My Medical Day from Hell

I always hesitate sharing private things publicly.  Especially health nonsense.  It always appears to be a cry for help or pity.  A selfish and weak insecurity that screams “somebody please care about me.”  Let me assure you that is not what this is.  Whatever my issues, they are being dealt with and I have no doubt I will be fine.  It is an inconvenience, a stressor, and something that may slow me down from time to time.  But it is being handled.

What this is about is, in my mind, a much greater issue.  Something that is often overlooked and is either not taught in medical schools or it is completely ignored.  And that is, the Bedside Manner.  It is treating your patient like a human being.  In my experience, in which I am regrettably well versed, it is nonexistent. Especially in New York City.

This past Tuesday I spent 8 hours at a Mt. Sinai hospital for two appointments that I believed would be minor and easy to get through.  I was severely mistaken. 

So you are not distracted by the “my God, what on earth is she suffering from?” question and completely missing my intent, I will just answer your question.  15 years ago I was diagnosed with a pituitary microadenoma.  A whuh? AKA: a brain tumor.  Cue ominous music.  It was benign, it was treated, and 10 years ago it disappeared and I was given a clean bill of health with the warning that these pesky tumors have the audacity to return often.

Over the past year, I had noticed some rather familiar side effects so this past December I requested that bloodwork be done.  A week later, I received a paper in the mail, poorly copied, with a bunch of medical jargon of complicated chemical levels with numbers next to them.  No explanations.  Just one word scribbled at the bottom in my doctor’s handwriting.  It read “Normal.”

Now, most people would take that as fact, shrug, wonder why they felt crappy still, but say “hey, I’m normal. It’s fine.”  But with my medical history, I knew what some of the levels meant.  The most important one (let’s call it Fuzzywhatsit) was elevated 3x what it should be for a healthy adult woman.  

It took me two weeks and being transferred six times from call center to call center to leave a message for my doctor who eventually called me back. I asked if she was sure about her assessment.  After refreshing her memory as to who I was (I have been a patient of hers for 4 years) I could hear her typing to pull up my medical history; something she should have done when the results had come back initially.  There was silence on the line.  Then she asked me to come in again for more bloodwork to “double check.”  I did.  And the Fuzzywhatsit levels came back even higher.  

She referred me to a Specialist.  One that she “had a great working relationship with and would take excellent care of me.”  I let it go that she was negligent in finding this problem on her own.  I mean, what good would chiding a doctor really do?

I waited to see this Specialist for 4 months.  Because she only worked twice a week.  And she was booked solid. 

When I arrived at my appointment, I found out that I was passed on to a new doctor whose name even the receptionist couldn’t pronounce.  They didn’t tell me, they just pointed to a room and said have a seat.  Luckily he was kind.  And he listened.  Which is a novelty in my many years of sitting in those cold rooms on crappy vinyl seats.  Then again, he was new to NYC. Give him time.

He ordered that I go to Mount Sinai for a Pituitary Vision Field Test and an MRI.  He also wanted more blood work taken.  At this rate, I wondered if it was possible to run out of blood. 

It took me 2 weeks and three calling centers to set up both appointments.  But I managed to set them up on the same day (this past Tuesday).  Now, I know you must be thinking “jeezus, Stacy.  This is dry and boring.  Get to the point.”  And I have.  It gets better. I promise. (Or worse, depending on how you look at it.)

First was the Ophthalmologist for the Vision Field Test.  My appointment was for 1pm.

Now I have always had perfect sight so I haven’t ever really had to go to an eye doctor.  I have no idea what it entails and put my trust in these people completely.  As you do. 

I check in with the receptionist named Sheron (pronounced SHE-ron. I checked).  I hand her my referral.  It is highlighted in bold: PITUITARY VISION FIELD TEST.  She checks me in.  I sign tons of papers.  I have a seat.  A marathon of Law & Order: SVU is playing loudly on the television.  It occurs to me that this probably isn’t the most tactful show to be playing in a hospital waiting room.  The sounds of women being raped and people screaming in court that they aren’t guilty, etc.  But I pull out my newspaper and turn to the crossword.  I have always hated hospitals.  The smell.  The lack of empathy.  The noises.  The chill.  The pain.  So I often have to keep myself calm and distracted. 

I wait for 30 minutes. 

I get called in to see a technician.  I ask her if she needs to see my referral.  She says no.  She says she needs to put three different drops in my eyes to dilate them and I am warned that my vision will be blurry for a few hours.  I think to myself, well, I guess I won’t be going to the movies today like I thought.  I ask her, “Will this affect my MRI that I am getting later?”  She says no.

