I have a beef with the medical profession. In an effort to convince patients they need a procedure, they will sometimes soft pedal the potential side effects and complications. Take my recent colon resection as an example. The first doctor to urge me to consider the procedure was my GI doc. He patiently explained to my wife and I about new laparoscopic procedures that were supposed to be so much less stressful on the patient. "They make two or three small incisions," he explained, "and insert instruments to do the procedure. Like building a ship in a bottle." He made it sound like an outpatient procedure. Like I could be there in the morning and out the afternoon. That was my honest impression of the procedure leaving his office.
The original consult with the surgeon wasn't much better. He seemed more concerned that my GI doc had tattooed the area properly than explaining the realities of the procedure. He said nothing about how long I could expect to be in the hospital, how long my recovery would be or possible complications. I stressed, over and over, that if I didn't work I didn't get paid and that downtime from work was a major factor with me. He looked at me with unblinking blue eyes and asked again about the ink marking.
After scheduling the procedure I started doing some research of my own, suspicious that this was all a little too easy. I started discovering that most patients are in the hospital anywhere from three to five days. That couldn't be right, so I called my surgeon for clarification. "It's laparoscopic but still major surgery," he chided. "Where did you get the idea you'd be out in a day?" From you, dickweed, and my other doctor. Neither one of them were being completely honest. If I knew the right questions to ask, I would get honest answers but no one was in any way motivated to volunteer bad news. I think they were afraid I would postpone the procedure if they told me the truth.
And the truth was hideous. For one thing I made one of the cardinal mistakes of rookie patients; I picked a doctor and then got stuck with the facility he worked with. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Find the facility you like the best, then get a list of surgeons that work at that facility. Avoid my mistake of ending up in place built in 1920 that reminded me more of a set for a psycho thriller in an abandoned medical facility. Not only should you pick the facility, you should insist on a tour. I toured my hospital and came away with a bad feeling. I should have paid attention to that.
The surgery went perfectly but I came out feeling like I'd been hit by a truck. This was supposed to be the low impact procedure. Apparently that "ship in a bottle" was a diesel locomotive they pulled out through a four inch incision on my right side. To top it off my night nurse kept prompting me to use the narcotic button on my IV, probably the worst thing you can do for intestinal surgery. Two days later I developed an ileus, which is basically your intestines saying screw it and not working. I was stuck in the hospital nearly a week, I swelled up like a balloon and the nurses kept blowing my IVs pushing the meds too hard.
I was dying in the sterile, unmoving air of the hospital and I needed to get back to work. Yet no one seemed to be in the least bit of a hurry to get me out of there. We have good insurance and the hospital was clocking them thousands of dollars a day. Finally, I just told my doc I wanted to go home. He was reluctant but his choice was discharge me or I would discharge myself. I'd had enough of the house of horrors and all my doctors seemed genuinely surprised I didn't like it there.
Getting home wasn't much better. The ileus cleared up and I started eating again but sitting in my office chair was a non-starter. I was stuck in the recliner, unable to lay flat and sleep nights without painkillers. The painkillers worked great but gave me constipation, a real problem for abdominal surgery. I was miserable and then my big surgical scar got infected and started opening up. Another low-percentage complication no one explained or seemed prepared to handle.
The bottom line it was over five weeks before I could work a normal work schedule and, had my job involved lifting, I'd still be out of work. Before you buy an investment, your broker has to give you a prospectus that describes everything that can go wrong. But your doctor is under no such obligation. You'll be fine, in and out in a couple days.
Bull-shit.