The following is a true story. I have left out the names to protect the guilty. It is also a rant about the collapse of the health care system and complete dearth of compassion in it.
If you are still interested read on below the fold.
A few weeks ago I started having unbearable back pain. I figured it was just stress or I pulled it somehow. I go and get a massage. No help. I take OTC pain relievers and wait for it to go away.
Only this time it doesn't, it gets worse. Pain is shooting down my leg, I can't stand or walk for more than a few minutes, Now it's radiating around my ribs and I am having trouble breathing. My right side hurts.
Finally after 4 weeks of this getting increasingly worse, not being able to get into the local clinic I can't take it any more so I go to the local ER. I hate going to them for anything especially this kind of thing but really can't take any more. At first they we all nice, friendly, concerned and working to find out the problem. Then comes the "DOCTOR" , the one person making buttloads of cash for rubber stamping the work others do for him. He tells me I should have gone to a clinic or a real Doctor. Then to my shock and amazement he says "you need to go to a clinic and not come back here again.".
But, but damn it! I TRIED to go to a goddamn clinic. They are so overworked they don't have appointments for MONTHS. For fuck's sake don't these people LISTEN to what you tell them?
He sends me to the PA, they give me 12 vicoden and kick me to the curb, washing their hands of my kind.
I go home, dutifully eat my pain pills, try once again to get into a clinic (to no avail) and wait. And suffer.
Fast forward 3 days... it's worse. The pain pills are useless. Nothing has changed. So I go to another ER. This one with a reputation of being good. I am more prepared this time. I have a written littany of symptoms, the discharge papers from my previous exercise in futility, all my meds (including the empty bottles I have no way to refill). It starts out well, they have a plan of action, they are going to run x, y and z tests. They have a theory. I think "YAY!" real honest to god medical personnel that know their jobs and care! Until shift change.
My test results are in... the new doctor (that never even looked at my chart) walks in and says " Good news! :) your tests are all negative... there is nothing wrong with you!"
... I am speechless. "What do you mean?" As though suddenly the pain is all supposed to just magically go away cause your 3 tests found nothing? He stutters... "well what are your symptoms?" I repeat a portion of the littany. He tells me well maybe you should go see your regular doctor. Oh! I see! I am supposed to go see the clinic doctor that is so overworked I can't get an appointment anytime in the next 3 months. Just so long as I don't inconvenience you again.
The new nurse comes in and is in such a hurry to remove my IV port she lets blood drip down my arm and all over the room. Here is your Rx for stomach meds (!??!) now GTFO.
So here I sit, still in pain, still sick, several thousand dollars in the hole and absolutely NOTHING to show for it but further proof that our health care system is irrevocably broken and the medical profession is so full of incompetent, greedy fools that it may as well not exist, especially for the poor.
Welcome to the Corporate States of America. It makes me want to cry, scream and yell. This is not the United States I grew up in. Where the hell did my country go?