I go back to the waiting room.  More women are screaming on the TV but now it is blended with the sound of a mariachi band playing loudly on a cellphone of a man in the corner, sitting under a sign that reads “Please respect others and keep quiet.”  I try to work on my crossword….with dilated pupils.  I am determined.  But now I see three puzzles instead of one.  I take a breath.

I wait for 15 minutes.

A nurse calls me in.  We sit in a room.  She asks me questions that I’ve already answered on the paperwork previously.  I ask if she needs my referral.  She says no.  She sends me back to the waiting room.  More mariachi and SVU.  I read my newspaper, three inches from my face.  Breathe.

I wait for 15 minutes. 

The doctor calls me in.  She sits me down.  I ask, “Do you need to see my referral?”  She says no.  She has me put my chin on a metal apparatus, flashes two lights in my eyes.  She types something in the computer then turns to me and asks, “Ok.  Your eyes look fine.  Why are you here?”

“….excuse me?  What do you mean?  I need a Pituitary Vision Field Test.”

“Oh. I don’t DO those.”

“What?”

“That’s not what I do.”

“Then what do you do?”

“Eye exams.  The technician who does field tests is on vacation for a month.”

“…so what did you just do to me?”

“An eye exam.”

“So….the whole reason why I am here...why?….you just gave me a procedure for no reason.  You dilated my pupils for no reason.  I am going to be charged for this for no reason?”

“I don’t do scheduling.  You’ll have talk to the receptionist.”

“But. I don’t understand.  How did I just get treated for something I didn’t ask for?  How did I get scheduled for a time when the ONE person in your ENTIRE hospital is unavailable?”

The doctor is irritated with me now, “Like I said, I don’t DO field tests or scheduling.  Talk to the receptionist.”

I stumble my way back to the waiting room.  I walk up to Sheron.  I tell myself to keep it together but I’ve started to get upset.  I tell Sheron that I’m upset.  She says she understands.  

I ask, “How did this happen?  I gave you my referral that says why I am here.”

She says, “Oh.  I don’t read those.  I just scan them.”

I blink.  My eyes won’t focus.  I don’t think they would have even without the drops.  I am at a loss.  I ask to speak to whomever I need to speak to so that I won’t be charged for something I didn’t want.  Sheron says she’ll ask the doctor about it.  Sheron comes back 10 minutes later.  The doctor has told her that she saw me as a new patient and I should be charged as one.

I ask again to see someone from administration.  She pages them.  6 times.  Sheron says if I leave my number I could be called when they are available.  I say, “Not on your life, lady.  I’ll wait.”  

I wait 45 minutes.  

They find the admin on the phone.  Sheron asks the admin if she can pass the phone to me to talk to me.  The admin refuses.  Instead she sends her assistant down to talk to me.  I sit in the waiting room in the vinyl chair, curled up, trying not to make a scene.  I explain to the assistant what has happened. I am angry at the tears that are building in my eyes.  But I keep my voice low.  She is sympathetic.  But she is only an assistant.  She asks Sheron how I could be passed through 4 people and no one looked at the referral.  Sheron stumbles over her words, tries to make excuses, and finally apologizes.  The assistant called her boss to come down.  We wait.  While I wait, I hear Sheron and her coworker talking loudly about how it isn’t their fault.  I hear them trying to blame me.  That I must have told the call center that I needed an eye exam.  

But as many of you know, the call centers are made of people who have nothing to do with the medical field.  They read off a piece paper, talk over you like they know what you are going to say, or that you don’t know your own condition, and then with a few key strokes they sign you up for an appointment you don’t even need.

The boss comes down.  She takes me into a side room for privacy.  But this room has machinery everywhere and syringes laid out on trays.  It is not comforting.  But she listens.  She apologizes.  Many times.  She says she’ll void the visit.  And gives me her direct line.  

I am now a human being.  Three hours later and now, I exist.  Now, I am deemed a person that matters.

They set me for the next available field test. September 11^th.  The technician is overbooked.  But hey, I’ll get seen sometime, eventually, on that day.

I call my mother.  She knows I never have good experiences on either plane flights or hospitals.  I try to twist the story to amuse her.  But she reads between the lines.  She knows I’m upset. 

I now go across the street for my MRI.  I tried to pick up something to eat but didn’t have much time so I only managed a milkshake.  In hindsight, I realize this was not enough.  As you’ll soon see….

