As many of you know, Jay has been in and out of prompt cares, the emergency room and doctors' offices since last Sunday (the 12th). Remember a few months ago when he was having what I deemed a "spazzing liver"? Well on Sunday it all started fresh again, this time with a wave of nausea.
I'll take you through the events in an abridged version:
Sunday: Get home from El Paso, throw up in apartment yard.
Monday: OSF prompt care to assess the damage, multiple wheelchair rides, CT scan that showed nothing, blood panel that showed nothing (after I called them to find out the results...they said they would call us...whatever).
Tuesday: Follow-up appointment with Nurse Practitioner who was ready to diagnose it as "A serious viral infection." To which I replied "Is there any way we can know for sure so this doesn't happen again in four months?" He is prescribed Vicodin for pain and Zofran for nausea. She takes a urine sample that comes back normal and sends us to OSF for another blood panel (that, again, came back normal)
Tuesday at 10 pm: After watching Muppet Treasure Island, Jay's pain shoots from his right side to his left and radiates all sorts of fun places (think down from the abdominal area). Emergency room time! We get there around 10:30 with him leaning on me to stabilize himself, going white with pain. I'm sure everyone in the waiting room thought he had been shot, which was kind of cool, given the circumstances. We don't see the doctor until around 12:30 a.m., who pokes Jay in those "fun places" I mentioned and deduces that he has a hernia (a breach in his abdominal wall by some organ poking out of it). Jay gets a shot of a wonderful painkiller and is prescribed 600 mg of Ibuprofen for further pain management. We get home at around 2:00 in the morning.
Wednesday: I call the hospital to find out his blood came back normal. Again. What a surprise.
Thursday: I had to work, but Jay's mom (who had been with us most of the week so far, bless her) took him to another follow-up appointment with a surgeon who said Jay definitely had a hernia. They did another CT scan and a third blood panel (both of which were normal) and I believe a stool sample.
Friday: I call the doctor at home on accident (it was the only number I saw) to ask him what we do now. He said he would have his office call us on Monday.
Saturday: Waiting
Sunday: Waiting
Monday: We call his office several times, speak to his receptionist and his nurse. His nurse tells us that he does not have a hernia, based on his CT scan, which confuses the hell out of us. She calls us back a bit later after speaking with the doctor and she says that Jay does have a hernia, but they think it has to be something else to be causing the amount of pain it is (Jay: "I mean...I felt like he was calling me a pussy, saying that I shouldn't be in this much pain").
So now, we are out of Vicodin, but Jay can eat solid foods now, thank God. You know that Snickers commercial with Aretha Franklin in the backseat of the car, they give her a Snickers and she turns into their friend again? That's what Jay gets like when he's hungry, and he had been hungry for a whole week on a diet of clear liquids, applesauce and Jell-O.
Tomorrow he's going to see some digestive disease consultants. I'm not a doctor, but I'm sure he hasn't contracted a digestive disease. I think he has a hernia, they need to cut him open, fix it and let him get better. And we're frustrated and confused about why they won't just do that.
One last upset: I know that doctors are busy. They have a lot of patients and hospitals have certain procedures they have to follow. But come on! Two CT scans and three blood panels to get no results every time?! Not only that but we had to get in touch with them to find this out?! Shit, I'll do the surgery! Gimme a scalpel and some mesh, let's get this done.
((Cross-Posted at Holy Matrimony!))
