En Espiritus Sanctimonious Complicitus de Biopsis Catatonious-Part 1
For those of you who were wondering....
Quite why I've been the way I've been lately, it's a series of long (very) stories. I think I'm about at the final straw right now.
As some of you know... I have been in and out of the hospital quite a bit lately, to the point that the ER doctors know me by name (not exactly true, but almost).
Last week, before the 4th (at which, believe it or not, I managed to break three bones in my foot by inadvertently fighting with a large, buried, rock... it won) I had been feeling sick enough to have seen my doctor, then end up in the ER here at Memorial... Again. I wasn't feeling well, and had a large lump (actually two) suddenly(!) appear in the left side of my neck. Went to the "walk-in" clinic, for my appointment... and ended up (after 3 hours) being AMBULANCED from there to the actual hospital ER.
Now, there are good reasons for using the ambulance. Primary amongst them is that it gets you directly into a room (well, usually), avoiding the triage, wait, fill out papers, wait, wait, wait, wait, and did I mention wait? OK, good. This was particularly important because I had been to the walk-in clinic the day before, checked out, given strong anti-biotics, and sent home with instructions to come back the next day if it wasn't better. It wasn't. I felt (much) worse. So, off I went, and in the process discover my blood sugar level is 369. Oops? That was on almost nothing to eat, so I KNEW there was something (more than slightly) wrong. Doc wanted me to see an "ENT" specialist and get it x-rayed.
They were more worried about my sugar level than what was bothering me, and could have be (still might be) yet another cellulitis infection, this time in the lymph nodes of my neck. No matter what it was/is, that is what is commonly called "a bad place." Needle-less (I wish!) to say, they asked me 64,000 questions about my diabetes, and sort of ignored the lumps. I should have raised a stink because that was/is a symptom, not the cause.
I don't understand why a DOCTOR will do things like:
"How long have you been a diabetic?" "Since 1991" "And on insulin?" "Since 1992" "Have you tried [naming a list of glyburides, glipicides, otc garbage, etc.]?" "Yep, worthless..." "Do you use a sliding scale for high sugar conditions?" "Yes" "Your blood sugar is over 350, how much would you be using?" "I am extremely 'insulin-resistant', much to my desires, so I would start with 25 units sub-cute, wait 15-30 minutes and re-take my sugar level... at times I have had to use as much as 75 units to bring it down... BUT THAT's NOT MY PROBLEM." "It's not? What is?" "What is CAUSING the blood sugar rise is almost always some sort of infection in my system..." "We need to get your sugar under control first" "Good luck... you won't" "I'll be back"
Sounds like the Terminator to me. The nurse came in about 10 minutes later with NINE units of insulin for me. I explained it wouldn't do much and was told that I could "refuse the medication" at which time, of course, they would have to write that up and release me since I was refusing assistance. BUT what about my neck, and these lumps and seeing the ENT doctor which is why I was sent over in an ambulance? Reply... Blood sugar first. Sigh. OK, but nine units won't make a dent. 15 minutes later, another test decided that my blood sugar had RISEN to 410... even worse!
Then NOTHING, not even a glass of water, for the next several hours. No one talked to me, nothing. Yep. Doctor got involved with someone else... shift changed, they forgot about me. Yelling at the nurses got nowhere "We're waiting for the doctors to tell us what to do, your blood sugar from the IV draw is up to 449". I waited THREE more hours, dozing off now and then, but having IAmCompuBear being there, talking to me, keeping me alive.
I finally got angry, and had her hand me the phone, and called the hospital operator for a "patient rep". There wasn't one available on Saturday, but she got the floor nurse. I yelled a little. She ran for my records, discovered that the doctor who was supposed to be seeing me had left and gone home, and ALMOST panicked. She got another doctor, got things moving, and tried VERY hard to fix the mistake. They eventually ran me off for an x-ray, gave me 900mg of clindamycin IV, 10 units of insulin ... but IV, and dilautin for my pain instead of the useless percocets they had given me hours before. And, we discovered that in the prior week I had lost almost 10 pounds. I didn't mind losing the weight... it was the way and speed of it that bothered/bothers me.
Results? Sent home on more oral Clindamycin, with a bunch of papers to take to my REGULAR doctor which said all over them... "Diagnosis: unknown. Prognosis: unable to determine. Cause: unknown.... etc.", a suggestion to see my "PCP" in the next week (I already had an appointment), and to "rest, get plenty of fluids, see my PCP, and come back if it got worse." Also, I was told "It's probably a virus" "Then why the anti-biotics, they don't work on viruses?" "Well, to keep you from getting any bacterial infection ... with your history, you knoiw"
OK...
I was also told "Well, it's not communicable"
OK... I asked them "If it's not communicable, how the heck did I get it?"
Did I know anyone else with the symptoms, etc? No. Then it was obviously not communicable, even though it was unknown.
Great.
I went home, crawled into bed, and spent Sunday there, and part of Monday, until I got up, ready, and went down to the "Buffalo Bar-B-Q" to play my set with my brother Doug. I was high... I know that. I didn't look at the guitar, and relied on muscle memory to play things because I couldn't remember how they went. It worked, and queued my mind for the words. We did a pretty decent set considering the number of compliments we both got from people we didn't know (and a few we did, but had never said anything even nice to us).
Hung out, helped out on a few things. Had people come up to me to tell me how great we sounded. And I don't remember who they were, or most of what we played. My memory, which was one of those things that set me apart and made me the programmer/designer/analyst I was, is deteriorating in strange ways... which I won't go into here and now. But I really DO miss my mind more than almost anything else.
Manitou put on one of the best damned fireworks shows I have ever seen. Blew away Boulder's. It lasted almost 30 minutes. BTW: It's done by the VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT, completely on donations. The city itself doesn't even have to contribute a penny to it, other than allowing the use of the equipment and such to make sure we don't burn down the side of the mountain (which could be a bit embarrassing).
By the end, all the pain meds had worn off, my energy was somewhere in South Pueblo, and I was beyond exhaustion. I knew that the Anti-Biotics weren't doing any real good (not hurting, but certainly not helping). I KNEW there was still "somethngi wORng".
During cleanup, afterward, helping wrap wires and cables and all that happy junk, while I was lifting an orange traffic cone, I swung my foot around just as someone turned off the lights, and lost my battle with the scorpion king.... er, the rock. I thought I had only jammed a toe, or broken a toe. But it swelled up a lot, hurt like heck to walk on it, and a week later (well, actually the following Saturday) I found out I had broken three bones (small breaks, but still real broken bones), for which I now have a "boot" (no cast, diabetes again - they want me to be able to check my feet and such, and get a wash and oil change on them, etc.) I can also take it off at night so I stand a chance of sleep.
[Watch for Part 2]