted to get rid of them. I saw this as my out.

I don’t think I fully understood what this surgery entailed. It wasn‘t until I came home from the hospital that I started to grasp what was happening. And what was happening was not pleasant.

I can’t sit for longer than 20 minutes. My appetite waxes and wanes. I am deeply depressed. I feel angry and robbed and ugly. My body is rebelling and new health issues are popping up. I just am drowning in all this. And no one understands.

I never thought I would miss my period.  I would kill to have it back now.  Just so that I could call myself a woman.

Look at other options, ladies, before you have a hysterectomy. You don’t want to end up like me.

A Tough Choice

It took awhile but I have made my choice about chemo….for now. Most of you won’t agree with it. But once I explain myself, I think you will see why.

I’m putting chemo off for a month, minimum.  My reasoning has to do with my health.

Firstly, I was lied to by the nice surgeon lady.  She told me that “people are back to doing their normal activities within six weeks”.  What she neglected to tell me was these were average healthy people that the textbooks write about. I don’t fit that profile. I never have.

I have other health issues that make my body weak to start with. I have asthma, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and Fibromyalgia and that’s just to start.  None of this was taken into consideration. By anyone.

As a result, we are going into week 10 and I have suffered 9 weeks of setbacks. I’m not even strong enough to walk outside yet. I live a block away from a 7-Eleven and need a cab to get there. And the nice surgeon lady expects me to have chemo?  NO WAY. I’m not strong enough.

When I had breast cancer and they rushed me into chemo, I could feel a cold coming on.  I was told the chemo wouldn’t affect it. I had full blown pneumonia within a week. So I am starting, once again, to not trust Cancer Health Care professionals.

I will do chemo. But only when my body is ready. Not a minute before. 

Healing Too Slow

I don’t think I can recall a situation where I have ever been more frustrated than now.

I’m not a patient person. No way no how.  Patience is not a virtue I possess.  Maybe that explains the exasperation and frustration which I experience currently in my period of convalescence.

It has been nearly ten weeks since my surgery. I expected to feel better by now. My body doesn’t understand this. I have had nothing but setbacks. The setbacks started when I got my staples removed and a stitch popped immediately.  By the end of the day two more had popped. I got nursing care in the home within two days.

I have had unexplained pain that just wont quit. I was hospitalized and tests were performed. Nothing conclusive was discovered. Conclusion: not from the surgery; referred to Pain and Symptom management.

I have just fought off a bladder infection. It was quite bad. Never expected to get one.

I felt it was okay for me to move some books closer to my room. I didn’t feel any pain so I thought I was okay.

It was until about 90 min after, when leaning over my desk chair to reach for my medicine, that I felt a pop in my stomach. I knew immediately that I had pulled, torn or ripped a muscle.

The pain was quite intense through the evening. All due to my impatience and thinking I was healed enough to do this.

I feel like I am healing too slowly. And it is frustrating. I would give my right arm to be able to get back to my normal activities. But I am not strong enough.

When WILL I be strong enough???!!!  The 15th of NEVER?

Barely Reading

I am not only going through physical pain but also emotional stuff too. And its tearing me apart.

I love to read. Its my life’s passion. I got a shit education in school and this passion fills the gap. I have experienced such joy from reading that its something I cannot accurately put into words.

Since being diagnosed with cancer and having my pain intensify, I have lost my ability to concentrate on a book. I am devastated. Books are my sole comfort and my soul comfort. I have amassed quite the collection. And yet I cannot read.

I have amassed an incredible amount of eBooks as well. Cant concentrate.

I feel like I lost a part of me. Its like the surgeon told me I had cancer and then kicked me figuratively so I couldn’t read.

I keep trying though. Dear God do I keep trying. The farthest I have been able to go is page 76 in an eBook. I couldn’t go any farther.

I have tried again. I am at page 45 of my current book. I hope and pray that I can finish it. It would make me feel so much better about myself.

High hopes

I have an appointment with the Pain Management Clinic at the cancer hospital on Wednesday. I have such high hopes. I hope they aren’t for nought.

I have been in loads of pain since that operation. The doctors gave me pain meds but are now reluctant as what I am on is addicting. I told the booking clerk this (dont ask) and she said they would ensure I had something for pain. Thus the high hopes.

I invited my social worker along. No idea why. I just felt he should be there. It will probably turn into another one of my bright ideas gone wrong.

But at least these people will listen, right?  And they will make me better?

Terrified of outside

I have noticed that I am not the same person that I was before the surgery. I have been in the confines of my apartment for 2 months. I don’t want to leave it.

I feel safe in the apartment. The minute I have to get dressed and cross the threshold into the outside world I get scared. I only plan to be out for an hour at most. I get so scared that the pain is going to hit me when I am out and I wont know what to do or how to cope.

My body controls my life now. I know that is wrong but that is what my life has become. I am so lost in this new part or phase of my life. I don’t know how to cope.

I managed to go to the supermarket today. I ended up pulling a muscle. So I sit here crying my heart out because I just cant win.

I don’t want to leave the house anymore. Not unless I absolutely have to.

Hydromorphone and Me

I have been on Hydromorphone for pain for 8 weeks now. My cunt of a surgeon wanted me off. I was taking the pills every four hours. She wanted me to drop to every 8 hours then off. I talked to the pharmacy and they thought she was crazy. I was taking meds every 4 hours at the time. So I started reducing slowly. Then the pain hit.

Murderous pain. And burning. And spasms. And heaviness. I called the pharmacy and they told me to start going back up. I had only gotten to 1 tablet ever five and a half hours. Thats it.

The pain clinic called and made an appointment for next week Wednesday. They will help me. More on them later.

It just gets under my skin that I couldnt do it. When given a challenge I push myself to try and meet and exceed it. I failed. And that, pardon the pun, is a hard pill to swallow.

So I have had to go back up to every four hours. The worst part about this is I have to let my medical team know that this has occurred. Which means hours wasted on the phone and explaining myself hoarse about what has occurred. And getting treated like a junkie. I’m not. I’m an ex-junkie who has a lot of fother-mucking PAIN.

The ER Experience

(NOTE: I wrote this originally on my phone on Saturday…this has been transferred from my phone to here…nothing has been changed).

I am writing this from my bed in the Emergency Department of my local hospital.  So far I have been yelled at, treated like a retard, had a cursory exam and blood work, a bladder scan where the nurse couldn’t find my bladder and am trying to will my body to put enough urine in my bladder to let me give a sample.

Why am I here?  I have been having bladder spasms and have been unable to sit for 2 days. Today is day 3.  Last night the spasms were so intense I was screaming. I knew I would end up in hospital. Question is, am I in the right one.

I have heard horror stories about this hospital. But they had no wait. The hospital where I had my surgery had a 3 hour wait. I went where I knew I would be seen quickly. Yet still I wait because I cant give them my body fluids. Stupid right?

I am scared out of my skull.  I don‘t feel safe. I don’t know what that cunt of a surgeon did to me. But its not good. She may have saved my life but she maimed me or disabled me in the process. Death would be welcome. Honestly. This is ridiculous.

UPDATE:  I have a bladder infection. To read back what I wrote makes me sound like a blithering idiot. Sorry. *shrug*