This wouldn't have happened if someone had listened to me...

Published on July 11, 2006 By dharmagrl In Health & Medicine

I'm sick.

I've been peeing fire for over a week now. I went to the doctor last Friday, but they failed to spot that my urine sample wasn't the cleanest of catches and sent me home telling me there wasn't anything wrong with me.

Saturday evening Ii started feeling off color.

Sunday I was dragging ass. Sunday night I was on call and had to go sit vigilance with a patient (sat next to his bed and half-dozed my way through the night, listening for his breathing to change or to cease. It reminded me of having a newborn baby again).

Monday I felt rough. Very rough. I got home from the hospital around 6 (my patient was still going strong and his vital signs were better than they had been the night before), slept until 10, and ran alternating fevers and chills the rest of the day. I said that if I wasn't feeling better today, I'd go to the doctor again.

I wasn't feeling better today, so I went to the doctor. Apparently my urine is just full of white blood cells and some blood to boot, which means that the infection has charged up my ureters and into one of my kidneys.

Yay. I have a kidney infection. I know from past experience how simply joyful those things are. I'd rather walk naked through the mall than have a kidney infection. When the doctor told me, looking all satisfied because he'd made a diagnosis, I said "yeah, I know". I wanted to get all up in his face and yell "this wouldn't have happened if someone had listened to me last week when i said I was sick!!!!!!!!!!!!!"....but I didn't have the energy. I was too weak from the kidney infection that I got because none of the so-called 'trained professionals' would listen to me when I said I was sick.

I've spent 3 days in bed, sweating and shivering and aching and feeling like I have a hot rock in my belly and flank because nobody listened to me. It's going to be another few days before I really feel like myself again. The thing that really pisses me off about this?

It was all preventable. None of this need have happened.

All someone had to do was listen to me.

Comments

terpfan1980

on Jul 11, 2006

Wow, really sorry to hear of the issues and hope you get back to full health quickly Dharma.

Your article hits on one of the biggest problems I have with many in the medical community - a complete lack of attention to their customers problems. I don't like to paint with a broad brush, but many doctors and medical staff never really pay attention to what their patients are telling them. They hear a few keywords, perhaps write a quick prescription, and maybe even scold a bit about weight or blood pressure/cholesterol, and then zip off to do the same thing with the next patient.

As you said, if they listened to you, they may have caught the problem sooner and not left you experiencing symptoms over a longer period of time.

If I wasn't so averse to helping the legal profession enrichen itself any further, I'd be much quicker to join the parade of people suing many doctors out of existence. Not that I want them all gone, but dammit, if they aren't going to bother really paying attention to their patients needs, then why bother being in that business at all?

MasonM

on Jul 11, 2006

That really sucks. I know first hand how miserable a kidney infection can be. I hope you get better soon.

Dr Guy

on Jul 11, 2006

Doctors can learn a lot from most mothers. But often their arrogance gets the better of them.

Sorry for your woes. Get better soon!

dharmagrl

on Jul 11, 2006

if they aren't going to bother really paying attention to their patients needs, then why bother being in that business at all?

You're right about doctors. A handful of them listen to their patients, and those are the ones usually described as 'good' ones. The rest are too busy patting themselves on the back for graduating medical school to really listen to what their patients are saying. I KNOW my body, I'm in it 24 hours a day. I know what's normal and what's not, I know all of it's little quirks and peculiarities -like the fact that I'll run a fever 24 hours post surgery. They all scream about pneumonia and want to flood me with antibiotics, but it's just the way my body works. It'll have passed by 36 hours, and despite all their blood work they won't be able to find an infection.

I am the person who lives in this body, and I KNOW when something isn't right. That alone should be worth more than any training. Unfortunately, and as I am finding now, it's often not worth a goddam thing.

I know first hand how miserable a kidney infection can be

Ohh! I'm sorry, Mason. I wouldn't want anyone else to feel the way I am right now. It's truly miserable.

often their arrogance gets the better of them.

bingo! It does. Like I said earlier, the patient's self-knowledge should be worth more than any medical degree. I personally think that a physicians attitude to their patients' woes speaks volumes about the kind of physician they are. The ones who won't listen or who don't take me seriously when I say there's something wrong are the ones I try to avoid like the plague. Unfortunately, it's not always possible to do that in a military medical facility.

And with that, I'm off to bed. I stayed up to spend time with my husband when he came home for lunch, and now that he's gone back to work I'm dragging my infected carcass to bed for a nap.

feisty_in_ohio

on Jul 11, 2006

Hope you feel better.
My family doctor retired a few years ago (been seeing him for 25 years). I miss him, he listened.

InBloom

on Jul 12, 2006

Sounds awful...hope you recover from it VERY soon.

Trudygolightly

on Jul 12, 2006

sorry you're not well!
Hope you feel good again soon

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