My finger almost killed me:
The ship is very quiet at night. Almost too quiet. Perhaps this is what led me to slam my finger in a water tight door and almost die from it. Sounds ridiculous right? You'd think i was lying.
I'm not.
It was around 2 or 3 in the morning. My friend Hurde and i went across hanger bay two to check out some paint from HAZMAT. It was a quick trip but the journey took me through a strange, tilted water tight door and while closing it behind me, i slammed my finger in it. I quickly pulled my hand away and made the mistake of looking down.
You see, i don't do well with seeing my own injuries. While i'm working at the veterinary clinic, a part of me switches to what i call 'Doctor Mode' and i vastly ignore what i see. I only see a job to do and a chance to learn something new. But when it involves my own blood and pain, i tend to panic.
That's exactly what i did. What i looked down and saw shook my world. I saw my fingernail holding on by a thread and coated with thick, foul looking, black blood. It was dripping so slow and i remember thinking that it looked strange and i brought it closer to understand what was happening. It must have hit and hit me with something fierce because i pretty much instantly started feeling light headed and queezy.
I was able to stumble down the stairs and walk to medical which wasn't far away. I didn't say anything to the receptionist but went straight away into the small emergency room. I just wanted a bed and some place to lie down for a while.
I don't remember a whole lot after that. I do remember people around me and an impossible pain radiating from my stomach. It hurt so badly that i curled up onto my side and tried not to cry from the horrible cramps. I remember them asking me far more than once if i was on my period and i was given pepto-bismol to help fight off the pain.
Of course it didn't work.
I also remember someone messing with my other arm. I remember trying to figure out what the pain was around my arm when i realized that they were taking my blood pressure over and over again. By this time, an actual doctor had shown up and he insisted that the cuff was too large for my arm. I'm a small girl, no doubt there, but i have never, not even once, had a nurse say "this cuff is too big, get me another one." Halfway between passing out and the searing pain in my stomach, i heard one of them try to tell me that my blood pressure was drastically low yet my heart rate was through the roof.
Guess what was happening yet? Keep reading.
I struggled to regain some sort of conscious thought for what felt like a life time before i finally came around. When i could talk and focus on people, they told me to keep lying down so that they could take a better look at my finger (they thought i had broken it). It was almost an hour into the ordeal before the doctor warned his staff to never wake him again for something so trivial. Then he left.
I didn't find out what had happened to me until later that night. I e-mailed my boyfriend Erik (at the time a medical student at Cornell) and told him what had happened.
Once again, i was shocked by what he had to say.
I had went into shock and had been looking down the barrel of tachycardia. He asked me if they had tried to elevate my legs or calm me down and only grew angrier when i told him that they hadn't.
To think, i was inches away from a heart attack because of a smashed finger.
As for the fingernail...i lost it. It grew back. And my finger wasn't broken. Or at least i think it wasn't broken. It took me almost another 3 months to get an x-ray. By then, i didn't feel any pain in it anymore.
Ready for Socialized Medicine yet?
VIVA REVOLUTION!
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!: Tails of Socialized Medicine Part Two
The year of the spider:
Back in 2002, i was fresh in the navy. I still loved my command (and the empire) and had full confidence in their abilities to take care of me. I was 19 years old and a bit naive about the world around me. Little did i know, that i would turn 20 in incredible pain. Looking back it is impossible to imagine how i lived the way i did for so long...
In early spring of 2002, i woke one morning and the back of my leg hurt! I limped to the mirror and saw a huge red dot on the back of my thigh and went into the hospital immediately. It was already starting to turn darker as i sat down to wait my 4 or 5 hours to been seen. It burned to sit because of the pressure on my thigh so i spent a good chunk of that time pacing.
When i was finally seen, the doctor drew a circle around the now very painful and inflamed spot on my leg then wrote me a prescription for a broad spectrum antibiotic. He told me that it looked like a spider bite and that he suspected that during the night, i had gotten bitten. At the time, i believed him. I've always been fascinated with insects and arachnids (they are truly some of the most amazing things on our planet) and i knew that the bite of some spiders can go unnoticed.
So i faithfully took my horse pills and went back to the barracks where i was living at the time and told my roommate what had happened. She and i pitched in and rented a steam cleaner and steamed the crap out of everything. We even checked out an extension cord from the main office, pulled our cars around, and hit those up as well. Just in case.
