Re: Is there a DOCTOR in the house...I think i have a bit of an
emergency  

Group: alt.support.hepatitis-c Date: Sun, Oct 29, 2006, 1:49pm (CST-2)
From: starbuckfreak@hotmail.com
Waterspider wrote:
<starbuckfreak@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1162154213.461956.22840@e64g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
I hope someone can answer this, and do so rather quickly. A week ago
last Friday, I awoke, made some breakfast, put it down on a table in
front of my sofa, sat down, and before i knew it i felt uncontrollable
spinning, so strong that it had me almost flat on my a.s. I had moved in
this event and i guess i just naturally had my head now forward, and it
went away as fast as it had come on. Then i leaned back on the sofa, and
WOW, the spinning started again, absolutely terrifying, Somehow i
realized that when my head and neck were reclining is when this was
happening, so i kept my head in a forward stance, and kept waiting for
it to happen again. I couldnt figure out why i was having this vertigo.
About 12 years ago i had suffered vertigo, went to my doctor, he said i
had an inner ear imbalance brought on possibly by fluid retention in my
ear or nasal passages, and that it was nothing to worry about, he just
gave me some motion sickness pills and something like over the counter
Sudafed, and it was all better in about three days, and only bothered me
when i tilted my head back especially as i was trying to lie down in
bed, but it went away quickly.
Now I dont have a cold that i know of, and i thought that perhaps
because this was my first day of work that i might be a bit nervous, and
this is what brought on the vertigo. I went to work, and no more
vertigo. The next day, a week ago yesterday, i was lying in bed, about
to get up, and as i turned my head, the vertigo came back something
fierce. I turned my head to the other side, and it went away. As i got
out of bed i noticed my balance wasnt what it should be.
I went to Urgent Care and they just gave me some motion sickness pills
and sent me on my way. Well the next day, Sunday of last week, I again
awoke with the vertigo. This time I had had enough and decided to go off
to the local emergency room.
I must confess that in the past year my health has gone way down hill. I
have posted a few times of the constant pain i am in in my muscles, and
even graphically mentioned that the ability to wipe my a.s in daunting
to me. You see, I have a liver disease, and it seems my body has turned
against me. My vision is blurred, and getting worse all the time. A year
ago I at 6 ft weighed in at around 175, and in this past year I have put
on 70 lbs, I weigh close to 250, and I eat very little, maybe the
equivilant of one full meal a day. My stomach is distended like some
woman who is about to give birth, my feet and hands and fingers are
bloated out of all proportion. My watch hardly will close around my
wrist.
I am not jaundiced at all for whatever reason but i am not. What I hoped
they would do at the ER was do a procedure called Paracentetis, which is
a rather simple procedure, where they insert a needle into you abdomon
and remove the excess fluid. From what i could find on the internet, I
could easily have several GALLONS of sterile fluid in my abdomen,
supposedly yellow in color. So I go off to the ER, not driving so well,
not able to find a parking place less than five blocks away from the ER,
and i sort of hobbled and weaved my way to the ER. I told them what my
problems were, and how i could barely stand without holding on to
something. They had me waiting in the ER for a full TWO HOURS before
they finally called me in to be seen by some guy who asked me what had
brought me in to the ER. I explained, and this guy put a hospital band
on my wrist and told me to go back to the waiting room, that I would be
called. I asked the dude if he could tell me how long it would be. He
said he didnt know. I pressed him saying well can you give me a ballpark
figure, i mean is it going to be half an hour or seven hours. He again
said he had no idea. I pressed further asking him IN HIS EXPERIENCE how
long it might be. Again the a.shole said he had no idea. So i go back to
the waiting room, where i sit for the next FOUR hours, going back every
so often to the window to ask if i will be called soon, and they say
they dont know. I am now feeling even more like total sh.t, and i am
thinking of going to the Starbucks down on the corner, and faking
falling down, and getting Starbucks to call an ambulance and know for
sure that then i will be seen immediately, but i really am not that
dramatic so i decide against it. Instead i go home. The vertigo is
present, but not in that acute whirling way.
I go to work on Monday, and i have to fake walking normally, I am dizzy
all the time, Ditto for the rest of the week. Every morning when i
awake, i am having to hold on to chairs and tables and walls for the
first five minutes, then it seems to get better. But for instance, I
cannot take of a pair of jeans the way everybody does, i mean by
standing and just taking on leg out at a time. I cant put socks on
unless i am sitting down, which i never did before. When i dry myself
after a shower, my balance is so bad that i cant dry between my toes
without holding on to the basin or wall, things that ive never had to
do.
This morning again i awoke with ACUTE vertigo, really quite frightening,
and it took over an hour before i was able to feel in any way normal.