I nearly get lost finding the MRI check in.  It is in a tiny messy room in the depths of Mount Sinai.  I have calmed down but I am exhausted.  I had worked 6 days in a row and the commute to get to the hospital took 90 minutes.  So I was already looking forward to going home and crawling into bed.  But I sat down and signed tons more paperwork.  The receptionist assures me that they will get me out by 6p and I was all set. 

I wait.  An hour.  

At one point I could hear two technician in the hallway, loudly talking about their lives and dates and texts.  Then they leave without acknowledging me.  The receptionist knows they are not busy. She calls them 4 times before one of them comes to get me. 

He doesn’t look at me much.  He just escorts me into an anteroom where I relinquish my belongings and any metal on my body.  It’s freezing in the room as I take off my rings and put them in a locker.  The technician has a full conversation with a random doctor as I shiver in the hall.  Then he sits me in a chair to put a “line” (a sort of IV needle) in my arm for the contrast solution.  **For those of you that are squeamish, this is the point when you should stop reading.

He wraps the rubber hose tightly around my arm.  Its painful but I know he’s going to need it tight to find my veins.  He asks, “So you got good veins?” 
I say, “No.  People often have a hard time finding them.”
He scoffs and like the cocky bastard he is, puffs up his chest and I can see the disbelief in his eyes.  Another technician comes in and together they chat about nothing.  All while my arm is throbbing from the lack of circulation.  I think back to the last time a cocky phlebotomist acted like that.  That dumbass blew my vein out and while I was in the midst of passing out, had the gall to hit on me.  So I have had very little faith in these people.
Finally, this Mr. Dumbass comes back to me and inserts the needle.  I immediately know something was wrong.  It is a special kind of pain that sadly I know how to recognize as it has happened multiple times.  

Shit. He nicked it.  He sees my face.  I say it doesn’t feel right.  There’s a deep sting.  But maybe he didn’t blow it.  I start to feel nauseous.  I ask for water.  I think, maybe it’s just that I’m tired and I didn’t eat.  Maybe I’m the dumbass.  He gets water and then says he’ll be back in 5 minutes to take me in.

I sit there.  By myself. The  cold sweats start.  Oh no.  I know this.  Next my hearing goes.  I immediately know I am going under.  I lay my head down on the armrest.  Trying to breathe and not knock the dangling IV in my arm around.  I am soaking wet.  And I fight not to either throw up or pass out.  I want my mother.  I want my best friend.  I want to go to sleep.  I feel lonely. 

I look to my left.  A biohazard bin is popped open.  Dried spatters of blood are all over it.  And some on the walls. 

Nope.  Not a good idea.  I shut my eyes.  The dizziness sets in.  Breathe, Stacy Lynn.  Don’t freak out.  You know this.  It passes.  Breathe.

A patient on a gurney was being wheeled out of the MRI room.  I couldn’t tell if they were female or male.  They were old and skeletal and barely moving.  The thin blankets and hospital gown weren’t much covering but they were so frail that they sunk into it.  There was nothing behind their eyes.  The technician who wheeled them passed me said, “hey.” And kept moving. 

I waited for ten minutes.  I had started to recover.  My body dried.  My hearing came back.  

Mr Dumbass came through the door carrying food and a coffee. He. Went. To. Lunch.  I was there, shaking and fighting for consciousness…and that fucker went to lunch.  Right.  Ok. 

If I had been at my best, he would have been castrated right then and there.  But I wasn’t.  And when I am feeling beaten, like only a hospital can make me feel, I become almost zombie like.  I just get through it. 

They walked me to the MRI machine and I laid down.  One technician put earphones over my ears which played classic Rock.  I fucking hate classic rock. 
She started talking to me.  I said, “I can’t hear you. There’s music playing.”  She keeps talking.  I repeat.  Finally she takes off the headphones, instructs me on the panic button, then puts the headphones back on before putting on the face cage.  The cage smells like death and bad breath.  I realize they didn’t wipe this one off from the last patient.  Just get through it, Stacy.

I don’t know if you all have had the pleasure of an MRI before.  But it is the noisiest 30 minutes of your life. One would think that with all the technological advances in the world, they’d find a way to make a silent MRI.  But no, it’s like a jackhammer meets a video game in surround sound.  Regardless of the headphones.

The first 15 minutes or so is without contrast.  They slide you in and the cacophony begins.  The song, by the way, playing in my ears was Guns N Roses “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”.  Again, highly inappropriate for someone in a health crisis.  But the irony and humor was not lost on me.

