Back in the ER

Annabelle41415

Surgery

Surgery.  If the surgery can help you get better than go for it. Great that there is no evidence of disease.  Yup it is rough but you have made it this far and seems like you have a plan going forward.  Wishing you well.

Kim

Canadian Sandy

Good luck Inspired. Wishing

Good luck Inspired. Wishing you the best.

tanstaafl

JanJan63 said:

Sounds like you're headed in

Sounds like you're headed in the right direction. I hope everything goes well for you. It's always something, isn't it? My chemo is over and my CEA looks good but the chemo made me so that my magnesium is so low I have to get an IV of it every couple of days. I'm a very hard start and I'm bruised up and sore already. 

I'm also stage four but was diagnosed at stage three. It's in both lungs, my liver and back in the colon. Ugh.

Jan

C ya and raise it

With an extra 50,000 - 65,000 mg of vitamin C added to the magnesium IV, we'd call that normal at our house.

https://csn.cancer.org/node/313756

Inspired2013

I got a survey from my

I got a survey from my hospital asking about my recent ER visit. I made sure to tell them where I felt the care was substandard. At the bottom of each page of questions, they had a place to give actual comments. I’ve decided that I’m not a fan of PAs in the ER and I really think patients should get to meet any doctor making a decision on your case, in my case, the surgeon on call. As patients, we deserve to be able to ask questions of the decision maker. Instead, i saw the ER doctor once for pleasantries for about five minutes. Otherwise it was great nurses and a terrible PA. We weren’t above to talk to the surgeon on call who actually made the decision to send me home. Incidentally, my oncologist’s opinion yesterday was the exact opposite of the ER’s opinion. At the very least, my doctor has said again and again that fluid collections like mine are an easy place for infection to brew, so the idea of leaving it in place and “getting used to having it” is nuts. In the future, I’m going to demand to talk with any doctor making any kind of decision on my case. PA’s just aren’t going to cut it next time. 

Inspired2013

My oncologist did indeed talk

My oncologist did indeed talk to my surgeon. My surgeon now wants me to have a HIDA scan to check my gallbladder. I had one the last time they were investigating this stupid spot. So the HIDA scan is next Wednesday and the appointment with my surgeon is Thursday of the following week. Thankfully my oncologist gave me some more dilaudid in case the pain gets worse while waiting to figure out the next step. Even though finding the right answer is going to take longer than I would like, I’m okay with it because my doctors are doing their due diligence and listening to me at the same time. 

Trubrit

Tests, tests and more tests.

You poor thing. It just does not seem that you can get a break. 

I am glad that your feel your Doctor's are listening. That is oh, so improtant. 

Tru

Butt

Glad your oncologyst and surgeon talked! If the need to take a gallbladder, it is not a big deal and you can live without it. 

Annabelle41415

Inspired2013 said:

My oncologist did indeed talk

My oncologist did indeed talk to my surgeon. My surgeon now wants me to have a HIDA scan to check my gallbladder. I had one the last time they were investigating this stupid spot. So the HIDA scan is next Wednesday and the appointment with my surgeon is Thursday of the following week. Thankfully my oncologist gave me some more dilaudid in case the pain gets worse while waiting to figure out the next step. Even though finding the right answer is going to take longer than I would like, I’m okay with it because my doctors are doing their due diligence and listening to me at the same time. 

Scan

Glad that they are following up on more tests to find out what is going on.  I'm so sorry about the PA in the ER.  I'm not a fan of them either and don't want them giving me serious medical information.  Hopefully your pain can be managed more with the new meds.  Hope they can get to the answer in what is going on with the pain.

Kim

Inspired2013

Annabelle41415 said:

Scan

Glad that they are following up on more tests to find out what is going on.  I'm so sorry about the PA in the ER.  I'm not a fan of them either and don't want them giving me serious medical information.  Hopefully your pain can be managed more with the new meds.  Hope they can get to the answer in what is going on with the pain.

Kim

After my last hospital trip,

After my last hospital trip, we switched from oxycodone to dilaudid. It helped having my own oncologist doing rounds when I was admitted the last time. Thankfully the dilaudid it working a lot better than the oxy was. I get 4mg of oral dilaudid every 3 hours. It’s not bad enough yet that I have to take it around the clock. It’s also not yet bad enough that it’s a difficult pain cycle to break. 

This was the first time I dealt with a PA in the ER. I’ve had PA’s check on me while in the hospital, but I almost always see the doctor at some point too. After this though, I’m not okay with the PA being my primary medical contact. I got a survey yesterday at the hospital to rate my most recent experience - the ER visit. I was very blunt in how disappointed and pissed off I was about my experience. 

JanJan63

Inspired2013 said:

After my last hospital trip,

After my last hospital trip, we switched from oxycodone to dilaudid. It helped having my own oncologist doing rounds when I was admitted the last time. Thankfully the dilaudid it working a lot better than the oxy was. I get 4mg of oral dilaudid every 3 hours. It’s not bad enough yet that I have to take it around the clock. It’s also not yet bad enough that it’s a difficult pain cycle to break. 

This was the first time I dealt with a PA in the ER. I’ve had PA’s check on me while in the hospital, but I almost always see the doctor at some point too. After this though, I’m not okay with the PA being my primary medical contact. I got a survey yesterday at the hospital to rate my most recent experience - the ER visit. I was very blunt in how disappointed and pissed off I was about my experience. 

PA?

I'm sorry, what's a PA? I'm not sure I've heard that before.

Jan

Inspired2013

JanJan63 said:

PA?

I'm sorry, what's a PA? I'm not sure I've heard that before.

Jan

Physician’s Assistant. They

Physician’s Assistant. They help the doctors but they do not have an MD or a DO.  They can write some prescriptions. But the important point is that they are not doctors. Sometimes when I’ve gone to my primary care, I’ve seen her PA and not the doctor. When I was going through chemo, I saw my oncologist’s PA a couple of times. I was okay with that, as it was a routine exam. But an ER setting is anything but routine, so I’m not comfortable seeing a PA in that setting. From now on, when I’m in the ER, I’m going to request (demand if necessary) to see the doctor making the decisions.

Inspired2013

Update

My HIDA Scan was this morning. It’s a test that’s considered the gold standard in determining gallbladder function. I had it done during my last hospital stay when the doctors thought the problem was my gallbladder. Turned out at the time my gallbladder was fine. Flash forward to last night when I discovered in my research that doctors sometimes use the HIDA scan to assess liver function. This morning when I got to the outpatient center, I learned in fact that my surgeon wanted to see how well my liver is functioning. My liver enzymes have been consistently high, with alkaline phosphatase being the highest. Combine that with the consistent location of the fluid pocket between the liver and the diaphragm and near the section of my liver that was removed and it’s not surprising that they wanted a different kind of look at my liver.

So the next step is to see my surgeon a week from tomorrow. Hopefully by then he’ll have an idea of what to do.