Scary incidents at the doctor's office!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

When my mom was pregnant with my sister (who’s six years younger than yours truly), the doctor asked her to come in to the hospital for “tests.” The morning after she arrived, the nurse was weighing her and commented, “Oh, good, you’ve lost two pounds.” So my mom says, “Why would that be good?” The nurse says, “Because with your toxemia you must have gained a lot of weight.” Now, #1: The doc had not yet told my mom that she had toxemia, and #2: The only time my mom had ever heard of toxemia was from a co-worker who had had it and had lost the baby in the 7th month. When she realized the first part, the nurse clammed up and wouldn’t say a word. My mom sat in her room alone for a while thinking her baby would die until the doc arrived to calm her.

To top that off, when she had my sister, another nurse scared the s*** out of her. My mom had a C-section and was awake during the process. The nurse had been talking to her, making conversation (“Is this your first” “No, we have a little girl, so we’re hoping for a boy”). So the doc says, “Okay, the baby’s out.” This idiot nurse looks at the baby and says to my mom, “Oh, I’m so sorry.” So, naturally, Mom thinks the kid’s got two heads or something. She says, “Why, what’s wrong?” The nurse says, “I’m sorry. You have another daughter.” My mom was like, “No problem! We’ll take her!”

I have the highest respect for the medical profession, but I guess there’s idiots everywhere.

22

Ain’t it the truth, Jeannie.
That nurse and doctor would have done well to take courses in civility and compassion for patients. Considering what they charge, they had damn well better be civil and compassionate.
To GermBoy: No, I don’t deal with medical cases. For the most part I have immense respect for medical personnel, and the time I nearly fainted during the glucose tolerance test I was not involved in law at all at the time. Nor was I several years earlier–when I underwent a cystoscopy, which gave me an idea of what kind of torture the Nazis inflicted on their victims. I howled in agony!

23

A-freaking-MEN! When I was a sophmore in high school, I started getting short of breath, getting pains in my hands, and being extremely tired. Went to the doctor to figure stuff out. In the middle of everything, it’s determined I need a full blood test, since I had never had one before. So I fast the night before, and both my parents take me to the doctor, and we were planning on going to breakfast afterward, and then I’d go to school late. My dad said it would be no big deal. HAH! After waiting in the doctor’s office for 45 minutes, I get taken back. Find out I have EXTREMELY small veins. Right arm - can’t get the blood. Left arm - nope. Right wrist - nope. Left wrist - nope. Left HAND - Nope. (BTW - getting blood drawn from your hand or wrist hurts like a bitch.) Finally, after 2 hours, they manage to get it from my right hand. Needless to say, I didn’t go to school that day.

And thus began my saga of medical care for lupus. Ended up having to get blood drawn every 6 weeks. Man, THAT was an ordeal.

Winner, SDMB’s Biggest Chat Addict

“Only two things that’ll soothe my soul - cold beer and remote control.”

24

I am rarely sick and before marrying my husband never ever thought to go to the doctor for colds. I’ve cruise through two pregnacies/labors and deliveries and after hearing horror stories abound, I am very grateful for my health and easy pregnancies.
My philosophy has always been: The closer you live to a hospital or doctors office, the sicker you are.

Anyways, these are not my medical horrors, but family members:

  1. My mom’s cousin’s husband ( ya follow?) about 80 years of age and in excellent health , was at his doctors office for a yearly check up. He dropped dead in front of the Doctor. Said he died before he hit the ground. Egads.

  2. When my mother in law was in labor with number #2, being in America for about 6 years,she understood english better than she spoke it. The nurses asked if she wanted an epidural ( or a spinal, I can’t remember) and it took her a moment to translate the KEY word of the sentance as she was a little busy with labor pains. The one nurse said to the other,“She doesn’t understand a word your saying. She’s a goddamn foriegner.” And jammed the needle in her back.

3)When my mom had my oldest brother ( 1949) she had a c-section and the staple food that the hospital where she had him was beans. Beans and more beans. Between the gas you get from that surgery compounded with the 3 meals a day. She said she nearly died from the pain. And there were about 6 other women in the same ward all moaning with gas pains as well.
Relief finally came when a black nurse on midnights just shook her head at the stupidity of the menu and gave all the women enemas. My mom said that losing her dignity never felt so good.

25

Falcon: I have lupus, too…do you have SLE? I was diagnosed at about the same age as you. I have another scary story related to that. There was a girl at my school who also had lupus and was having major kidney problems related to it. She lapsed into a coma for awhile because of it. About four days after she went into the coma, my doctor called and said that the tests showed that my kidneys were not functioning properly. When I went in to see him about it, it turns out that he had just done the math wrong, but that was a very scary drive to the doctor’s office.

Falcon, are you in remission? I’ve been off medication for about nine years now and everything’s going fine…hope things are okay for you, too.

26

Horror stories, eh?

Picture this…

For about a week, I thought I was having a regular, though uncommonly painful period. I was having SEVERE cramps and eventually went to see my doc. Immediately, he sent me to get an ultrasound… which came back with no clear results.

Four days later, I’m on the floor in my office in shock and in terrible pain. S.O. takes me to the hospital. This is when the fun began.

