My very long ordeal and solicting opinions

[Guest guest]

I'm sitting here livid and could use some direction. I had posted a

bit ago about abdominal pain, not sure if I followed up on it or not

but here goes with what happened with me, bear with me it gets

unbelievable.

Back in August I was helping DH move furniture and created a nice

little internal hernia for myself. At the time no pain so I didn't

put two and two together but over the months the pain got worse and

worse and more often. Finally the last straw was putting up the

Christmas tree but again didn't make association thought it might be

an ulcer. Well on 12/3 DH took me to the ER of a large local

hospital; I was one hurting pup. I sat and sat and eventually they

saw me (like 6+ hours later) and medicated me but by the time they

got to the cat scan pain was gone (we are talking pain way worse

than gallstones). It would come on fast and leave just as fast (big

clue they ignored). Anyhow they got a well known GI doc involved

and I got an endoscopy and a colonoscopy (both ends looked okey

dokey) and they discharged me. I came home with a parting gift, the

flu, so I wasn't doing much to set off the hernia but once I started

feeling better, IE lifting and moving around I had the pain back.

It got so bad the beginning of last month I thought I was going to

die and had DH take me back to ER (I should have gone back to

surgeon but he was 3 hrs away and I was waiting to get over the flu

and holidays to see him). They had me on morphine, demerol, some

pain med that starts with an A, phenegren, and finally gave me an

acid reducer and an NG tube (once they spoke with my surgeon and he

DX'd me as an obstruction via the phone). I have never been in so

much pain in my life. DH was in ER with our three year old and I

had him leave because I seriously thought I was going to die and

didn't want her to remember me in such pain. I was sitting up in

the stretcher, strung out on pain meds still in pain slumped over a

basin they gave me trying to heave and of course nothing happening.

They had called in a local surgeon but he did not want to operate on

me and they were going to discharge me, yes you heard it right

discharge me with the pain and have my DH take me to Ocala. They

finally decided it wasn't in my best interest to disconnect the NG

tube and IV and had an ambulance haul me the three hours to the

doctor in Ocala. What was happening was my small intestine was

folding over into a herniated spot right at the Y of the procedure.

It was causing my lower stapled off stomach to distend with gastric

juices, which accounted for my left side pain. God was really

looking out for me, if my stomach had perforated I probably would

not be typing this email (according to surgeon and another doctor).

My surgeon was able to fix this in under 1/2 hour the following

morning (it had unkinked on the way to the other hospital) and so

far so good.

Now the unbelievable part. A good friend of mine told me today the

whole reason they did not want to treat me. Her DH is a doctor

there and the head of the ER group told him they do not treat

patients operated on my Ocala docs because the doctors there do not

carry malpractice insurance and they (the ER docs) do not want to

assume the liability if the patient sues (not knowing I would find

out of course and of course I have no way of proving this little gem

of information). I called my Dr and apparently I am the third

patient they misdiagnosed and shipped off to Ocala. The other

surgeon has had patient care issues (ok higher mortality rate) but

my doctor is very well known for his skill, which I can attest to

firsthand (and has insurance). My doctor even contated the ER group

here after my surgery and offered to do a seminar on how to diagnose

issues in a gastric bypass patient but they want nothing to do with

it I was told.

I feel like I need to do something for fear that if I do not

eventually they are going to kill someone in the process of

their " care " here. I am just not sure exactly what I can do. I do

not want to risk my friend's husband's job in the process but I

would really like to get their attention that they cannot just do

this to people. The first time I was in the ER the doctor caring for

me said Oh we get a lot of gastric bypass patients with unspecified

abdominal pain.... The second time I was in a similar comment was

made but I can't quote it word for word, I was too drugged up.

I should add that the hospital with the ER was probably 10 times

larger than the hospital they sent me to in Ocala and is adding on

to their facility to be the largest ER in the area.

All opinions welcome, I really am struggling with what to do.

Sherrie