Be good to your colon...
Eat your fiber and drink lots of water folks, believe me, you'll be happier if you do.
As some of you may know I've been suffering a nasty case of diverticulitis. It's nasty, I'll tell you that. All told I was out of work for eleven days, the first five of which were pure agony. I've never slept so much, nor struggled to find comfort so much as I did in those first five or six days. The pain started on April 20, just after we'd had lunch at my in-laws, by night fall we were leaving messages for the on-call doctor at our family physician's office. I've never seen the doctor that returned our call but he was a dick to say the least. He seemed actually annoyed with my call and just told me to go to the emergency room if it felt that bad, I remember saying "is that it?" expecting some logic behind what he thought might require such a drastic move but I got nothing in return. We ended up driving out to the hospital but not going in after the pain lessened some on the drive over. I just can't take a trip to the ER lightly, that shit's expensive, and while I do have insurance I don't have the kind that just pays for everything either, but that's another story.
The following morning I made an appointment with our GP, actually a doctor's assistant, everybody else was booked up. He prodded around a little, asked me some questions, stuck his finger in my ass and ultimately decided on diverticulitis. He wrote a scrip for Cipro and sent me on my way with the warning that if it didn't get any better or indeed got worse that I should go to the ER, but 99 out of 100 said I'd be fine.
So, of course it got worse. The following day, Wednesday, I laid on the couch in complete and utter pain. I called and left a message for the doc and eventually they called back to reiterate that I should go to the ER. I couldn't take myself so I laid there until the Mrs. got home and she took me to Atrium Medical Center in Middletown. This proved to be a rather large mistake and a complete waste of time.
Everybody has heard the horror stories about going to the ER and sitting in the waiting room for hours before even being seen. In this one regard I can compliment Atrium, because I had none of that. It was maybe twenty five minutes from the front door to an exam room. This is where the pleasant surprises ended. Step one was putting on that one size fits all some hospital gown which choked me around the neck and didn't come anywhere close to covering my backside. Step two was laying down on the hospital exam table which is much like laying on a sheet of plywood, or with the head inclined is much like laying on a sheet of plywood plus you're constantly fighting to keep the bend in your waist in the same position as the bend in the table which is a losing battle. Step three was nearly freezing to death, damn that place was cold. None of this would have been so bad if I'd not been in pretty much this exact state for nearly eight straight hours.
At least two hours went by in the exam room before I was seen by any one at all and then only a nurse and she only took some vitals. The doctor came in a little after and immediately poo-pooed (pardon the pun) the notion of diverticulitis and was sure that it was merely muscular/skeletal pain. I don't know about you but I can tell the difference between muscle pain and excruciating insides pain, personally my muscles don't gurgle and or churn, maybe others' do, I don't know. Sometime later the nurse came back with an IV with which she was not at all gentle causing me to bleed like a stuck pig, and a shot of pain medicine that did nothing at all. The ER doctor opted to do a CT scan, which I later learned is useless in detecting diverticulitis unless it's a contrasted scan (ie. drinking the barium sulfate crap first) which showed nothing of any major importance.
After several more hours of turmoil, much of which was due to the way I was positioned on the exam table, I was eventually given a shot of morphine, which made me sick as a dog, and sent home with a prescription for a muscle relaxer and a note to follow up with my GP the next day.
Back at the GP's office the next day I saw my usual doctor. He'd heard horror stories about Atrium and seemed to be generally of the opinion that the doctor I saw didn't know what he was doing and should treat his patients, not their test results. He felt sure that diverticulitis was still the correct diagnosis and prescribed another antibiotic that he felt was more effective in this particular scenario and again sent me home to rest and put me out of work for at least a week. He also gave me some pain medicine which was more than welcome and put me on a "mushy foods" diet which would have been less welcome if I'd been inclined to eat anything at all, which I wasn't.
Long story short it's gotten steadily better since the second visit to the GP. I went back in last Wednesday for a follow-up and a contrasted CT scan which showed nothing major. Further reading shows the presence of diverticulum which leads the doctor to believe that his diagnosis was accurate and I'd say since the treatment has been effective that I'd agree. I saw him again yesterday to get the all clear and am back at work as of this morning. I'm still not at 100% but compared to being on the couch 24/7 like I was the first week this is a drastic improvement.
Up next is all of the disability paperwork that I've got to deal with and fighting some of Atrium's impending bill which, I'm sorry, they didn't earn. I'll also find out how much I'm going to be on the hook for personally, it'll just depend on what Atrium tries to gouge us out of.
