The Saga Continues…
Okay. Back Pain Flare-up, check. Small Intestine obstruction, check.
What’s next?
How about severe neck strain? Sure!
So this past Wednesday, I wasn’t feeling too hot; achy gut, etc. So I took off again Thursday and Friday (another bad day) to try to be sure the intestinal crap (or lack of crap there-of) wasn’t going to resurface. Being at work when one of those intestine attacks happen — BAD idea. My neck & shoulder were also aching pretty fiercely, too, sharp pains centered at two points at the base of my neck and middle of the shoulder-blade edge (the Percoset previously mentioned on Sunday barely took the edge off that). I was debating going to a doctor again to make sure I wasn’t having a reoccurrence, and my work supervisor highly recommended her own doctor, a D.O. who shall remain nameless; she also scheduled me off for all of this week so Short Term Disability could kick in if need be.
So I call & get an appointment scheduled with She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Again, a D.O., an Osteopath with a Family Practice. Keep this in mind. This was yesterday, Monday. Brett insisted on taking the day off too, to accompany me in and to make sure I didn’t forget any questions or history or symptom. (hugging Brett virtually).
We get into the office. Empty office. Empty nice new office in fairly new building in one of the “nicer” suburbs of Columbus, Hilliard. This should have been my first warning sign.
Fairly standard — Nurse took me back, weighed me, took blood pressure, then sat me down in one of the exam rooms and had me spill out everything that had been going on. Back pain (with the accompanying xrays from the previous doctor), intestinal obstructions & prior surgeries, the need for me to get followup on that, and the sharp intense pain I was having in my neck & shoulder. She leaves, and a couple minutes later, the DO-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named comes in.
And once more, I find myself having to spill out the whole story AGAIN. She takes notes, looks over the x-ray report, goes “He never got BACK with you on this?” in tones of horror (well, this was a good sign), and has me show her where the neck/shoulder pain is centering on, then gets up and leaves the room. Hasn’t touched me, hasn’t done any probing, hasn’t done anything except have me tell her the same history & issues I had told the nurse.
The nurse comes back in a minute later and tells us that they’re going to refer me to some specialists and that they’ve set up an appointment for the hospital surgeon from Doctors West ER for my blockage followup, here’s the date & time, and we can go now.
Um…ahhhhh…what??
She’s left, and me & Brett are looking at each other going, “Huh?” So I get my sneakers on as fast as I can manage with my neck & shoulder hurting so bad and we head out to the desk and stand there and wait.
We stand there for a few minutes before the nurse comes back & sees us there, and she’s giving us that “What Do You Think You’re Doing?” evil-schoolteacher look and going, “You can go.”
“Um,” I said. “My neck & shoulder & back are hurting like hell. And I was supposed to be following up about my blockage. Isn’t she going to do anything?”
The Evil Schoolteacher Nurse gets real testy. “We’re referring you to specialists. We’ll call you once we’ve found some under your insurance plan. We’ll set the appointments for you.” (mind, at no time have they bothered asking me what good times/days are.)
I’m just looking at her, and Brett steers me out the door before I can get anything out, but the moment we hit the parking lot, Brett — mild, southern-gentleman, laid-back, never-get-angry, calm-to-the-point-of-lunacy Brett — explodes with “What the FUCK was THAT??”
Which was what I’d been thinking, but had been hurting too bad to get past the pain.
Now I’m gonna skip past the get-home-and-collapse-into-a-crying-fit-from-pain-and-frustration part. I’m going to skip past the call from my supervisor wanting to know how the visit went (the two calls, because the first was during the GHACIACFFP&F part). I’m even going to skip past the total fucking BULLSHIT that it’s now 6:30 PM here, we left that office about 2pm yesterday, and there still has been NO CALL from those idiots (my own call to them about 5pm yesterday got me another testy nurse who advised me that they only do the specialist referral setups in between patients, and they’re so busy they couldn’t tell when they’d get to me — see earlier line about empty office). I’m even going to skip past the further fucking BULLSHIT of what-the-fuck-is-this-bitch-doing-as-a-DOCTOR if all she does is refer her patients elsewhere without helping them. Without TRYING to help them. Without even doing anything to determine a basic DIAGNOSIS.
Upshot of this was me calling the first DO I’d initially scheduled with and had cancelled after setting up with She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named — I figured She was a DO, too, didn’t need two appointments with two separate DOs for the same issues. This one is attached to Doctor’s West, and is considered a spine/back pain specialist. Hooray. But they only had an opening in two weeks.
Ouch. Hurting shoulder/neck & worry over intestinal issue NOW. Took the opening in two weeks for my back, and returned to the search.
So today, I went back to my insurance co’s website and found an MD just down the road. I should note — doing a search for “general practitioners” turned up 90% D.O.s. I had to scroll about three pages to find this MD. Called, the receptionist was very nice, and said she’d just had a cancellation, could I be there this afternoon?
So, off I go again. Little funky brown building next to a cheap-shit furniture warehouse surrounded by run-down houses with un-mowed lawns. Without going into all the details, the MD was nice, sympathetic, professional. She had me try moving in various ways (owie owie OUCH), prodded at my shoulder & neck (OUCH OUCH OUCH), expressed horror at all the intestinal surgeries & then told me in no-uncertain-terms that I needed to get in to her or the ER immediately if I had *anything* that made me suspicious. And, that with my family history, I’m coming back for a full exam & physical and getting bloodwork done for all the wonderful problems my Family Tree could possibly pass down. Wonderful, let’s find even MORE wrong with Chris (okay, I’m whining, that’s actually GOOD that she did that).
Oh, and she diagnosed severe neck strain. I’ve been ordered off work for the rest of the week and given muscle relaxers & neck exercises to get things stretched out. And I’ve been given orders to make sure everything is “ergonomic” at my workplace and my home computer to prevent this from happening again.
I’m not sure whether to be going “FINALLY”, or to still be pissed off at the She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, or upset over yet even more wrong in such a short time span. I do know that I don’t dare take any of the muscle relaxers yet, because I have to pick Brett up shortly. Me, car, highway & muscle-relaxers = big no-no.
Evil twin, I TOLD you to CUT IT OUT!!! 🙂
Across The Shadows 