I guess for the most part going to a doctor’s office is a ho-hum thing. But things can get scary–and I’m not talking about HMOs. I once went for a glucose tolerance test–involving that ghastly flat, warm soda pop and blood samples–and it was cut short when I almost passed out!
Please post things that happened in a physician’s office–at the hands of the doctor, an RN, or other health-care personnel–that probably gave you some gray hairs and a (temporarily!) quickened heartbeat.
Scariest thing ever was reading the lab report that had my name and the word “carcinoma” on the same page. Sure makes your heart go pitty-pat.
SDMB’s oldest living female!
Acclaimed author of: No Bad Brontosauri
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Seeing my 2 week old son turn blue in an Emergency Room with nurses and doctors all around him (he had meningitis, not the deadly one, but still not good for a newborn), probably one of, if not the scariest memory I have.
This second one didn’t really scare me, it just sort of happened. I passed out during an ultrasound, about 7 months pregnant with my second son. Apparently lying flat on my back for more than 20 minutes cut off some major blodd supply or something, I just remember my hands and feet getting cold and tingly, and things sort of hazing over, the next thing I remember I have my head pushed between my knees and the ultrasound tech saying something like “why didn’t you tell us you were gonna pass out?” Huh?
How 'bout we sing ‘Kyle’s mom is a stupid bitch’ in D minor?
This didn’t really happen at the doctor’s office, but it’s doctor related. I had my annual female check-up at the gynecologist last year. I told the doctor that I would be leaving the country two weeks later for a vacation. She said no problem. On my way back into the country (now a month later), I called to check my phone messages from LAX. There were about twenty messages on there from the nurse saying that I had had an abnormal test and that I ABSOLUTELY MUST RETURN THEIR VERY VERY URGENT CALL IMMEDIATELY!!! (all caps, because that was the tone of ALL of the messages). I called from the airport, in a panic, and the nurse said I had to get a prescription filled immediately. I asked her if it was cancer and she said she wasn’t sure. I asked her to find out and she said she’d have to call me back!!! Meanwhile, I’m by myself at the airport, 10 hour layover. I finally get home very early the next morning. After about three or four calls to the doctor’s office, it turns out it’s nothing major. Got a prescription, case closed. Needless to say, I switched doctors. This year, I had another bad test, though, and I have to have surgery in a few weeks. I’m nervous, but they did a biopsy and said it’s not malignant, so I guess I’ll be fine. I hate these bodies…they’re so high maintenance.
It is always fun when the nurse or whoever that is giving you a shot or drawing blood has fingernails that are so long that she can’t get the needle in your vain.
My sister was poked and prodded for twenty minutes before they found another nurse who was able to get the needle in. The woman shouldn’t be drawing blood if her fingernails are too fucking long to allow her to hold the syringe.
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what I assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” --Whitman
The worst doctor-related moment for me was when my gynecologist told me that the pain I was having could be a miscarriage in progress. I had been having some mild cramps for a couple of days, but I wasn’t bleeding. Still, she was right. I miscarried the next morning.
Shadowfox
“The dead have risen, and they’re voting Republican!” - Bart Simpson
I’m sorry to hear that Shadowfox. I still remember how painful it was when I went in for my first ultrasound at 12 weeks and they couldn’t find anything.
On a happier note, about a year and a half ago I went in to the OB/GYN to find out why my period had lasted for almost two weeks and discovered I was five weeks pregnant. I was sent over to ultrsound with both of us fully expecting to find that I was in the middle of a miscarriage (I didn’t even bother to call my husband in.) Much to my surprise, the doctor located a little heartbeat in about two seconds.
He just started crawling this week.
My tale of horror:
I had a terrible stomach ache and after few hours my dad decided to take me to emergency room. After about an hour of waiting (which really didn’t help my condition), a bored doctor led me into an examination room. He asked a few questions, hmphhed a lot and finally told me to lay on my stomach on the table and pull my pants down.
Now, I really don’t like going to medical examinations or even hospitals. At the time I was fifteen and naive, uninformed and unprepared of what was to follow.
He pulled the glove on and did the dirty deed, without even saying “Red 5, I’m going in!” Needless to say, I was shocked (which probably was good procedure-wise) beyond words and took the report he gave me afterwards without comment.
I had to ask a nurse what the report said (typical doctor’s handwriting) and she told my appendix was to be operated later that evening. Luckily, it turned out to be a less severe bacterial infection and I was soon able to go home, physically fit but emotionally scarred.
Well, not really, but latex gloves still give me a chill. 
For once you must try to face the facts: Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts.
Dougie, I see by your profile that you are a “legal intern”. You’re not by chance looking to increase your med-mal client base are you? I always hate to see all the ‘scary-story-scenarios-with-health-care-providers’; no background to the incidents makes a rare or often-expected moment overtly ominous without any real benefit.
No threads yet on good the things that happened in the healthcare system.
