More poo posts

Edited to add: this published with half missing and the date messed up--just adding it on and republishing.

So again, if you are reading me on twitter, you will know that I survived, but just barely.

First I'd like to say that Versed works for a lot of people. Kaz had it for dental surgery and for a few other stitches in the ER and never had a problem. Same for Mac. And for 89% of people, supposedly, it's just fine. But for me---oh no, nothing is ever simple for me.

I really am cursed.

The GI Doctor gave me versed, after I expressly told her not too. You see, she read the records I had sent to her showing that I woke up incoherent and hysterical after I had it before and she completely misinterpreted them. She thinks I was upset about the extra morphine I was given, and how dopey it left me. I tried to explain that the issue was that I freaked out after having Versed, not morphine and the record clearly shows that the first reation I had was then, but she just kept saying that I was going to be fine and that it was the combo of morphine, and don't worry she'd take care of it.

And I'm there, naked except for some stupid gown and she hands me the form to sign and I get up on the table thinking she's going to give me something completely different we discussed--because she said, "she'd take care of it"--and she gives me Versed.

I felt everything, and was half-awake and half-out of it and crying the whole time, begging for pain relief. Begging them to stop. They rolled me over, doing some strange thing to my stomach, which in my midazolamed state felt like the were pinning me down and beating me to death. No, of course they weren't actually beating me to death. But with that drug, for me, that's what I perceived.

I finally get into the recovery room, and I am surrounded by chirpy, perky patients who all act like they had just woken up from naps and some rather unfeeling nurses telling me to sit up and have some juice and gee, that wasn't bad, and what on earth is wrong with me, I just need to snap out of it. Meanwhile, I couldn't even sit up unassissted. This one nurse was incredibly cold, almost angry, you'd think that my inability to stand or walk or get dressed was done on purpose just to screw up her life. My poor husband, as we all know, trusts all doctors completely, and was justifiably confused that things were not going perfectly as planned. The nurses kept trying to make me get out of bed and told me to go to the bathroom, but every time I sat up, I fell over. Mr.Cotta finally lowered the head of the bed and told me to sleep and tried to find the Doctor, but she was busy with her next patients. After about an hour the nurses were on me again, trying to get me to sit up and take a walk. One of them got angry and told me I needed to get dressed and why was I doing this, and I should go get my clothes out of locker, but I just kept looking at her and blankly asking where I was and crying. She wasn't happy.

God forbid a patient not do what they are told.

Finally one nurse agrees to get the Doctor, and my husband tries to help me sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. He and the nurse literally had to carry me to the washroom, supporting my weight on each side. My feet didn't work. I looked like a non-cooperating prisoner being dragged down a hall. I had to have my husband with me, or I would have fallen off the seat. Somehow he gets me back to the bed, and the Doctor finally shows up. She tells me there was nothing inflamed on my colon or bowel and no polyps, nothing. There was one narrowing area that she was concerned about because it might cause a blockage someday, but it might have been due to adhesions from endometriosis.

And of course, she insisted that she told me that she was using midazolam. And I insisted she didn't. It was a senseless conversation that my husband cut off because he knew she'd never admit it was a problem. I popped a propranolol, went home and slept for a day.

I don't think she intentionally meant to cause a problem. Because really I don't think she believes that midazolam cause issues. What she doesn't understand, is that when people have problems with Doctors or hospitals or drugs or procedures, they tell their friends and business associates, even if they don't have blogs, and reputations and stories spread, virally, at dinner parties and over backyard fences and in casual conversations and the people who have bad reactions--don't come back. For example, she doesn't see many bad emotional reactions because people with PTSD are unlikely to voluntarily sign up for a procedure that involves sticking a tube up their ass.

They don't go to her, or her hospital, they go to other clinics, or arrange for other drugs, or they just never get screening checks done. One bad story can ensure that hundreds of people never get a lump or a bump or a screen done. And people die.

Which is why I want to find a way to make this story end better. I'm not sure who I am going to call yet, but I will complain. I can't just let y'all never get screened because my outcome gave me the willies.

Worst problem, people assume it's because of the health care system involved. But start googling--I know lots of people who have been treated in a patronizing patriarchal demeaning manner in every country. People with insurance, people without insurance, rich, poor, connected, and nobodies. It's the worst part about the healthcare debate. People hear a bad story about Canadian health care and wrongly assume it's because the government pays. Or Canadians assume the US is some sort of nirvana of perfection for health care. Meanwhile, in the US, just search a legal database for a litany of stories of jerk doctors and cruel hospitals. Really, there is a reason the U.S. Family Centred Care Institute spends so much time and money training hospital staff on how to treat patients.