I spent the rest of the day in pain, constantly checking my bite to see if the redness had grown outside of the line. Sure enough, in only a few hours, it had grown larger than it had been before. Antibiotics can take a while to build up in the system so i figured i would give it a while to do so and until then all i had to take for the inflammation were giant pills of Ibuprofen.
The very next day, i woke up in incredible pain and another small welt on the back of my leg. This one felt very very tender and it took me a great deal of time to sit up and put my pants on. I decided not to wait the week like i was going to and i went in to have my new spot looked at.
Like playing tennis with a brick wall, the doctor said that it looked like another spider bite and here is where the fun begins. I got another round of antibiotics because he assumed that i was allergic to the ones he gave me (i've never been allergic to anything and to top it off, they were only broad spectrum). He said that the new ones should do the trick but told me to keep an eye on it and come back in if another one popped up.
To make a long story short, more came. First they covered my right leg, then my left and every day was agony. I was constantly tired because of the drain on my body and it was so painful to sit up in bed that i had to have a very good Marine friend come over and help me out of bed. He came every morning that he could make it and help me get around while my body woke up. I was able to sleep at night but barely and that was only thanks to the gigante (giant) ibuprofen that they were giving me to stave off the pain. And no, i never once got anything remotely stronger than ibuprofen...but i was taking around 1600 milligrams three times a day just to function.
The only thing that felt good was direct, searing, heat. I constantly had a heat compress on my legs whenever i got a break at work. I was able to function but how i did is still a little mystery. Looking back, those days blurred from one painful day to the next. You would think you'd get used to it, but every new day would bring fresh painful swelling.
6 months passed of this before i was seen by a dermatologist. 6 months of weekly visits to the doctor and having them tell me that it was just a spider bite. 6 months of constant waiting and waiting and waiting and canceled appointment after canceled appointment. So it finally the day came where i could talk to a specialist. He cleaned a lot of the swollen vacuoles out and took several samples (i never did get the results) and took my blood pressure. I was excited because i thought that i would have an answer.
This prick...he took one of his many books off the shelf, flipped to a couple of pages and showed them to me before asking, "Does it look and feel like this to you? What do you think?" What the f**k do you mean, 'what do i think?' I haven't been to medical school, dickface! I thought you'd know you prick! So we went through the book together (reluctantly) and thought we'd found the answer.
Nope. Not even close. It took me another 5 months of constant pain, canceled appointments and waiting to figure out that i had something relatively common: MRSA. Oh, but i didn't find out from a doctor. Noooo... i had to find out from my aunt who had had it before. She said that when she had it, they quarantined her and gave her so many antibiotics that she built up immunities to many of them. I looked it up online and there it was. The thing that i had.
So i took my new found knowledge and went into see the doctors again. I told them what my aunt had told me and what i'd found on WebMD and we started a round of very powerful antibiotics. I'm now allergic to them, but after another couple of months, the MRSA died off and i went back to normal.
Of course, the MRSA is linked to bringing on my asthma years later. Or so i've been told...
Back in 2002, i was fresh in the navy. I still loved my command (and the empire) and had full confidence in their abilities to take care of me. I was 19 years old and a bit naive about the world around me. Little did i know, that i would turn 20 in incredible pain. Looking back it is impossible to imagine how i lived the way i did for so long...
In early spring of 2002, i woke one morning and the back of my leg hurt! I limped to the mirror and saw a huge red dot on the back of my thigh and went into the hospital immediately. It was already starting to turn darker as i sat down to wait my 4 or 5 hours to been seen. It burned to sit because of the pressure on my thigh so i spent a good chunk of that time pacing.
When i was finally seen, the doctor drew a circle around the now very painful and inflamed spot on my leg then wrote me a prescription for a broad spectrum antibiotic. He told me that it looked like a spider bite and that he suspected that during the night, i had gotten bitten. At the time, i believed him. I've always been fascinated with insects and arachnids (they are truly some of the most amazing things on our planet) and i knew that the bite of some spiders can go unnoticed.
So i faithfully took my horse pills and went back to the barracks where i was living at the time and told my roommate what had happened. She and i pitched in and rented a steam cleaner and steamed the crap out of everything. We even checked out an extension cord from the main office, pulled our cars around, and hit those up as well. Just in case.
I spent the rest of the day in pain, constantly checking my bite to see if the redness had grown outside of the line. Sure enough, in only a few hours, it had grown larger than it had been before. Antibiotics can take a while to build up in the system so i figured i would give it a while to do so and until then all i had to take for the inflammation were giant pills of Ibuprofen.