Damn, this soapbox is slippery. If I fell off I could sue someone I bet!
I agree with OldBroad. Being told you have cancer is up there on the list…although the actual worst Doctor’s office experiences I had were the three or four times I got steroid shots in the scar…without it being numbed up first.
Finally, I told my doctor I was considering leaving the country before another session of that torture. (I had to bite a bunch of gauze to keep from screaming.) Turns out, it was easy (and much less painful) to shoot a little local in there first. Actual doctor quote: “I never realized what I was putting my patients through!”
So I feel all in all, it was a good thing; maybe I spared future patients that horror.
I don’t know if I should post this in light of the other serious topics that have already been posted. I guess I’m going to anyway.
A year or so ago, I became old enough where my dr. thought it was time for a prostate exam during my yearly physical. As I leaned over the examination table, I joked to my dr. that I was a little uncomfortable with this. He quickly replied with “Oh, Bob, you don’t need to worry unless you feel BOTH of my hands on your hips”!
It was a funny moment. My Dr. is usually a pretty serious guy, and this was so out of character for him.
Enright3
When I was a little over 7 months pregnant with my daughter I began to have false labor pains, or at least I thought that was what they were since they did not come at even intervals. I suffered through them for a day and a half until I couldn’t stand it any longer so I called the doctor. He told me to come up to the hospital and they could give me something to stop the pains.
By the time we got to the hospital, I was dilated to an 8 and was close to giving birth. At the time, that hospital did not have a NICU so they had to transport me to a second hospital. I gave birth soon after arriving. Why anyone would purposefully have natural childbirth is beyond me. It HURTS!
Because she was premature, I did not get to see my daughter or even hear her cry. Once she was born, the NICU Team rushed her away from me. They told me that she was fine but I was scared to death for her.
I also had partial placenta previa so the doctor have to surgically remove parts of the placenta. As he was doing so, I suddenly felt, heard, and saw an indescribably large amount of blood come out of me and hit the floor. The doctor jumped up and yelled for help, his assistants held me down onto the bed and gave me a shot in the butt that hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. The last thing I remember was getting very cold and everything started to get black and sound like I was under water.
The next few days came in spurts of weird dreams and hearing people talk although I could not respond to them. One thing I did know for sure was that I had had a baby girl but I wasn’t sure where she was or if she was alive.
After I recovered, I was told that my daughter was going to be okay. She had the typical preemie distresses, but she had strong lungs and was thriving.
I was also told that the blood clotting agent put into my IV did not get into my blood stream because I had somehow bent the tubing during childbirth. I was also told that I had come very close to bleeding to death on the delivery table.
I was finally able to be wheeled to the NICU and hold her through the incubator.
Another scare was the day they told me that my oldest son would more than likely have to have back surgery or be put into a body cast for a year. I thank God that the curve in his spine improved by the time he quit growing. He is able to treat his condition with exercise instead of a knife or cast.
You turn me on. But maybe it’s because I just spent 20 years in the jungle, getting it on with anything I could attract with a piece of fruit.
Came home from work one day last fall, and my husband tells me to call the gyn RIGHT AWAY because I’d had an abnormal pap. Thought I’d faint, then I thought it had to be because I had just had my son six weeks before this pap. Called the gyn, no, it’s got nothing to do with having the baby. The change in your cervix is too dramatic.
Anyway, I had a colposcopy and a biopsy, and I don’t have cancer, but I did have to have surgery. C3, the surgery will make you go “OW!” for a second, but that’s it. It’s fast. You will be stunned at how fast it is. You will be saying, “You folks made me freak out for this?”
This space blank, until Wally thinks up something cool to put here.
My last prostate exam. When I realized the doctor had both hands on my shoulders… :eek:
When my dad got sick. Y’see, he was always the most steady, quietly stubborn sort imaginable. (He decided–in his 60’s–to hike in and back out of the Grand Canyon. So he did: 3 times.)
So when he got sick it was stupidly wrong, like a basic law of nature gone kaphlooey.
He had exploratory surgery, and the worst was when the doctor told my sister and I that it was colon cancer; advanced, invasive in the liver and terminal.
This was discussed in a previous thread, but the hardest–and best–thing the doctor told us was to not tell our father that his disease was terminal. He was estimated to live 6 months; he made it almost 3 years.
But that was the worst moment. Weird how comprehesion and total disbelief can coexist. I honestly pity doctors. We blurted out numbed stupidities like, “But he’s always been healthy as an ox!” as if that would neatly cancel out the whole problem. The doctors have to try to heal the patients’ bodies but there aren’t salves for the fear and familial tangles.
Veb
Veb, I’m so sorry about your dad, that is so awful!
