Off The Cuff

Storm Gone? What Was I Thinking?

Posted by: From Arkansas in Are You Kidding Me?, Beyond Bizarre, Health Topics on Aug 24 2008

Welcome back!

It is with a heavy heart that I write yet another post on the medical care in the northern part of Arkansas. To be fair, there are some really good doctors here in the land of opportunity. I believe that our personal physician in one of them. He does not know everything, does not claim to. When there is something he does not know about, I go to a doctor that might know because he sends me there. This is the type of doctor that is most needed here.

Yesterday, I needed to see my doctor because I have bloomed out with a rash that is rather interesting, to say the least. This occurred after my blood clot in the leg thing happened. My doctor decided to send me on to a blood doctor (Sorry, the specialty name is gone from my brain right now). She figured out that the rash is not blood related, for which I am thankful.

However, she consulted with another doctor and the three doctors all agreed that it would be in my best interests to seek hospital admission. So, she called a doctor she felt would be good to see about this. And then she called two more. Not one of them would even act like they had any affiliation with the local hospital. (See several articles related to that particular hospital and my stays there) I was not surprised. And to cap that part of the day, when calling the hospital, they said they would “reluctantly take me” but had no idea what to do with me. Say what????

I could give them a suggestion or two on what to do. Perhaps they could actually run down why I have this really annoying and somewhat scary rash? I don’t know. Maybe since the Hippocratic oath has something to say about healing, perhaps they could try that. But because they said that…and because of my previous adventures there…we elected to seek other help. The three doctors agreed and then recommended me going to another facility known for it’s good care. But it was some miles away. And, to remind you here, I have a blood clot in my left leg. At this point in time, my leg had been down and me in a sitting position for several hours. That’s not good for that type of medical problem. And I was facing more of the same since we had to return home, pack some things, get our cat ready to be home alone for a few days before someone could check on him and so on.

So, we traveled back home which is another 60 miles or so. So far, I had been gone from home with my leg hanging down for almost 8 hrs and I was facing yet another 60 miles of travel after going home just to get to a hospital where I could put my leg up, assuming that I could get admitted. The docs had called ahead which was good because then it’s likely that they will take that person and admit them. Uh huh.

We finally get to the hospital at about 6pm. It has already been a very long day. (We had left home at 8:30am) I am never happy with going to the hospital but I thought that this one would be a welcome thing. Well, I got checked in sitting in a wheelchair but had to sit in the waiting room for what was probably not that long but certainly felt like it. Actually, this hospital does a lot toward getting people seen quickly and for that, I was very thankful. It was likely that I sat there no more than 15-20 minutes.

In the ER, I was told that I had to disrobe, something I am not used to anymore at a medical facility. See, the rash is all over my arms and legs. The nurse came in, told me I needed to give a urine sample. You know what it’s like when someone asks you for something you could do right now if only they had NOT asked? Yep. Problem. The nurse told me that they get pretty persuasive about this issue. If you do not do it, they take it anyway. I was so tired I did not care…and they did.

After xrays and blood draws later (my 4th of the day by the way), the doc comes in and tells us that that hospital does not have what it takes to deal with my problem. So, he wants to send us to Springfield, Mo. which was many more miles away. (Not sure but I would bet it was about a hundred miles or more from where we were) I would take another ambulance ride. My husband, who had been doing the driving all day and was really tired, could not have made the trip so the doc told us he could ride in the ambulance. Not great but acceptable. Someone from our family could then get us and bring us back to our car.

By this time, it was somewhere around 11:30pm. We had only had a small sandwich all day and we were so tired that we could not have done anything ourselves even if we wanted to. And then the capper. The doc comes in and gives me this look. He says that despite the fact that he thinks this needs to be looked at, the facility in Springfield does not want to deal with it and so I am not taking a ride anywhere. And topping that, he says that he can’t get a doc in his own facility to admit me to that one. (Since he is an ER doc, he could not admit me. Dunno what that was about. I thought they could do that) I felt totally unwanted. Three hospitals did not want to deal with my problem. THREE!!! And you know what? This is not because I am a horrible patient. No, it’s because no one knows what the rash is about. They do not want to deal with it at all. So, I would mess up their record of something? I dunno. The end result? He discharged me. I started to get a bit scared. But my faith holds me strong. And I am so thankful of that. God is good. He can take care of this.