As some of you may know I've been suffering a nasty case of diverticulitis. It's nasty, I'll tell you that. All told I was out of work for eleven days, the first five of which were pure agony. I've never slept so much, nor struggled to find comfort so much as I did in those first five or six days. The pain started on April 20, just after we'd had lunch at my in-laws, by night fall we were leaving messages for the on-call doctor at our family physician's office. I've never seen the doctor that returned our call but he was a dick to say the least. He seemed actually annoyed with my call and just told me to go to the emergency room if it felt that bad, I remember saying "is that it?" expecting some logic behind what he thought might require such a drastic move but I got nothing in return. We ended up driving out to the hospital but not going in after the pain lessened some on the drive over. I just can't take a trip to the ER lightly, that shit's expensive, and while I do have insurance I don't have the kind that just pays for everything either, but that's another story.
The following morning I made an appointment with our GP, actually a doctor's assistant, everybody else was booked up. He prodded around a little, asked me some questions, stuck his finger in my ass and ultimately decided on diverticulitis. He wrote a scrip for Cipro and sent me on my way with the warning that if it didn't get any better or indeed got worse that I should go to the ER, but 99 out of 100 said I'd be fine.
So, of course it got worse. The following day, Wednesday, I laid on the couch in complete and utter pain. I called and left a message for the doc and eventually they called back to reiterate that I should go to the ER. I couldn't take myself so I laid there until the Mrs. got home and she took me to Atrium Medical Center in Middletown. This proved to be a rather large mistake and a complete waste of time.
Everybody has heard the horror stories about going to the ER and sitting in the waiting room for hours before even being seen. In this one regard I can compliment Atrium, because I had none of that. It was maybe twenty five minutes from the front door to an exam room. This is where the pleasant surprises ended. Step one was putting on that one size fits all some hospital gown which choked me around the neck and didn't come anywhere close to covering my backside. Step two was laying down on the hospital exam table which is much like laying on a sheet of plywood, or with the head inclined is much like laying on a sheet of plywood plus you're constantly fighting to keep the bend in your waist in the same position as the bend in the table which is a losing battle. Step three was nearly freezing to death, damn that place was cold. None of this would have been so bad if I'd not been in pretty much this exact state for nearly eight straight hours.
At least two hours went by in the exam room before I was seen by any one at all and then only a nurse and she only took some vitals. The doctor came in a little after and immediately poo-pooed (pardon the pun) the notion of diverticulitis and was sure that it was merely muscular/skeletal pain. I don't know about you but I can tell the difference between muscle pain and excruciating insides pain, personally my muscles don't gurgle and or churn, maybe others' do, I don't know. Sometime later the nurse came back with an IV with which she was not at all gentle causing me to bleed like a stuck pig, and a shot of pain medicine that did nothing at all. The ER doctor opted to do a CT scan, which I later learned is useless in detecting diverticulitis unless it's a contrasted scan (ie. drinking the barium sulfate crap first) which showed nothing of any major importance.
After several more hours of turmoil, much of which was due to the way I was positioned on the exam table, I was eventually given a shot of morphine, which made me sick as a dog, and sent home with a prescription for a muscle relaxer and a note to follow up with my GP the next day.
Back at the GP's office the next day I saw my usual doctor. He'd heard horror stories about Atrium and seemed to be generally of the opinion that the doctor I saw didn't know what he was doing and should treat his patients, not their test results. He felt sure that diverticulitis was still the correct diagnosis and prescribed another antibiotic that he felt was more effective in this particular scenario and again sent me home to rest and put me out of work for at least a week. He also gave me some pain medicine which was more than welcome and put me on a "mushy foods" diet which would have been less welcome if I'd been inclined to eat anything at all, which I wasn't.
Long story short it's gotten steadily better since the second visit to the GP. I went back in last Wednesday for a follow-up and a contrasted CT scan which showed nothing major. Further reading shows the presence of diverticulum which leads the doctor to believe that his diagnosis was accurate and I'd say since the treatment has been effective that I'd agree. I saw him again yesterday to get the all clear and am back at work as of this morning. I'm still not at 100% but compared to being on the couch 24/7 like I was the first week this is a drastic improvement.
Up next is all of the disability paperwork that I've got to deal with and fighting some of Atrium's impending bill which, I'm sorry, they didn't earn. I'll also find out how much I'm going to be on the hook for personally, it'll just depend on what Atrium tries to gouge us out of.