They then pull me out of the tunnel to insert the contrast liquid into my arm through the “line.”
.....And an immediate burning spreads through my arm. 

“Fuck!”

The technician (yet a different one again because apparently they need 5 of them to run a machine) passively asks what is wrong.

“My arm is burning.  It hurts.”

“Well hold it still.”

I know something isn’t right.  But I’m hoping that at least some of the contrast is going where it needs to go.  Just so I can get out of there.  A part of me still trusts these people.  It’s their job after all.  They would know if something is wrong.  I’ve told them it hurts and it burns.  If they aren’t concerned then I shouldn’t be, right?

They push me back in the machine.  This time without music.  So I hear the banging of the scans rattle in my head.  The burning doesn’t stop.  It’s building.  I’m breathing in short bursts now.  Whimpering like a dog.  Mentally shouting at myself to hold still so I don’t screw up the imaging scan.  I lock my muscles.  Grit my teeth.  Hate my life.  But I hold still.  For five minutes. 

They yank me out of the tunnel.  Two technicians pull the cage off my head.  One asks, “why are you panicking?”

I say, angrily, “I’m not panicking. It. Hurts.”

One technician touches my arm where the line is, “Oh. It’s gone hard.”

The other technician asks me, “Do you have small veins?”

I stare at the ceiling.  An angry tear escapes my left eye.  Don’t you fucking give them the satisfaction of tears, Stacy Lynn.  They don’t deserve them.

“Yes," I say,  "I think he blew out my vein.  It’s happened before.”

One technician takes out the line. He presses on the area to spread the contrast that was building and is stuck in my arm.  My stomach rolls with nausea but I lay still. 

The other technician softens his voice.  He introduces himself.  His name is Tony.  He asks my name.  He asks my weight. He asks three times.  He asks if I have any possibility of being pregnant.  All these things I’ve answered on the paperwork that they did not bother to read.  He asks about my arm tattoo. He asks where I am from.  

Suddenly, again, I am a person.  I exist.  It took pain and mistakes.  But now I exist.

He explains what I already know.  They can try, with my permission, the other arm.  But if they fuck it up again, I will have to reschedule and come back and do it all over again.

I stare at the ceiling.  I nod my head. What else could I do?  What choice did I actually have?

I pray he’s better at stabbing my arm than Mr. Dumbass.

He is.  He gets it right.  I can already tell it’s the accurate kind of hurt.  He inserts the contrast.  No burning.  They put the cage back on.  I listen to the buzz and bang of the MRI for 15 minutes.  And its over. 

They put gauze and tape on both arms after taking the line out.  And then send me away looking like a haggard crazy person with holes in her arms.  I wander outside, looking for a place to buy liquids to hydrate. I call my mother.  Calmly tell her.  Try to spin it to entertain.  She's horrified.  I have to walk an extra 10 blocks because they shut down the closest subway stop for repairs.  I reassure my mother by saying, well, at least its a nice day outside for a walk.

I ride the subway the 90 minutes it takes to get home.  I crawl into bed. It is 9pm.

Two days later my Specialist with the difficult name to pronounce calls.  He says, “Good news.  Your brain tumor’s back.”

I say, “That’s good news?”

He says, “Well if there hadn’t been a growth, I wouldn’t have known what was wrong with you.”

And there you have it.  THAT is how you get treated.  THAT is how you get spoken to. THAT is my norm.  THAT is most new yorkers’ experiences.  Because for every story I have told, another friend has a story just like it.  I have a minimum of a year of checkups and bloodletting to look forward to.  And you know what?  It isn’t the brain tumor that scares me.  I can handle that.  I don’t need to talk about how I feel about that. I got this.

It’s the dehumanization and carelessness of those medical professionals and their receptionists that make me want to fall apart.  Yeah, the side effects of the meds will suck.  But not nearly as much as those waiting rooms. If you are reading this and you know a medical professional, remind them that no amount of need for emotional distance, no amount of education or knowledge, no amount of money or power gives you license to be an ASSHOLE.  

If people are irritable or short with you?  Maybe it’s because they are scared.  If they question you?  Maybe its because you aren’t listening.  It may be an appointment for you.  A blip on your radar.  But its their LIFE.  Their body.  And they know it better than you ever will.

And if nothing else.  Remember these 2 things.  Read the fucking referral.  And never go on a lunch break when your patient is passing out.

END.