Call 1-800-295-0051. When you are asked if you want to continue in English or Spanish, don't choose either one, wait about 10 seconds, listen to the options and press 4. Then press 7 in the next set of options. If your phone has a mute button use it, because any noise (including laughter) resets it.
I literally howled with laughter.
04 December 2009
No mother-in-law blues for me
By nature I am a people-pleaser. I am the kind of person who wants people to like me, and I like people in general. When someone doesn't like me, I feel bad/sad/worried. If I am in a situation in which I want to especially please people, unfortunately, I tend to become tongue-tied and nervous.
This brings me to my mother-in-law. I want my mother-in-law to like me. I really want that. She's never exhibited any behavior that makes me think otherwise, but I am still (after over 9 years of marriage) worried that I might say or do something to make her not like me. So I tend to be overly nervous around my MiL, say stupid things, and occasionally behave like a dolt. Mostly because I want her to like me. Add that to a constitutional inability to ask people for help, and you get sort of a mental quagmire. But I waded through it, called up my MiL (who has never been anything but nice to me, remember), and asked if she would come help us.
She immediately agreed and arrived this past Monday. My MiL is not a traveler. She likes to stay close to home. Her usual visits are about 36 hours, which inevitably make ThePinkThing grumpy (why can't Grammy stay longer?) and sad. But this time my MiL stayed for 3 days. And it was great. Fabulous. Wonderful. She entertained TPT (in actuality, TH and I tend to become invisible when Grammy is around), yakked with me during the day, cleaned stuff up, had lots of chat-time with her son, and was a boon to the household.
I can't thank her enough for taking the time away from work to come and mother/grandmother this household, which was sorely in need of it.
And now, perhaps, I will be less nervous around my MiL, and our relationship will be easier.
Note that my MiL reads this blog -- I am not writing this for her or for daughter-in-law brownie points. I am already her favorite DiL (okay, I am her only DiL, so the competition is not fierce). I am writing this because the visit went so well that I wanted to comment on how I hope it helps me get over my overly-nervous behavior around her (no, my MiL will not eat me) and that things will be better in the future. Which is deserving of a "YAY!"
This brings me to my mother-in-law. I want my mother-in-law to like me. I really want that. She's never exhibited any behavior that makes me think otherwise, but I am still (after over 9 years of marriage) worried that I might say or do something to make her not like me. So I tend to be overly nervous around my MiL, say stupid things, and occasionally behave like a dolt. Mostly because I want her to like me. Add that to a constitutional inability to ask people for help, and you get sort of a mental quagmire. But I waded through it, called up my MiL (who has never been anything but nice to me, remember), and asked if she would come help us.
She immediately agreed and arrived this past Monday. My MiL is not a traveler. She likes to stay close to home. Her usual visits are about 36 hours, which inevitably make ThePinkThing grumpy (why can't Grammy stay longer?) and sad. But this time my MiL stayed for 3 days. And it was great. Fabulous. Wonderful. She entertained TPT (in actuality, TH and I tend to become invisible when Grammy is around), yakked with me during the day, cleaned stuff up, had lots of chat-time with her son, and was a boon to the household.
I can't thank her enough for taking the time away from work to come and mother/grandmother this household, which was sorely in need of it.
And now, perhaps, I will be less nervous around my MiL, and our relationship will be easier.
Note that my MiL reads this blog -- I am not writing this for her or for daughter-in-law brownie points. I am already her favorite DiL (okay, I am her only DiL, so the competition is not fierce). I am writing this because the visit went so well that I wanted to comment on how I hope it helps me get over my overly-nervous behavior around her (no, my MiL will not eat me) and that things will be better in the future. Which is deserving of a "YAY!"
02 December 2009
Happy neurosurgeon is a happy patient
Saw the neurosurgeon on Monday. He is pleased with my recovery so far. I am recovering as quickly as he was expecting me to (barring the bonus DVT and PE). The level of back pain is exactly as he expected. He wants me to see the rehab doc and start planning outpatient rehab.
There is only one thing about my recovery that I don't agree with and really can't stand. He expects me to be off work until January. Ummm, no -- can't do that. I'll go totally nuts. But he understands my need to get back to work, being a doctor himself. So I will try to work from home for a couple of hours a day beginning next Monday (12/7). I suspect that my supervisor and coworkers will be happy. I won't reappear at the office until after the new year, but I need to get back to work. Need to. I am looking forward to getting back into the swing of things...
There is only one thing about my recovery that I don't agree with and really can't stand. He expects me to be off work until January. Ummm, no -- can't do that. I'll go totally nuts. But he understands my need to get back to work, being a doctor himself. So I will try to work from home for a couple of hours a day beginning next Monday (12/7). I suspect that my supervisor and coworkers will be happy. I won't reappear at the office until after the new year, but I need to get back to work. Need to. I am looking forward to getting back into the swing of things...
