Posted on 01/10/2014 6:31:12 PM PST by cableguymn
Go easy on me. I hope "chat" was a good place for a vanity.
So, The other night I woke up with a killer pain in my chest. Having prior heart troubles and dealing with high blood pressure I thought the worst.
Jetted off to the hospital with the wife (we are a 20 minute drive and figured that is where the ambulance was stationed. there was one there) and got in the door, told um chest pains and right in to a room I went. Did vitals, ekg, blood drawn and all that. Not a heart attack. Given a GI cocktail (yuck) and was told it was a full house and it'd be a while.
With the pain down from "OMG I am gonna die!" to "damn this hurts" I settled in for what I figured would be a hell of a wait. Few minutes go by and the admitting girl shows up. We give her the insurance card (nope, not on zero care ;) ) and she clicks away at her computer. Nope, can't verify it here, lets try this site.. Nope.. Hmm maybe this one..
Finely, she gets it verified. Asks about my co-pay and says it does not really matter because they would see me regardless in the ER. I said if you can take plastic, I'll pay it right now. So I did.
As she is leaving, the DR comes in. Apparently this hospitals idea of a long wait is about 10 minutes ;) Asks me a few questions about where it hurts (right where you'd give me CPR as I point to the area) and he said hmm.. pushes a bit right under my right rub cage and I about pop out of bed..
"I'll bet it's your gallbladder" he says.. Gives me something through the IV for pain. "lets see what the blood tests show". He's back 15 minutes later. He says since my blood is ok, the pain is down to the point where it's under control (feels like a bee sting) that i should make an appointment with my PC doctor asap. Total time spent in a "packed" er was about 1.25 hours.
On the way out we stop at the admitting desk and ask if they can make the appointment. I get the first appointment that morning. 7 am.
Go home, take a little nap..
long story short. By 10 AM after a ultrasound, I am told the gallbladder has to go. Looks like I go under the knife first part of next week.
So far, so good, there was a TON of "new" paperwork to fill out, much of it to do with HIPPA (and likely the waving there of for the Zero admin) but my experience at the hospital was top notch. I figured it would be but with a hell of a paperwork problem due to my insurance company changing my plan completely, and the fact that the ink was still wet on my new card.
I think this was a great time to get my gallbladder out, sadly, in 2-5 years, I'd probably die waiting my turn in line.
First and foremost: Never. Ever. Drive to the hospital if you are having chest pains.
The ambulance will get there faster and if you crash on the way, your wife would not be able to drive and help you at the same time.
My daughter is a paramedic who has picked up more bodies on the side of the road for exactly this reason.
First not paid for google result..
http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/flushes.html
ummmm.... not exactly sold on your idea. But you have a few days to try and convince me ;) .
Perhaps.. We’ll never know if they would have been faster or not.
Pretty sure if the ambulance wrecked along the way, we would have been worse off since it was likely the only one in the area.
You really shoulda learned this sh*t in boot camp.
I think the ones that will see problems will be those on obamacare.
I don’t get it...
Gall bladder is on your right under the rib cage so you get pain there. I know because I get it from time to time.
There are alternatives to taking out the gall bladder but to each his own.
Some folks don't have the $1500 bucks for the 15 mile ride.
Nope. Just the one.
American hospitals and docs are the best and Ocare is going to ruin them.
As an aside I hope you are being done with a laproscope. It is quick and easy and the recovery time is hours not weeks
It’s what I have...that or using the ER like an illegal.
“the Obama voters called this down on themselves and unfortunately also my friend...”
it might also have to do with people like yourself who spent a good deal of time on this website badmouthing Romney in 2012; thus, forgetting what a 2nd term for BO might do to folks like your friend. but don’t be too hard on yourself, as a self described Christian, you should forgive yourself as well. but if i were you, i wouldn’t tell your friend that you didn’t support the only other viable alternative to BO because he was a mormon.
I was a hospital administrator in the Air Force and the VA runs like most hospitals do. Not to be critical, but if you were able to wait for 18 hours and then leave the ER at the VA, then you in the wrong department. ER’s are not meant as places to go in lieu of regular appointments. If you are really sick but its not life and death but you can’t get a regular primary care appointment soon enough, you need to go directly to Urgent Care. They will triage you after you check in. Depending on how urgent you complaint is, you will be seen as soon as possible or you may have to wait if there are sicker people ahead of you.