Every country will continue to have poor health care outcomes as long as they refuse to listen to patients needs. We aren't robots to be experimented on. And standardized one size fits all answers really don't work.

Anyway, I'll keep you up to speed on what I do. Right now, I have to go out to a family event. One that deserves a post unto it's own.

Later....

The post about poo

I am having a colonoscopy today and I've been tweeting about it since yesterday, so click on the sidebar thingy to read more. I'll blog more later, but the reason I need it, is because my lovely children keep bringing parasites back from their very expensive summer sleepaway camps.

And now I may have inflammatory bowel disease, which will cost the Ministry of Health a pile of money to treat. I could refuse to let the kids go to camp I guess, but then everyone would call me a bitch, or maybe I just need to insist that the Ontario Ministry of the Environment enforce the clean water regulations they keep saying they have. I know they don't give a damn about the Ministry of Health budget, but you'd think someone would?

Praying I don't die on the table here. Cause you know that all hospital procedures always go perfectly for me, and I never have any funny reactions to anesthesia. Sigh.....

But at least it's free right!

Sigh....

Pigs are flying

Since I got back from BlogHer, I have had swine flu, and now the baby has swine flu and we are trudging through. Mac had it last June, but now---oy. I thought I dodged a bullet, but apparently it's hard to catch, and he just didn't pass it on properly, bad child. Would have been much more convenient to get in June, you know.

I have been doing some commenting when possible. The only other things I have updated are Facebook rarely and twitter cause I can reach them on my blackberry, and I long ago mastered the art of balancing a cellphone while a small child screamed in agony and slapped the shit out of me at 4:00 am.

(If you aren't on twitter, you can read me and anyone there, by clicking on the sidebar link and reading them, or you can read any tweets on google reader or bloglines by clicking on the little orange button with the wavy lines that sits on a twitter profile. )

Piggy flu baby Julius looks pretty healthy during the day except for the runny pink eyes, runny nose, coughing, whining, diarrhea, cramps, intermittent fever and such. It's the all night screaming that kind does me in. But it's really not bad. Not as bad as RSV anyway.

Oh, about BlogHer? Best goddamn thing I've ever done. The keynote speeches? Rocked my world, I laughed, I cried, I saw whole worlds I never knew existed. I adore these women. I think I'd hurt anyone who tried to hurt them. Mostly because, as I told Mel (Stirrup Queens-Mel), you have all saved my life. When no one on earth cared about my pain, you were the women, and men, who stood by me and kept me going.

I can't forget that.

Which is why I have such an need to save you all right back.

And the rumoured, supposed bad behaviour of some women? I didn't see any negative things, but then again I'm used to Liberal Party conventions, and ummm, errr, let's just say that Liberals really are on a whole 'nother scale of rowdy, ok? I've seen fistfights, and near riots and pregnant women being almost crushed in crowds if it wasn't for the security details. I've seen things that would blow your mind, at Tory conventions, (literally, table full of blow) and Dipper conventions (don't ask...) too, so hey, maybe I'm jaded?

(And yes, they were male dominated conventions, and no one blinked an eye at their behaviour. Hmmmm, coincidence?)

I do think that some of the companies involved at BlogHer acted poorly. I won't get very detailed here, but I do think they misjudged their audience. They seemed rather self absorbed, and not very aware that people like me, consumers with large budgets, were there. In fact, I don't think it actually occurred to them that some of their company's stockholders might be there, watching them.

Little message I'd like to get across:

Hi Marketers, not everyone at BlogHer is poor, or lacking in connections. Some of us don't need ads or free swag, (Yes, we'll take it, for fun, but we don't need it, big difference). But we were so totally fucking unimpressed with your company's patronizing sales reps and marketers that we short sold your stock for kicks when we got home. In fact, some of us have friends, who manage mutual funds and pension funds, and we told them that you suck at customer service as well.

You know, like I would, if I was one of those not so poor not so connected types.......

Heh

I know--marketers think all mommybloggers are poor and grasping and desperate for ads and freebies. And some do need the cash and more power to them if they can feed their kids and make it. But whether we need the money or not, we all deserve respect and dignity. Cause you never know who is watching. And who has the back of her peeps.

Anyway, I just know that I have 1400 new friends, all fabulous, kind, and lovely women. We laughed and drank and learned about Google SEO and deep links and design and all sorts of cool stuff.

And then we all caught BlogHerebola from each other.....scuse me while I go take some cold meds and go to bed.