01 December 2009
I am a statistic
It's really difficult to identify how many medical mistakes occur each year, even during hospitalizations. There was a study published in 2000 by the Institute of Medicine that estimated that 98,000 patients die in American hospitals each year due to medical errors. But these numbers are really difficult to substantiate -- and nobody has a clue as to how many survivable medical mistakes occur.
I know that I have made incorrect diagnoses on more than one occasion (hello, that is why we have 2nd opinions...), but I do not believe that any of my errors have directly led to the death of a patient. The closest I came was during residency, when I forgot to order DVT (deep vein thrombosis -- blood clot in the deep veins of the legs) precautions in a new stroke patient. DVT precautions haven't changed in the past 15 years -- compression stockings and/or compression boots (boot thingies that inflate and deflate, squeezing and relaxing the calf and thigh muscles). If for some reason these methods are unacceptable, then the docs use low-dose blood thinners.
Well, I forgot to order the compression boots, and in the middle of the night on this patient's 4th post-stroke day, she suddenly developed shortness of breath and low oxygenation. Not only had she developed a DVT, she had also developed a pulmonary embolus (PE) -- when a piece of the clot in the leg breaks off, moves upstream in the venous system and ends up in the lung(s). Thankfully, the patient survived, although her stroke recovery was not very good (and unrelated to the DVT/PE, most likely). However, I never forgot DVT precautions on any patient thereafter.
This leads to my recent hospital experience.
Post-operatively, I was given SCD's (the compression boots) and compression stockings. However, I literally couldn't stand the damn squeezing of those boots -- inflate, deflate, inflate, deflate. It was making me crazy, to the point where I literally ripped them off my legs. I told the nurse that I refused to wear them, that I couldn't stand it. I have no idea if she passed on this incident to the neurosurgical PA's or not. If she didn't, then she should have ("bad patient in room 3004 is NOT cooperating with the DVT precautions"). If she did report it, nothing was done about it, and something should have been. That leads to the reason why my hospitalization was 14 days instead of 5 or 6.
You see, I developed some mild right leg pain on day 5 or 6, but on day 7, my right leg began to hurt like hell -- worse than my back post-op and worse than the left leg pre-op. It was a different pain, sort of crampy, and drawing up. I told the nurse who passed it on to the neurosurgical PA. The leg wasn't swollen when compared to the other one, but the PA ordered an ultrasound to rule out a blood clot. "Just in case."
Now we all know how hard it is to get any useful information about a test from a technician. Try asking the MRI tech what your MRI showed, and they always say something like "the radiologist has to review it first." I wasn't going to accept any answer like that from the ultrasound technician. So I played the doctor card -- I said that I fully well understood that a physician would provide the final reading of the ultrasound but that I also knew she did this day in and day out. She actually capitulated and told me that yes there was a clot extending from the calf to the lower thigh in the right leg. Fuck, I thought. Fuckfuckfuck. Literally, by the time I got back up to my room, the nurses and the PA already had the final reading which was still "clot."
One treats clots like these with blood thinners, to prevent spread of the clot or pieces breaking off and lodging in less pleasant places. I was started on a drug I'd never heard of (Arixtra), which was supposed to get me fully anti-coagulated within 24 hours. "Fine" I thought. At that point I was placed on bedrest, which was not much more activity than I was actually doing. Except bedrest meant no bathroom privileges, and I had to use the dreaded bedpan. 'Nuff said about that.
Later that evening, around 11 pm, I awoke with left-sided chest pain, shortness of breath, and heart palpitations. I knew exactly what was going on, and for the first time, being a doctor was a major detriment. You see, I realized that a chunk of the clot had broken off, traveled up through the venous system and ended up in my left lung. Nobody could poo-poo me, or say "everything'll be alright", because I knew exactly what a pulmonary embolus was and that I was in danger for my life. They put me on oxygen which thankfully made the oxygen saturation of my blood go from about 84% on room air to 100% on oxygen. Someone finally got an IV in me and they gave me morphine which helped the chest pain. I was transferred to an intermediate care unit, which they do for all patients with pulmonary emboli (the blood clot to the lung). I called TheHusband and tried to minimize the situation. However, he consulted the University of Google ("blood clot, leg, lung") and found out a lot more than I wanted him to. He then spent a sleepless night.
I remained on the Arixtra and Coumadin (warfarin, aka rat poison) was added -- it is the only effective oral blood thinner available on the market. Eventually I had 98-100% oxygen saturation on room air, and the blood was thinning out nicely, so I was finally discharged, about a week after I should have been.