Vertigo shouldnt last ten days, and i dont think it is caused by some
inner ear problem. What with the lack of balance which has been coming
on for some time, this huge weight gain, and the blurred vision that
might legally make me considered blind unless i went to an eye doc and
got much stronger glasses, I think that my body has turned on me and
that the toxins from the liver problem have now gone to my brain which
is why i am experiencing this vertigo and lack of balance.
I refuse to go back and sit in that waiting room all day long, but i
want to be seen by a doctor. I have an appointment with a specialist for
the 7th of November, but i dont think i can wait that long. I want to be
seen today, i want them to remove this 50 or more pounds of fluid in me,
i want to be given diaretics, and I want them to do something with my
balance problem, although i think that is hopeless if my theory is
correct that it is simply toxins that have taken over a part or parts of
my brain. But i am extremely uncomfortable with this jumbo stomach. I
feel like i am in some horrible twilight zone show, where somehow my
body has been replaced by this monstrous bloated on that has nothing to
do with me. That is how alien the way i have become is to me. If they
can just take away the fluid so i can actually fit into my clothes
because nothing fits. I had to go to this thrift store and find big
enough shirts and pants to fit me, and they look like sh.t. I have
always been active and fit, and this just is too much for me.
What i thought i would do is call 911 and tell them that i need an
ambulance, that i am even worse off than i am just so they will take me
to the hospital. Any suggestions. This is getting progressively worse
every single day, and i doubt i shall last till the appt with the doc on
the 7th. I do not wish to be hospitalized, just get rid of this fluid.
If i am dying, well that would be a real bummer, but i wont have them
put me in the hospital with tubes coming out of every oriface, and end
up dying there. If the news is bad, i at least want to die at home and
looking like i always did.
Anybody have any advice or suggestions.
My suggestions
1. If you're as bad off and desperate for relief as you say you are,
camp out in ER. You have to remember that patients walking (or being
carried) into ER are treated in order of nearness-to-death. The fact
that you sat for hours before going back home suggests that you're not
critical.
2. Call your specialist, explain that the severity of your problem has
intensified to the point where you're unable to deal with it, and call
your GP (who referred you to the specialist) and relay the same message.
Perhaps you can be put on a cancellation list to get in sooner.
3. Remind yourself that it's better to see a doc when you notice a
problem, i.e. the bloating, than wait until you're desperate.
4. Calm down.
Good luck.
No, I am not critical in the sense that I am still very much alive. But
i have no one to take me to the emerggency room, and i dont trust my
driving, and i cant afford taxi fare, and if i were to risk driving
there, there is no parking closer than five or six blocks, and i barely
made it back and forth last Sunday. I was in agony. I gave up out of
complete depression and resignation that i would not be seen, and if i
am going to die, better at home than at an uncaring hospital where you
are just considered a THING. As for not seeking treatment earlier, I
figured i would get the exact kind of lousy treatment i got last week
both at urgent care and at the ER, and therefore, this prevented me from
bothering. I HATE doctors and hospitals, and the so called care they
give people. I knew of a guy who was suffering from chest pains, and the
paramedics were called, They just told him he had indejestion, and left,
the man ever woke up in the morning, he had died of a heart attack.
Doctors and the eintire medical community is just out to make big bucks
and couldnt give a rats a.s about anybody, whether they have insuance or
not. Patients are merely props that get in the way of their precious
paperwork. For them they are nothing but a pain in the a.s which is why
i have waited as long as i have. I never sought treatment for my liver
ailment from the time some bella donna specialist with his cold hearted
bedside manner statrted to ORDER me to do certain things, and refused to
answer any of my questions, and when i made a protest about this he
simply walked out of the exam room telling me to leave or he would call
security to have me thrown out. That was the beginning and the end of my
liver treatment. AS for interferon, you can keep taking it. I wont get
near something like that that makes everyone feel like they wish they
were dead, and most have relapese after a year of thrice weekly torture.
Sorry, if i have to wait till the 7th i will, but i just might be
calling an ambulance, and of course, people having storkes, heart
attacks, gang bangers being shot in a turf war, should get preferred
tratment, but when i was at the ER last week they were taking people
much less ill than i was, for example a broken toe, or the flu before
me. Unlesss you at deaths door you can forget about emergency rooms, but
they are wonderful if you happen to survive a head on collision in a
car, yesiree, they will see you immediately.
//////////
You seem like such a pleasant chap, I can't for the life of me figure
out why the doc tossed you out of the treatment room.
Yep, all docs and nurses are a.sholes and bitches.  You need a
witchdoctor, obviously.  Best of luck to you.  
elmo

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