My ‘scary’ was like psycat’s, it was my youngest son, Billy. He was in his car seat and I looked back at him (the two boys had been arguing) and his head was thrown back with foam coming down his chin. Well, I was on the highway and freaked! I pulled off, he was only three then, and I thought he was choking, he wasn’t. But I was sure he was dying. We got to an urgent care center, and they gave him oxygen. Telling me all the while, ‘he’s fine, he’s fine’ and I’m yelling back, ‘THIS ISN’T WHAT FINE LOOKS LIKE!!’ It was a seizure, and DJ (my older son) was flat against a wall, and tells me it was all his fault for arguing with Billy. AHHHH!!
C3, I hope the surgery goes well, and quickly, be sure and come back with your ‘I’m great now’ story!!
Judy
“It’s hard to avoid reading because ever wheres we go, reading is there.”
I have been to hospital overnight exactly twice. The first time was when I was 8 and isn’t especially interesting, except to say I couldn’t tell any of the other kids in the ward why I was in.
The other time was when I was about 26, i.e. maybe four years ago (I can’t remember, the last decade is a blur). I had just visited my sister, I think she had recently had her first kid (that should date it for me, but I still haven’t a clue. It was November, anyway).
ANYWAY, I was being driven homewards by my Mum when all of a sudden a small discomforting pain started to grow in my belly. In the space of about three minutes it had grown to unbearable agony and I was squirming all over the car. My Mum asked me what was wrong and I tried to tell her, but my voice was coming out in short breaths. She asked if I should go to the hospital, and I immediately nodded ‘Yes!’ (which was her clue that it was serious, as normally I avoid medical situations if I can).
So I’m in unbearable pain that feels like my intestines are being eaten by a weasel, and I have to have all these tests done. Yet I can barely walk, let alone stand for an X-Ray or whatever else.
The Doctors are clueless. They have no idea what’s wrong. The only conclusion they can draw is my stomach appears bloated, so they shove a tube up my nose and down my throat, which is a horrifically uncomfortable thing.
Six hours later, the pain is finally fading. I’m calmer, but scared. I fear I’m dying, though I try not to think about it. And the next day, the Medical Professionals still have no clue as to what it was.
Another night in the hospital, the tube is removed, I am released, and I go home none the wiser.
A month later it happens again. I go for a ride in the ambulance (cool, but it cost me money! D’oh!) and a new Doc checks me out. This time he figures it out in seconds.
If the first Docs had had the gumption to look at my family history, they’d see Gall Stones are very common, and genetically I’m more inclined to suffer from them.
Morons.
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Shadow of the Pigeon -
Weirdo of the Night
Thanks for the reassurances, Cristi & Anti Pro. I’m feeling better about it, especially when I spoke with the doctor yesterday. I asked her if she was going to give me a local or something and she said to just take a Motrin and I’d be fine. That made me relax about the whole thing a lot.
Oh goody! Cristi and I will have something interesting to discuss at the next Doper bash! I underwent the same thing when I was only 21. My doctor was much more blunt about it, however. I had two young kids at home and being told that I may have cancer was very scary indeed. Luckily, it turned out okay, although I also ended having to get the surgery done to remove the “dysplasia” from my cervix. C3, I am reiterating what Cristi said. It really doesn’t hurt for more than a couple of seconds. They gave me a shot of an anesthetic in the area before starting the surgery, so the only pain I felt was that shot itself.
And before any of you Toledo Dopers ask: No, I will not be showing any of you my scar
Shadowfox
“The dead have risen, and they’re voting Republican!” - Bart Simpson
I got a bloody nose every morning when I was pregnant with my first child. Not an uncommon thing I’m told. When I was 8 months along I sneezed really hard and my nose started bleeding. It was literally running out of my nose. I held my head over the bathroom sink and let the blood run out for awhile hoping it would stop. I couldn’t pinch my nose or tilt my head back because I was swallowing so much blood. I called my mom at work to ask her what I should do and she talked to a lady that worked there that had some medical training. They ended up calling an ambulance to come to my house. The ambulance got there and after about 10 minutes of them pinching my nose shut and tilting my head back and putting an ice pack on the back of my neck, (and me gagging on all the blood) the bleeding stopped. They waited a few more minutes and then left. My mom showed up while they were there and then my dad came. About 5 minutes after the ambulance left it started again. I held a towel over my face and we took off for the hospital. It’s only about 5 minutes from where I was living at the time but when we got to the hospital my towel was soaked and I was getting lightheaded. It would start to clot and then the clot would slide down my throat and I would have to spit it out…the burst vessel was at the curve where your nose joins your throat so the clot wouldn’t hold. The doctor rubbed some kind of cocaine in my nose and packed it. Now that hurt like a bitch! I had to sleep upright all night long and two days later I went back to the doctor and they pulled the plug out and cauterized the vessel. Pulling the plug out hurt worse than when the doctor put it in… I was seeing stars!! I lost about 8 pounds those 2 days because I couldn’t eat because I had swallowed so much blood. About 2 weeks later my daughter was born - she was 1 month early. I don’t know if the nosebleed and losing the weight had anything to do with it or not.
Kind of a digusting story, huh?
That John Denver’s full of shit man!