I’ve been to my VA Urgent Care twice. Once I had bronchial pneumonia and waited for most of the day to get treated and meds to treat the problem. I was pleased that someone was able to see me the same day I went in. I was uncomfortable and coughing but not dying, so I had to wait while sicker patients were dealt with. The second time, I had acute pancreatitis and they admitted me to the hospital within an hour because I was in severe pain, vomiting and becoming dehydrated. I needed immediate help. I spent 4 days in the hospital that time.
Both times my problems were acute but not emergencies. Urgent Care is for patients who present with acute problems and can’t get a primary care appointment soon enough. The Emergency Room is for emergencies, as in life or death cases.
I am not sure how they are doing it yet. I meet with the surgeon on Monday.
I hope they do it with the laproscope to. Seems to be the standard method these days from what I have read.
Ouch, sounds painful.
Did it just blow up on you?
It must have, I doubt you would have let it build up to that.
My wife and I are both veterans and get our medical care from the VA hospital here in north central Florida. And we were both in the medical field in the Air Force. My wife was a physician assistant for 25 years after she got out of the military. We agree that we get the best, most comprehensive medical care from the local VA than we have ever gotten from private sector providers with private insurance. We pay co-pays for our prescriptions and doctor visits. The care is excellent. Sometimes we have to wait for an appointment, but if it is an urgent problem, they have Urgent Care to go to. I have had open heart surgery there and both knees replaced. Currently I am waiting on a shoulder repair or replacement. Plenty of good care and follow-ups and rehab. I have absolutely no complaints.
But I can tell by your negative comments that you have a burr under your saddle about the VA and have prejudged it. I have sat in the VA waiting rooms waiting for various appointments over the years and listened to negative people like yourself complain loudly about how lousy the care is. We all know people like you. Complain about everything in life. I would venture a guess that you don’t know much about how the medical system works but you are quick to moan, groan and complain no matter how well you are treated.
It was the third time. I think the cracks in my heel from the diabetes lets in bacterial infections when the conditions are just right.
agree with EDINVA’s sentiments. I also had mine removed about 3-4 years ago now. One of the best things I ever got rid of!
Take it easy introducing more than a few fatty foods into your diet for a while (a week to a couple weeks). If you go slow and see what gives you problems after the surgery (if any), you will thank yourself and probably tolerate fatty foods better in the long run.
There are very few things I can’t eat/imbibe. If I go all out on a large caribou chiller with all the fixin’s, that’ll set me off, but I can handle a medium quite well. I can’t point to much else I know I can’t do. The first meaningfully fatty food I tried (about a week after my surgery) was pizza. It had been a few months since I had any, so I really wanted it. No probs, but I was slowly inching my tolerance back up eating buttered toast for example and maybe a piece or two of bacon another time - stuff like that.
When I ended up in the ER for mine I didn’t know that was what was wrong with me, but I knew something was wrong. I ate 3 pieces of peanut butter toast as a snack after having eaten a pretty decent chunk of ring bologna for supper earlier. At lunch, our group at work had an outing to Fogo De Chao, so I obviously drove myself into a meat coma there. To say that I was in a heap of pain would be an understatement.
Mine was a kind of long row to hoe... It was a long chain of events lasting a few months of procedures that I don’t want to revisit anytime soon. Ultimately all that led up to getting an MRI in the ER that finally found the gall bladder issue. At first it was postulated that either I had a wheat allergy/celiac or I was lactose intolerant. No one was able to definitively state what was wrong until that point.
You seriously lucked out by comparison.
Good luck to you!
It is the preferred method and can be done in a mini surgery center. Unless something unusual is going on (and since they released you and you are making and keeping appointments it sound pretty standard) the lap is SOP these days (and a good thing too)
I didn’t vote for Romney in 2008 nor 2012 because I don’t vote for
abortion pushers or
the father of same sex marriage, or
draft dodgers or
liberals or
global warming or
big government or
gun grabbers or
Cap N trade or
AMNESTY pushers or
illegal alien enablers or
any of the other evils that Willard has embraced for 40+ years...
and regardless of how much you attempt to push Willard down my throat and how much you malign me ..
I wont be voting for your putrid candidate in 2016 either...
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