This past Friday I found myself in quite a predicament. I was experiencing the worst headache of my life and could not seem to find any relief with the methods suggested to me by the hospital during my extended stay just a week ago. I proceeded to call the neurologist, lets call him Dr. DEA, that was in charge of my treatment for help. After nearly an hour I was told "Since Dr. DEA has not seen you he can not provide you any treatment or prescribe you any medication." They then told me to go to the Emergency Room so that they could give me medicine for my nausea and pain. They then terminated the phone call. I was a little confused because I did not think that I had mentioned being nauseated. I may have though. I was in no state to be very attentive to my language. I was a little confused as well because he had seen me in the hospital.
I then made several phone calls to my primary care physician, lets call him Dr. Helpful, and got ahold of a nurse, lets call her Nurse Lecture. After explaining my situation and Nurse Lecture lecturing me for a few minutes about how it was nearly time for her to leave, the Dr. Helpful agreed to stay late and review my situation too see if he could help. Dr. Helpful called me back at about 4:15, after reviewing the files he could get St. Vincent's to send him, (his business hours end at 4:00) to discuss what he had just read and see if he could help. We discussed my situation for several minutes before he read to me that I was already prescribed a drug that would have helped immensely. This prescription was news to me since I had specifically asked about prescriptions while being discharged because I imagined a situation similar to this one. It struck me now that Dr. DEA likely thought I already had prescription strength medication and that I was seeking more to sell or abuse. I am likely on some sort of drug abusing watch list now because of it.
Dr. Helpful is not one to prescribe drugs of this type under usual circumstances. He also rarely if ever prescribes one of this intensity. After discussing it further and him expressing genuine concern for me he agreed to write me a prescription that would help me get through the weekend. Win for Shelly and being able to function. Just to note, it was not a high level of functioning but it would have been horrific otherwise. And a thank you must go out to my friend, Mike, for driving me to pick up the medication as driving had become kind of impossible at this point
The real question is what happened to leave me in that condition and seeking help? It was seen fit by the neurologist to give me medication for my condition and potential complications. Upon being discharged however the prescription must not have shown up in my records because my discharge papers differ from those seen by Dr. Helpful. Dr. DEA may have looked at my file and decided to add a prescription but the nurse had already discharged me. It would seem that some sort of failing in protocol occured. I could have understood if they contacted me via phone in some way to say they thought I might need something to ease they pain that I was sure to experience. Maybe I am wrong. If anybody reading this might be able to shine some light on this situation please do so. Also does anybody know if the watchlists that I mentioned above actually exist?
No comments:
Post a Comment