Thinking in vain...

I still have my fingers crossed for all those people that I told I would. Hopefully your searches and new jobs are going great. :)

Now, it's my blog and I'm going to have a release. So if you're not interested just skip this. I'll see if I can find something more interesting to post later.

Monday morning started off with a phone call at about 6:00am. My mother's head and right arm were numb, the room was spinning and she felt like she was going to pass out. And she just wanted to let someone know in case something happened. I told her I was taking her to the ER. I then decided to call 9-1-1 instead just in case she did in fact pass out. The last thing I wanted was to be half way there and she need something that I can't give her – like CPR.

We got to the ER around 6:45. Around 7:30ish a resident came into talk to us and get all the information and past history. So we told them that she's had repeated head injuries for the last 3 years, she's had a spinal leak, that she's got a moderate to severe narrowing of the ephemeral nerve and everything else. All the while my mom is still having the waves of numbness. It's not until about 11 that the resident comes back, tells us that she's consulted with the attending and tells us my mother has an inner ear problem and they're going to give her medication for vertigo and send us home.

Oh hell no.

My mother has been a nurse for 40+ years, everyone in my family is practically in the medical field – my sister and I don't take someone to the ER because of vertigo. Yes, she was dizzy, but I'm pretty sure an inner ear problem doesn't cause your head and arm to go numb. Even if it did, with all the problems my mother has with her head and neck, that's the dumbest diagnosis. And we told them that. I also realize all the tests are normal - but not everything comes up on a CT Scan.

Also, I realize that you, as the attending ER physician, are very busy. I realize you have people coding and having problems that seem a lot more dire than my mother's... but if YOU SHUT UP for 5 seconds and stop talking over my mother like she's an idiot maybe you could actually listen to her tell you that what she's having is not vertigo.

We then told her that we weren't going anywhere until her PCP gave his opinion. So we got a "we're waiting on him to call us back." Then they left us there for 2 hours. We finally asked if he'd called back and the nurse tells us that he's coming. She said she didn't know why no one had thought to tell us. An hour after that the attending comes back and tells us the same thing and that she would have told us sooner but she was a little busy. Whatever.

Skip ahead to 6:00 that night and he finally gets there. Which is fine, he's seeing patients all day in his practice. He didn't get to the ER last time until around 6, we were figuring on that.

He tells us that it probably has to do with her cervical nerves and that he needs to get an MRI of her neck and nerve conduction tests. We can go home but she's not to do anything strenuous and to see him Tuesday.

Funnily enough, the nurse comes in like 15 minutes later and says our PCP is on his way. We're like he's already been here and gone. He was a little angry with them. And turns out that they kept the vertigo diagnosis and coded it like that even after he told us that wasn't the problem. Which we're also mad about because that messes with her medical records.

Anyways. She's taking it easy. She's got a cervical MRI and a Cerebral MRA tomorrow and hopefully we'll get the results back soon. Unfortunately, the doctor thinks that there are really only two options: a steroid injection into her spine - which is what gave her the spinal leak the last time or surgery. Neither of which may actually fix the problem or help with symptoms.

Worst part is she's horribly upset that she's being a burden to us and is terrified of both the surgery and the injection.

*sigh* So there.

Now back to work. Concentrating has been hard this week....