The very next day, i woke up in incredible pain and another small welt on the back of my leg. This one felt very very tender and it took me a great deal of time to sit up and put my pants on. I decided not to wait the week like i was going to and i went in to have my new spot looked at.
Like playing tennis with a brick wall, the doctor said that it looked like another spider bite and here is where the fun begins. I got another round of antibiotics because he assumed that i was allergic to the ones he gave me (i've never been allergic to anything and to top it off, they were only broad spectrum). He said that the new ones should do the trick but told me to keep an eye on it and come back in if another one popped up.
To make a long story short, more came. First they covered my right leg, then my left and every day was agony. I was constantly tired because of the drain on my body and it was so painful to sit up in bed that i had to have a very good Marine friend come over and help me out of bed. He came every morning that he could make it and help me get around while my body woke up. I was able to sleep at night but barely and that was only thanks to the gigante (giant) ibuprofen that they were giving me to stave off the pain. And no, i never once got anything remotely stronger than ibuprofen...but i was taking around 1600 milligrams three times a day just to function.
The only thing that felt good was direct, searing, heat. I constantly had a heat compress on my legs whenever i got a break at work. I was able to function but how i did is still a little mystery. Looking back, those days blurred from one painful day to the next. You would think you'd get used to it, but every new day would bring fresh painful swelling.
6 months passed of this before i was seen by a dermatologist. 6 months of weekly visits to the doctor and having them tell me that it was just a spider bite. 6 months of constant waiting and waiting and waiting and canceled appointment after canceled appointment. So it finally the day came where i could talk to a specialist. He cleaned a lot of the swollen vacuoles out and took several samples (i never did get the results) and took my blood pressure. I was excited because i thought that i would have an answer.
This prick...he took one of his many books off the shelf, flipped to a couple of pages and showed them to me before asking, "Does it look and feel like this to you? What do you think?" What the f**k do you mean, 'what do i think?' I haven't been to medical school, dickface! I thought you'd know you prick! So we went through the book together (reluctantly) and thought we'd found the answer.
Nope. Not even close. It took me another 5 months of constant pain, canceled appointments and waiting to figure out that i had something relatively common: MRSA. Oh, but i didn't find out from a doctor. Noooo... i had to find out from my aunt who had had it before. She said that when she had it, they quarantined her and gave her so many antibiotics that she built up immunities to many of them. I looked it up online and there it was. The thing that i had.
So i took my new found knowledge and went into see the doctors again. I told them what my aunt had told me and what i'd found on WebMD and we started a round of very powerful antibiotics. I'm now allergic to them, but after another couple of months, the MRSA died off and i went back to normal.
Of course, the MRSA is linked to bringing on my asthma years later. Or so i've been told...
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!: Tails of Socialized Medicine Part One
In this three part blog post (i can't fit it all into one post), i will be telling my own past history with military medical treatment. The military has FREE medical coverage for all and that DOES include dental AND it also includes medications. Sounds great right? Let me start with a story that in 2015 will be common place.
Asthma:
While living in beautiful (i say that sarcastically) Lemoore California, i contracted asthma from the horrible quality of air. But before i get ahead of myself, i have to expand on the terrible encounter i had with socialized medicine.
The first time i had an asthma attack i was 2 miles from civilization, running down old farm roads. I was lucky in that when the attack hit, it was swift and i eventually was able to recover by laying on the ground and trying not to panic. The moment i recovered and walked back to my car, i drove straight to the base hospital emergency room where i waited for 3 hours to see the first available doctor. He took a while to listen to all of the different lobes in both my lungs then scheduled me for X-rays...where i waited another 2 hours. After a quick review when i finally made it back to his office, he concluded that i was only suffering from the backlash of a bad cold. A cold that i never had, by the way. I was given a script for drugs that took another hour to receive and i went home knowing that the medication would do nothing.
I was right.
That night...THAT NIGHT, i woke up around 1am and i couldn't breath. My boyfriend at the time rushed me to the base hospital again where i waited another hour before i was put on medicated oxygen. The doctor was quicker this time as he only took an hour to show up and told me that i had to let the medication work. It was as if he was pissed that i was sitting in his office hooked up to oxygen...as if it were my damned fault!
