After all the running around last week to get the CD-Rom with Caren's CT Scan in the hands of her surgeon, he still didn't get it until Monday afternoon. I'm so glad I paid the extra for overnight shipping! We had our suspicions that we were not dealing with an abcess, mainly because by Sunday she had been on the Levaquin for 5 days and was feeling considerably better, but it was still good to have the surgeon offer his assessment of the scan.
Most of his concern regarding the presence of an abcess disappeared when he read the Radiologist's report which stated that: "...the small and large bowel appear normal." It was apparent fro mthe get-go that this guy had no clue what he was looking at! I'm really not sure which part was worse, the fact that he thought the small intestine attached to the rectum was "normal" or the fact that he "saw" a 4.5 foot long organ that didn't exist. If a highly trained, experienced medical professional can see a phantom colon, I'll stop wondering immediately how sightings of Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster continue to occur! Further proof that reality is based primarily on perception (not fact) and people see what they want to see.
Caren still can't lift the kids, but in many ways, life is returning to normal. We'll probably have at least one more week of help during the day; maybe next week she'll give it go on her own.
The only outstanding medical issue we can't seem to resolve is her clotting factor. It's been a month now and we still can't get her coumadin dose therapeutic. Her surgeon has been altering her dose every Tuesday and Friday since she left the hospital with limited success. I honestly don't think we've had two consecutive sets of lab values even close to each other. Now, with her surgeon on vacation out of the country for 2 weeks (oh, I know, great timing right?), her primary care physician has agreed to follow her INR. Not that he isn't capable of reading the lab values and making up a dose for her coumadin, which, by-the-way, is anything but scientific. As far as I can tell, it's completely made up on the fly. However, a PCP is just not used to contacting patients at home in a timely manner, or maybe it's just our particular primary doc. Which brings me to my last thought for the day.
Our primary care physician has a nurse that works for him as his primary assistant. On one hand, I've never gotten any "warm fuzzies" from her, on the other hand, she's never been outright rude to me either. My best guess is that she's one of the brilliant clinicians that got into medicine without the benefit of actually liking people. It may sound preposterous, but there are plenty of medical providers that manage patient's without the slightest degree of empathy. Who knows what motivates them, but I can assure you it's not the ceaseless plight to make people feel better! So this nurse clearly falls into this category, maybe she's the President of CWC, Care without Caring! (Note: I do not have any knowledge of this group actually existing, although if it did, there would be no shortage of charter members)
Caren had her blood drawn yesterday morning and was waiting all day for the doctor to call with the result and subsequent dose for her evening coumadin. All of her lab work is entered "STAT", meaning the results are available later the same day rather than a month later. She waited until after 4pm, knowing that the office would close at 5pm and the entire staff, docs and all would disappear until Monday. When she called, she had the pleasure of playing 20-questions with the CWC President, before having to say, "There's no need to be RUDE!" After that, Caren got her dose and the conversation ended rather quickly. It just confuses the hell out of me that someone would go through all the training, pass all the exams and choose to work in a people-oriented, service industry without even the slightest inclination to be polite on the phone with a patient. Maybe she should move to the OR where the patients are unconscious!
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