Maestro raise your baton

Late yesterday right after I left the hospital, the doctor came in to check on Renee, this was another partner from the gastroenterologist’s office. In addition to the infection Renee is experiencing low blood pressure, low hemoglobin, her count dropped to seven yesterday, the normal range is 12-16 and her liver function is low. We’re told that if the hemoglobin count hits six it’s transfusion time.

After he gets through telling Renee all of this, he says, “You’re doing good,” “So why the heck is everything out of whack,” asks the patient. “You’re doing good,” says doctor again, like he either didn’t here or more likely wasn’t listening to the patient. Renee is getting frustrated and wants to know in English what the heck is going on. I wasn’t there to ask the five W”s and she let him leave without a sufficient explanation.

We know who, we know where, sometimes the when, but the what and why are still up in the air. I told Renee to take notes while the doctors are talking but that’s not happening. I’m considering getting her a digital voice recorder. But we both have to just slow the doctors down and ask them to explain better.

With so many doctors that have a finger on the spoon stirring the pot it can get confusing. Renee’s also got to watch out for her own well being. One doctor prescribed a pain medication with ibuprofen but her kidney doctor says only take acetaminophen. She’s on a soft GI diet but when she’s allowed to eat they give her menus with items that a competitive eating contestant couldn’t digest. You can’t believe the stuff that the cafeteria will provide a hospital patient. Don’t they have nutritionists that work there? Is there any coordination and communication between the departments in an effort to get the patient better?

It would be great to get all of Renee’s doctors into one room and put everything on the table so that each may know what the other’s thinking, then maybe we could devise a concerted plan of attack. But the family care physician doesn’t do hospital visits, the gastroenterologist defers to the surgeon about the abscess, the local surgeon doesn’t do drains and currently is only on board for consult, (inhale) as far as we know, the nefrologist hasn’t been consulted nor the blood doctor, we may now need a liver specialist and the surgeon that performed the operation is in Cleveland. This will give you an idea of why we are a little confused and Renee feels out of the loop concerning her own progress.

They told Renee yesterday that they’ll do an ultrasound of the liver on Monday in addition to the scheduled CT Scan of the abscess. Today they said the technician is in so the Ultrasound is being done around 11:00A.M. Results to follow.