The doc suggested, because of our extreme tiredness and the fact that my husband cannot drive at night, that we stay in a motel and get a good start in the morning to go home. We are not able to come up with money like that since we are on a semi-fixed income. I say semi because we do sometimes accept work for paid blogging. They recommended a motel that was fairly cheap. Then the nurse asked if we could REALLY afford it. We do not lie so I said not really but we would deal with that. She came back with $40, the price of the room. We were so grateful. We do not know where it came from. She would not say. We thanked her profusely.

You have to know that there are many who could not pay for such things and this means that there was someone or some several folks there who are caring and giving people. They need to be recognized for this but because I choose not to reveal the name of the hospital, I can only say thanks and feel blessed. But they know who they are. I am grateful that such people still exist in this world.

By the time we reached the motel, it was about 1:30am. The desk clerk was less than enthusiastic to be disturbed at that hour despite the “vacancy” sign. This is one of those older, classic looking motels in a “u” shape, parking at the door to the room. The clerk took her time. It took about 10 minutes or more to check in. I have no idea why.

The room was hot but we spotted the air conditioner in the window walking in the door. I am walking with a walker in order to lessen the weight on that leg. On first blush, the room looked adequate but not anything at all special. I was grateful for a bed so that wasn’t really a problem. My leg could be up for the night. Looking around, there was a small refrigerator with the door hanging open, microwave on top.

The bed was semi-hard but that was great for my leg. My husband tried to start the air conditioner, to no avail. He was able to knock the front of the unit off. It fell on the floor after just a light touch from hubby. The machine looked like it had been there since the motel was built. I knew that had to be at least in the late 50’s because it was that style of motel. I grew up seeing these.

Finally, he was able to get the thing on but it blew hot air into the room with a “maybe” promise of cooler air. The bathroom was a loser from the start. It did not accommodate my walker at all. I was forced to walk in, holding on to whatever was available hoping not to fall. Again, I was grateful for the bed so I wasn’t going to complain. Uh huh. My attitude by this time was shot. My husband’s was right behind mine. It had already been a bad day with all the running around we had to do, the worry about my health, the docs all saying I needed to be in a hospital and then getting rejected by three places in one day. Not good for the ego or the health.

And then my husband took the remote on the tv to turn it on. Uh huh. Not gonna hoppen. We suspected batteries right away. He turned it on via the front panel which, by the way, had fallen off some time in the past. Just what we believed was the icing on the cake of crap we had to tolerate that day. No, that came later. We both fell asleep in the heat of the night. I woke up about 3am gasping for breath. My first thought was that the clot had dislodged. But I soon figured out it was because it was so flipping hot in the room. By this time, my husband was disgusted enough that he got pliers and went after the air conditioner. All of a sudden, we had cooler air coming out. Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

We slept until a bit after 9am. I felt a bit better and was ready to get home. My husband had to take the key to the office. He is usually not willing to say much about anything but today, he was telling them about their room. Not nasty, just factual. The person at the desk who was apparently a card carrying member of couch potatoes anonymous took offense that we were not pleased with the accommodations. As my husband walked back to the car, the couch potato shouts that we should go back to our world where everything is perfect. Uh huh. This shouted at the two people who had just one day before, run around to doctor and hospital to get some treatment and was turned away. Perfect world. Yep, that was a real capper to the day before. All I wanted to do was go home.

Lest at this point, you feel that we were not appropriately grateful to the staff of the hospital who so graciously gave us that money and to the motel at which we stayed, I am always grateful to those who have a giving heart. Those people did. They recognized the really bad day we had had and took it into their hearts to bless us. For that, we are blessed beyond anything you could imagine. In fact, they were the bright light in an otherwise exceptionally crappy day.

But to be told by that person at the motel that you could call broken down at best that we needed to go back to our perfect world, should be thankful that he has a job. If he is the owner, then it is already explained why the place is in that condition. It is sad to see that he had no interest in getting off the couch and doing some really minor fixing. By the way, the refrigerator never got cold. We did not try out the microwave in the hopes that the place would not burn down around us.

We are now back home back at square one. I hate to think what our doc is going to think when he finds out that we never did get admitted to the hospital for treatment. Our health care system in general and locally leave a lot to be desired. A lot. But you would think that in this land of plenty and prosperity that we could receive, at the least, adequate care but it is obvious that the hospitals themselves are more about the bottom line and their various insurance companies than about treating those who need it. It is a wonder people are healthy at all in our land of plenty.

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