Back At Home- Post Surgery

I started feeling lousy on the way home from the hospital Monday (June 6th) but chalked it up to a long few days and having to travel home. Once we got here though things got even worse. The nausea and headache started on Monday, by Wednesday I couldn't eat, sleep, or function, and by Friday I knew I was dehydrated and heading towards a poor state. By the time Vin got home from work on Friday I knew I needed to go to the emergency room. So the kids stayed with a friend while he ran me up there and saw me through triage.

This is where my bad luck comes into play yet AGAIN! After triage I was put in the waiting room for TWO HOURS. Finally I was called back, put into a room, told they were going to start an IV and give me some Zofran for the nausea. They then proceeded to pretend I didn't exist for over 45 minutes. It seems it was close to shift change so they decided I could wait that extra time so they wouldn't have to do anything.

Finally the new shift came in, started the IV, told me they were getting the Zofran, and told me they were drawing blood. Another 45 minutes later I asked if they planned on drawing blood and was told they were still waiting for the order of what to draw. I finally get the stupid Zofran which does nothing for my nausea.

Now as soon as I got there I told them everything I have wrong with me, had all my meds with me, had my medicalert bracelet on, and even gave them the number to call Dr BC. I guess they actually DID call him and he told them what tests to run as well as to up my steroid dosage.

Back to the ER- another half hour goes by and they finally come to draw my blood. At this point it is 8:30 and I am completely ignored for the next hour. At 9:30pm a nurse comes in and asks how I'm feeling to which I tell her that I feel worse than when I came in. Then I'm ignored for another hour when another nurse comes in and I tell HER that I am still nauseous. At 10:45pm they give me another shot of Zofran and tell me the doctor will be in soon to talk to me.

Finally at 11:10pm I see the doctor (Dr. Quinones- the same MORON who saw me back in December when I had the kidney blockage) and he informs me that "my tests" came back, everything looks "fine", and I am free to go home. I asked him if everything was fine then why did I feel WORSE than when I got there. He tells me to follow up with my regular doctor, asks me why I don't have one, I explain that it's hard to find one who knows what MEN2a is, and this stupid arsehole proceeds to tell me "Well some of us seem to know what it is right?". ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? This man is a complete moron! TOTAL moron!

So I call Vin to come get me, tell him in the parking lot that I am just stinking fine, and we go home. I then find out that Dr BC told them to up my steriods but they NEVER mentioned that to me ONCE!! So Vin and I decide to double my steroids ourselves and see if that helps. By Saturday afternoon I was feeling much better and by Sunday I was feeling more like myself.

Now mind you for the entire week I hadn't had any pain medication because I thought it was what was making me sick. So I've been in pain nonstop. :(

The following Friday (June 17th), Dr L calls me and says that I was in adrenal crisis and that had Vin and I not had the common sense to up my steroids I would have ended up in a coma and might not have come out. This was lovely news to hear. I made it through cancer and surgeries just to almost clock out because of not enough steroids. UNREAL! The next Monday I filed a report with the hospital which basically means I complained so that they can ignore me and not do anything about it. Dr L told me to never go back to that ER again though and to go to the other hospital from now on. That advice I will definately be taking. That would be at South Georgia Medical Center by the way.

So once we doubled up the steroids for a few days I started feeling better. We also found out that they didn't bother to do a calcitonin test so we still don't know how much I've dropped since the surgery. My thyroid levels supposedly came back fine and so did my calcium at 8.5.

I have to get bloodwork done here in a few days and we will do the calcitonin and anything else we need to then. Hopefully everything is where it's suppose to be and I'm really looking forward to seeing how much the calcitonin has changed.