So even though I am a doctor, paranoid to the max about medical stuff, was being taken care of by an experienced medical team and an excellent neurosurgeon, I am also a medical statistic. A medical mistake. And because of my inability to tolerate the compression boots, I almost died, and now I'll be on blood thinners for the next 6 months at least. But I am grateful and thankful and lucky and happy to still be around...
I know that I have made incorrect diagnoses on more than one occasion (hello, that is why we have 2nd opinions...), but I do not believe that any of my errors have directly led to the death of a patient. The closest I came was during residency, when I forgot to order DVT (deep vein thrombosis -- blood clot in the deep veins of the legs) precautions in a new stroke patient. DVT precautions haven't changed in the past 15 years -- compression stockings and/or compression boots (boot thingies that inflate and deflate, squeezing and relaxing the calf and thigh muscles). If for some reason these methods are unacceptable, then the docs use low-dose blood thinners.
Well, I forgot to order the compression boots, and in the middle of the night on this patient's 4th post-stroke day, she suddenly developed shortness of breath and low oxygenation. Not only had she developed a DVT, she had also developed a pulmonary embolus (PE) -- when a piece of the clot in the leg breaks off, moves upstream in the venous system and ends up in the lung(s). Thankfully, the patient survived, although her stroke recovery was not very good (and unrelated to the DVT/PE, most likely). However, I never forgot DVT precautions on any patient thereafter.
This leads to my recent hospital experience.
Post-operatively, I was given SCD's (the compression boots) and compression stockings. However, I literally couldn't stand the damn squeezing of those boots -- inflate, deflate, inflate, deflate. It was making me crazy, to the point where I literally ripped them off my legs. I told the nurse that I refused to wear them, that I couldn't stand it. I have no idea if she passed on this incident to the neurosurgical PA's or not. If she didn't, then she should have ("bad patient in room 3004 is NOT cooperating with the DVT precautions"). If she did report it, nothing was done about it, and something should have been. That leads to the reason why my hospitalization was 14 days instead of 5 or 6.
You see, I developed some mild right leg pain on day 5 or 6, but on day 7, my right leg began to hurt like hell -- worse than my back post-op and worse than the left leg pre-op. It was a different pain, sort of crampy, and drawing up. I told the nurse who passed it on to the neurosurgical PA. The leg wasn't swollen when compared to the other one, but the PA ordered an ultrasound to rule out a blood clot. "Just in case."
Now we all know how hard it is to get any useful information about a test from a technician. Try asking the MRI tech what your MRI showed, and they always say something like "the radiologist has to review it first." I wasn't going to accept any answer like that from the ultrasound technician. So I played the doctor card -- I said that I fully well understood that a physician would provide the final reading of the ultrasound but that I also knew she did this day in and day out. She actually capitulated and told me that yes there was a clot extending from the calf to the lower thigh in the right leg. Fuck, I thought. Fuckfuckfuck. Literally, by the time I got back up to my room, the nurses and the PA already had the final reading which was still "clot."
One treats clots like these with blood thinners, to prevent spread of the clot or pieces breaking off and lodging in less pleasant places. I was started on a drug I'd never heard of (Arixtra), which was supposed to get me fully anti-coagulated within 24 hours. "Fine" I thought. At that point I was placed on bedrest, which was not much more activity than I was actually doing. Except bedrest meant no bathroom privileges, and I had to use the dreaded bedpan. 'Nuff said about that.
Later that evening, around 11 pm, I awoke with left-sided chest pain, shortness of breath, and heart palpitations. I knew exactly what was going on, and for the first time, being a doctor was a major detriment. You see, I realized that a chunk of the clot had broken off, traveled up through the venous system and ended up in my left lung. Nobody could poo-poo me, or say "everything'll be alright", because I knew exactly what a pulmonary embolus was and that I was in danger for my life. They put me on oxygen which thankfully made the oxygen saturation of my blood go from about 84% on room air to 100% on oxygen. Someone finally got an IV in me and they gave me morphine which helped the chest pain. I was transferred to an intermediate care unit, which they do for all patients with pulmonary emboli (the blood clot to the lung). I called TheHusband and tried to minimize the situation. However, he consulted the University of Google ("blood clot, leg, lung") and found out a lot more than I wanted him to. He then spent a sleepless night.
I remained on the Arixtra and Coumadin (warfarin, aka rat poison) was added -- it is the only effective oral blood thinner available on the market. Eventually I had 98-100% oxygen saturation on room air, and the blood was thinning out nicely, so I was finally discharged, about a week after I should have been.
So even though I am a doctor, paranoid to the max about medical stuff, was being taken care of by an experienced medical team and an excellent neurosurgeon, I am also a medical statistic. A medical mistake. And because of my inability to tolerate the compression boots, I almost died, and now I'll be on blood thinners for the next 6 months at least. But I am grateful and thankful and lucky and happy to still be around...
30 November 2009
Happy Birthday Mom!
