On the subject of letting go...or not letting go...
After not one, not two, but three infuriating experiences with the hospital department known as known as Intervention Radiologists (links to details below), I spoke to someone called a Patient Representative, and gave him the highlights of my experiences:
- On the admission day that wasn't, I had to wait hours and hours in excruciating pain for an x-ray and then an ultra-sound, which finally revealed a blood clot in my neck. In spite of asking 40 or 50 times, I was sent home without a prescription for a blood thinner, and was generally treated like a nuisance.
- While an inpatient, the port "exploded." I was made to wait nearly 30 hours before even having it looked at, and then, in spite of as much protest as I could offer in my weakened, exhausted, frightened condition, they forced me to have the port replaced without any anesthesia.
- In spite of as much protest as I could offer in my weakened, exhausted, frightened condition, they forced me to have the port removed with only a local, which they did not even allow 5 seconds to work.
Honestly, all I'm looking for is an acknowledgment that I was treated very badly ("inappropriately?" "questionably?"), and a commitment to reconsider their policy of refusing to administer IV sedation, even when a patient requests (or screams and cries and begs) for it. THAT'S IT. No apologies, no settlement, no nothin'. My only motive is to prevent other patients from being treated as badly as I was.
Is that reasonable? Or should I just "let it go?"
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Preface: Transplant Class (I thought it was an irrational fear...nawt!)
The Clot: Part 1, Part 2
The Explosion: Part 1, Part 2
The Removal
2 comments:
Rosa Parks didn't let it go.
Well, I wouldn't compare myself or my cause, but she's a good role model for taking a stand (so to speak).
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