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August 22, 2003
The medical profession fumbles.
A month later and feeling remarkably better, I scheduled an followup appointment for August 21st with the surgeon who had seen me in the emergency room and had them book me for a followup scan to be done the week before (August 11th). The buggy hospital had closed in the interim, so it was the shiny newer hospital that I went to for the scan. The disgusting prep drink had metamorphisized into two cans of a revolting "Berry Smoothie" flavoured substance that I hope never to need to choke down again. The unadulterated chemical had been been bad enough, flavouring and texturizing it made it nauseating.
The scan techs were remarkably closemouthed at the end of my scan, which made me nervous. My doctor's office called the next day to announce that the inflammation was not completely gone (DAMN), and that I should see a gastro-intestinal specialist about having a colonoscopy. They made an appointment for September 17th (the specialist wanted to give the inflammation a chance to completely disappear). Unfortunately, the nice voice on the phone informed me, my original CT scan films had gone missing. They were no longer at the shiny hospital and may have been returned to the hospital where they were done. The buggy and now closed hospital.
I spent a day or so tracking down the scan films. Thanks to an extremely kind and competent person who was still packing up the files at the closed hospital, the films were found in a basket where they were apparently dropped off after the hospital had officially closed. Jason was able to retrieve them and they were carefully stored in my living room pending my appointment with the surgeon. Finally things were going well.
Or not. When I presented myself at the surgeon's part-time office (he held hours at my doctor's office one day a week) on the 21st, the surgeon had failed to come back from his vacation. The receptionist was very sorry. Gee. How nice. He had probably informed his main office, and they hadn't passed the news on to her until about five minutes ago. Did I want to speak to the doctor instead? Hell yeah! The doctor (this was the first time I'd met her, as her nurse practitioner was the one I'd seen for my annual checkups) was nice and arranged for me to meet with a radiologist at the hospital to compare my CT scans the following day.
He was also very nice, and his computer was exceptionally nice. He looked at both scans (the newer one on said computer, scrolling up and down inside my torso with a mouse!). He said that the inflammation had decreased in size and recommended that I have a colonoscopy done and not a third CT scan. His reasoning was that if the inflammation was still there I'd need a colonoscopy anyway. He was pleased I had already got an appointment with the gastro-intestinal specialist.
Posted by Nicole at August 22, 2003 04:30 PM