Today is my mom's birthday. I am taking the time to wish her a happy natal day, at least in part because if she weren't here, I wouldn't be. :-)
Thanks for being my help when I needed you, especially earlier this month when I was in hospital.
Have a happy day, and many more!
Thanks for being my help when I needed you, especially earlier this month when I was in hospital.
Have a happy day, and many more!
29 November 2009
More RED
This year's plans for Thanksgiving were completely bollixed up by the back surgery I had earlier this month. My extended family gets together every 3rd year, so we have begun to go to my in-laws for Turkey Day the other two years. This year would have been the 2nd in a row spent with my in-laws, which they did not mind in the least. Unfortunately, I was unable to handle that long of a car ride, and I was not quite well enough to be left here by myself. So we had to cancel our plans. TheHusband and ThePinkThing went to local extended family, and a friend came over and spent the afternoon with me. It worked out beautifully. TPT played with her 4 year-old cousin, TH had some adult conversation, and I had a completely relaxing and uncomplicated Turkey Day with a friend. I wish, in a way, that all of my Thanksgiving holidays were that relaxed.
But even though I have basically gone through hell during my hospitalization, I felt like TheHusband really deserved something special because he's had to deal with me in all my emotionally freaky glory these past 3 weeks.
So I arranged for a delivery of RED. RED? you ask. Yes, RED. RED soda -- that cheap stuff that TH loves, that can only be found in the Cleveland Ohio area -- Cotton Club's Cherry Strawberry soda. One of my coworkers went home to the Cleveland area for Thanksgiving, and I arranged for him to bring back some of it. It turns out that he brought back a whole boatload of the stuff. Here you see the haul -- the product of a visit to 2 different stores.
Please note that one can is missing. It's already been opened, sampled, finished, and found very acceptable. I'm betting that ten 2 liter bottles and 48 cans last about a month and a half.
Many thanks to my coworker (who even refused payment). I may have to take him out for sushi in compensation (mmm, sushi). Once I am up and about.
I really have great coworkers...
But even though I have basically gone through hell during my hospitalization, I felt like TheHusband really deserved something special because he's had to deal with me in all my emotionally freaky glory these past 3 weeks.So I arranged for a delivery of RED. RED? you ask. Yes, RED. RED soda -- that cheap stuff that TH loves, that can only be found in the Cleveland Ohio area -- Cotton Club's Cherry Strawberry soda. One of my coworkers went home to the Cleveland area for Thanksgiving, and I arranged for him to bring back some of it. It turns out that he brought back a whole boatload of the stuff. Here you see the haul -- the product of a visit to 2 different stores.
Please note that one can is missing. It's already been opened, sampled, finished, and found very acceptable. I'm betting that ten 2 liter bottles and 48 cans last about a month and a half.Many thanks to my coworker (who even refused payment). I may have to take him out for sushi in compensation (mmm, sushi). Once I am up and about.
I really have great coworkers...
22 November 2009
Early morning emergency (including crying)
(Scene: 7:20 am, my bedroom, TheHusband and I asleep.)
ThePinkThing (standing at TH's side of the bed): Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
TheHusband: Wuh. Huh?
TPT: Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
TH: Whassa matter? What's wrong?
TPT: You ate my Halloween candy!!
TH (brain clearly still gummy): I only ate 3 pieces.
TPT: That was MY candy. And you ate more than that. You ate like 50 pieces.
TH: No, I didn't eat 50 pieces of your Halloween candy. I ate a few pieces last night.
TPT: Waaah! That's my candy, not yours.
TH: Okay, I won't eat anymore of your Halloween candy.
(pause)
TPT: Will you turn on The Magic School Bus for me?
(pause while TH goes downstairs then returns)
TH: Do you know that she found and looked in the random bag that I hid the candy wrappers? How the heck did she find that? And it's not like she'd have eaten the Almond Joys anyway...
--For a change, there was a household emergency that did not involve me.--
ThePinkThing (standing at TH's side of the bed): Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
TheHusband: Wuh. Huh?
TPT: Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
TH: Whassa matter? What's wrong?
TPT: You ate my Halloween candy!!
TH (brain clearly still gummy): I only ate 3 pieces.
TPT: That was MY candy. And you ate more than that. You ate like 50 pieces.
TH: No, I didn't eat 50 pieces of your Halloween candy. I ate a few pieces last night.
TPT: Waaah! That's my candy, not yours.
TH: Okay, I won't eat anymore of your Halloween candy.
(pause)
TPT: Will you turn on The Magic School Bus for me?
(pause while TH goes downstairs then returns)
TH: Do you know that she found and looked in the random bag that I hid the candy wrappers? How the heck did she find that? And it's not like she'd have eaten the Almond Joys anyway...
--For a change, there was a household emergency that did not involve me.--
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