I was lucky that i didn't have any more problems for a week but almost exactly a week later, i had another mild attack and had to leave work to go to the doctor yet again. This time, i waited "only" 2 hours until i saw another doctor who ordered more x-rays on top of the ones i had only 7 days before. He also listened to my lungs and shook his head. His diagnosis was the same as the last fool. I was just suffering from a strange cold, he told me, then prescribed me a different set of antibiotics. (Wait time for this trip including X-rays and prescription pick up: 5 hours)
For lack of room, i'll simply say that the following week was HELL. I was in constant fear, wondering if i would drop to the ground unable to breath at any moment. I worked around aircraft engines and operated these aircraft as well and it was during my time in the cockpit that i was the most afraid. Looking back, it was only that they did put me on oxygen when i went into the emergency room that kept my asthma down.
After more than two weeks, i was fed up with treatment (and frequent mild attacks) and scheduled a formal appointment with yet another doctor. And i will tell you that i lucked out because the doctor i saw this time had been around longer than the others. He only had to listen to my lungs before he confirmed asthma. (Wait time for the appointment: 6 hours from walking in to leaving).
The man probably saved my life when he put me on my asthma regiment. I would more than likely be in the ground right now if i hadn't lucked out and ran across him.
I know what you are thinking...what did i do about the other "doctors" who diagnosed me with the common cold? Well, i told my Commanding Officer. That's all that i could do. I wasn't allowed to speak with the medical branches Commanding Officer and if my CO talked to them is anyone's guess.
But my guess would be no.
This is only the beginning. I was cursed in that i spent a good number of those 8 years at the hospital and i could write a book about the lines, the wait, the ignorant doctors, and the near death experiences that i had, not because of my illness' but because of the time it took to treat them.
Asthma:
While living in beautiful (i say that sarcastically) Lemoore California, i contracted asthma from the horrible quality of air. But before i get ahead of myself, i have to expand on the terrible encounter i had with socialized medicine.
The first time i had an asthma attack i was 2 miles from civilization, running down old farm roads. I was lucky in that when the attack hit, it was swift and i eventually was able to recover by laying on the ground and trying not to panic. The moment i recovered and walked back to my car, i drove straight to the base hospital emergency room where i waited for 3 hours to see the first available doctor. He took a while to listen to all of the different lobes in both my lungs then scheduled me for X-rays...where i waited another 2 hours. After a quick review when i finally made it back to his office, he concluded that i was only suffering from the backlash of a bad cold. A cold that i never had, by the way. I was given a script for drugs that took another hour to receive and i went home knowing that the medication would do nothing.
I was right.
That night...THAT NIGHT, i woke up around 1am and i couldn't breath. My boyfriend at the time rushed me to the base hospital again where i waited another hour before i was put on medicated oxygen. The doctor was quicker this time as he only took an hour to show up and told me that i had to let the medication work. It was as if he was pissed that i was sitting in his office hooked up to oxygen...as if it were my damned fault!
I was lucky that i didn't have any more problems for a week but almost exactly a week later, i had another mild attack and had to leave work to go to the doctor yet again. This time, i waited "only" 2 hours until i saw another doctor who ordered more x-rays on top of the ones i had only 7 days before. He also listened to my lungs and shook his head. His diagnosis was the same as the last fool. I was just suffering from a strange cold, he told me, then prescribed me a different set of antibiotics. (Wait time for this trip including X-rays and prescription pick up: 5 hours)
For lack of room, i'll simply say that the following week was HELL. I was in constant fear, wondering if i would drop to the ground unable to breath at any moment. I worked around aircraft engines and operated these aircraft as well and it was during my time in the cockpit that i was the most afraid. Looking back, it was only that they did put me on oxygen when i went into the emergency room that kept my asthma down.
After more than two weeks, i was fed up with treatment (and frequent mild attacks) and scheduled a formal appointment with yet another doctor. And i will tell you that i lucked out because the doctor i saw this time had been around longer than the others. He only had to listen to my lungs before he confirmed asthma. (Wait time for the appointment: 6 hours from walking in to leaving).
The man probably saved my life when he put me on my asthma regiment. I would more than likely be in the ground right now if i hadn't lucked out and ran across him.
I know what you are thinking...what did i do about the other "doctors" who diagnosed me with the common cold? Well, i told my Commanding Officer. That's all that i could do. I wasn't allowed to speak with the medical branches Commanding Officer and if my CO talked to them is anyone's guess.
But my guess would be no.
This is only the beginning. I was cursed in that i spent a good number of those 8 years at the hospital and i could write a book about the lines, the wait, the ignorant doctors, and the near death experiences that i had, not because of my illness' but because of the time it took to treat them.
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