The doc on call (it’s 10pm by this time) gives me a double dose of demerol. It barely takes the pain away. They do bloodwork, it comes back an hour later, and they tell me, “You’re pregnant, didn’t you know?” … to which I reply, errr, no, I didn’t know, I’m on DepoProvera… Oooh, they say. So they can’t give me anything for pain for fear it will “hurt the baby”. Ok fine. They schedule an ultrasound for 6am, when the tech comes in.

So there I was, on IV, hungry and thirsty and in INCREDIBLE pain… when the new rotation of docs and nurses come in. Idiot OBGYN (female, surprisingly), says to nurse: Cancel the ultrasound, she’s on DEPO, she can’t be pregnant, run new bloodtests. Meanwhile, my blood pressure is dropping, I’m passing out, and the pain is STILL clearly on my left side, ovary level. :mad:

Of course, there’s a @!(*&(@ influenza epidemic going around, so getting those results back take 4 hours. Meanwhile, I’m about ready to lose it. OBGYN is now replaced by new guy who has 5 babies to deliver. He comes to talk to me, barely says hello and leaves for 2 hours to go deliver a kid. Nurse takes pitty on me and gives me more demerol.

FINALLY, 24 hours later, this OBGYN says, let’s do an ultrasound and have a look. “Oh shit”, he says when he realizes that my abdomen is filling with blood… :rolleyes:

Off I get wheeled into surgery. I lost the left ovary and fallopian tube to a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, needed a transfusion, and nearly didn’t make it through the surgery. :frowning:

Felchers. All of 'em.

Good luck, C3 - you’ll be fine!

E.

“Semper Ubi Sub Ubi.” =-)

27

Hearing an oral surgeon say “Well, its malignant.” A few weeks later, hearing the same oral surgeon say “Well, we didn’t get it all.” Oral surgery is not at all comfortable.

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Hearing an oral surgeon say “Well, its malignant.” A few weeks later, hearing the same oral surgeon say “Well, we didn’t get it all.” Oral surgery is not at all comfortable.

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Hearing an oral surgeon say “Well, its malignant.” A few weeks later, hearing the same guy say “Well, we didn’t get it all.”

30

Ooops

31

I don’t like going to the doctor. because
a: Its hard to get an sign interpreter b: the interpreter sees all & knows all.

In order to visit a doctor, I must a: know what I have b: know what solution I want. Hopefully I can do this without taking any clothes off in front of the interpreter.

32

I found a lump on one of my testicles.That was bad enough. But I had to wait 3 days for an appointment, 2 days to get the required ultrasound and an excrutiating 10 working days to get the results. It was’nt cancer, but I hate my HMO doctor for the scariest 3 weeks of my young life.

33

Ever considered a pad and pencil?

34

Speaking of civility and compassion on the part of doctors:

An open letter to all surgeons or surgeons-to-be out there:
No matter how you’ve been trained, never, ever use the word “filet” when you describe a procedure to a patient. Just… don’t… do it. Ever.

And when you’re doing the procedure (in my case, removal of a pilonidal cyst - the pilonidal sinus is at the coccyx; when inflamed it tends to cramp your lifesyle if you’re the type of person who often chooses to sit, stand, or walk) and the patient asks how it’s going, please choose a more appropriate response than, “Yuck!”

thank you for your attention

35

I read these threads with interest & all of you have my sympathy for what you’ve been through.

For the most part, I don’t respond because it appears that posters are venting, rather than asking questions. And because I realize that clinical factual answers do little to assuage the emotional pain you’ve been through with this.

But if anyone does have questions, please feel free to drop an e-mail. Sometimes it takes me a while to get back to folks; & I can’t promise I can answer all the questions - some are too far from what I do, but I’ll tell you what I do know & try to find a link for what I don’t.

36

Got jumped by three guys coming out of the bathroom at a Jack-In-The-Box. Woke up in a pool of my own blood, surrounded by parametics and some of my friends. Had to be coerced to go to the hospital. When I got there some tech/nurse wanted to take a zillion x-rays of my superficial scalp wound. I refused. It took only two stiches. :wink:

“What’s right is only half of what’s wrong and
I want a short-haired girl who sometimes wears it twice as long.”
George Harrison - Old Brown Shoe

37

I’ve got a couple of these! :slight_smile:

I go to the University of Michigan School of Dentistry for my dental care, because I don’t have dental insurance and it’s cheap–but you have to let students make their “mistakes”.

mistake #1: drilling a hole in my tongue by mistake. Ouch, but you’d be amazed how fast your tongue heals!

mistake #2: drilling into my tooth without turning the water supply to the drill on. “what’s that burning smell?”

mistake #3: an accidental overdose of novacaine, leaving me unable to speak, sing, or eat for QUITE some time after the appointment.
Also, when I was 15 I had some surgery done on my rib cartiledge. As he put the mask over my face he said “don’t worry, you’ll be in your room in an hour and up and around in a day or so”. One punctured lung, 6 days on a respirator, and one morphine addiction later, I was ready to go home. Yeesh.

38

BTW–I still go to the dental school–they’ve done a pretty good job overall.