Irene Update

[Guest guest]

She went to Hospital on Thursday for multiple things including

picking up CT results of CT's which were botched the first time and

making sure things were sent to her lung doctor which was problematic

because her primary as it turns out still hadn't made the referral,

but she got that straight. Various other things all came out of this.

They said something about her Carbon Dioxide but then she looked back

at tests which show it fine, so don't know about that. Although blood

clots were never completely confirmed or not, they did give

injections of thinner last week.

Well, after the injections she developed a severe pain in her

abdomen. As it intensified rather than going away, she went back to

ER after work last night. They then determined she has a hematoma in

her small intestine as a result of the needle there. (Leave out part

about me wanting to strangle nurse). She was sent home last night,

getting home I think around 2 AM or so, and told to return to the

hospital on Tuesday. Right now she is trying to reach her GI due to

the location of the hematoma but it in quite a bit of pain.

She still doesn't have a date for her lung doctor as it is to be

determined if she's urgent or not in their minds and apparently her

primary, because he can't pinpoint the cause of her breathing

problems doesn't consider it all that urgent. It seems like in Canada

the primary is suppose to make a specific diagnosis and then send you

for treatment of that. I guess urgent doesn't apply in their minds

when you're having problems breathing but they don't know why.

So, the nightmare of going around in circles continues. I think

sometimes Cigna and Apria must run the Ontario Province Health Care

system too. It's bad enough having all the problems, but when you

struggle so to get treatment, get CT's done for wrong disease, get

promised referrals and they don't get made, get careless injections

giving you hematoma's, get told you're not urgent because he can't

figure out what is wrong, get put on oxygen one trip to hospital and

the next told you have a carbon dioxide problem but tests don't show

and still waiting for lung doctor. WELL, IT AIN'T PENGUIN, thats for

sure.

She asked me to post as right now her pain is severe and when you

talk severe on an Irene scale, then its far beyond that on a normal

scale. I mean, this is the girl who checks out of the hospital at 8

AM, goes to catch train, and reports to work at 11 and when she was

completely out of breath at work and was talking to the ambulance

people described her pain but then tried to talk them into waiting 6

hours for her to finish her shift. Now, ultimately she does give in

and go to the hospital when its needed. Just the last 2-3 weeks have

been absurd beyond imagination.

Oh, and on top of all that she's lost 15 pounds. She's not eating

right (of course neither am I, but the difference is I'm not losing)

as can well be understood.

If I get an update before she's able to post, I will let everyone

know. Hope I got it all correct as its such a zoo there sometimes its

hard to keep straight, when they can't even keep straight why they're

doing a CT. She continues to amaze me with her strength,

perseverence, and somehow still incredibly good humor. Last night I

thought outloud while talking to her, where would you be if you

weren't so persistent with your doctors and working so hard to manage

your medical treatment. Well, I'm terrified to even imagine the

answer but I'm afraid her answer might well have been true.

Why do all of us with so many medical problems have to continue to

expend our energy and time and lives on getting proper care? Oh and

this anger I have at what she's being put through is before the

prednisone I'm taking for the next six days.