I finally have an appointment to see Dr. “Q” down at UNMH! As you may recall from my posting when my paperwork was approved for the VA to pay for my surgery, (March 8th,) it’s been awhile.
There was some VA administrative back and forth that had to go through it’s cycle, (took about two weeks,) with one of the emails sent to my doctor, (Dr. “E”,) that was one of the dumbest questions I’ve ever heard of. I’m going in to have part of my pelvis removed and my left leg amputated, and the question they sent was, “Can this be done at our facility or another VA on an outpatient basis?”
Yeah, right… And if I could walk, I’d just hop home after it was done! Of course, this IS the government health care that all those on the left are so badly wanting for all Americans.
Anyway, after they’d gotten done with all that garbage, I was told they’d contacted Dr. “Q” down at UNMH and were waiting for an appointment to be made for me to go in and see him, presumably, to find out if there are any new tests or scans he wants run and to schedule the surgery. Keep in mind that it’s been more than six weeks that I’ve been waiting for this appointment to be scheduled. How’s that for the efficiency that the government will bring to the health care system?
I told my doctor on Friday that if they hadn’t made an appointment by Wednesday, I’d call on Thursday to make my own appointment. Well, I did that and, after being transferred a couple of times to different people, got hold of Dr. “Q”’s office and it took less than five minutes to make the appointment, with the earliest opening being on May 10th, 2 ½ weeks away.
Now why it would be so hard for someone in admin to call Dr. “Q”’s office themselves and make the appointment for me is beyond me, but if I’d just done it myself rather than waiting all this time, I’d have already seen him a bit less than a month ago, and since when I saw him last time he had a surgery opening six weeks after that, the odds are good I’d be two weeks away from getting this done, (as I type this,) rather than what will probably be two more months.
“Oh, but with government run health care there won’t be long delays!” Obamacare advocates say over and over. This is one example that such claims are BS. The surgery hasn’t been necessarily urgent since they knocked the infection back with my vacomycin infusions twice a day, two and a half hours each time not counting the time taken to set up the IV’s and get me hooked up to them, which is about another ten minutes unless they have to change all the tubing, (once a week,) in which case it’s more like 20 minutes. Gee, that’s five to six hours a day lying there with the IV going, or 230 hours or so since they approved the surgery to be done at UNMH, JUST on IV infusion time.
Gotta love government efficiency, doncha?
In other news, they operated on the bedsore on my right side, (at the top of the pelvis where you can feel the “wing” of the pelvis right near the surface,) and created a larger wound, but put a “wound vac” on it and it’s healing up well, though it still has a ways to go yet.
During that surgery, (pretty minor, without even having to knock me out, and able to use just a local anesthetic,) the doctor snagged a bone sample and I’ve got some other little bug infecting my bones. This one’s called, “Proteus,” and the infection disease folks came down and told me they’ve taken me off the vacomycin and put me on something else. This one only takes a half hour to infuse, but has to be done three times a day, (which screws with any passes I get.)
The problem with this is it doesn’t address the bone infection on the other side of my pelvis and in my left thigh. As aggressive as the infection got, eating completely through the front pubic bone, which is about an inch thick and four inches long, in just seven months after I’d been sent home and there was no infection in my pelvis at all, I’m a tad concerned about it popping up with the bone munchies again.
I talked to my doctor, (Dr. “E”,) about it and he assured me that they’d keep an eye with blood tests for signs the infection was flaring up again, and if so, I’d get put back on the vacomycin again in addition to this other antibiotic, so we’ll see what happens with that. I just don’t want it eating any more of my pelvis up before the surgery to cut all that crap out of there.
Now that things are coming to a conclusion for a date on this surgery, I have to admit I am getting a wee bit nervous about the whole thing because it will probably mean some pretty big changes in how I have to/am able to do things on a day to day basis, but I’m sure the adjustments won’t be as drastic as going from being able to run 11 miles in 66 minutes with a flak jacket on to being paralyzed from the chest down, so I’m sure I’ll be able to adjust. The main thing is I don’t know, at this point, how much of my pelvis the Dr. “Q” will have to cut out, and that’s a big part of how much of a change I’ll have to adjust to.
Again, sorry for this being so intermittent, but day to day life in the VA is pretty uneventful, with the exception of getting an irritating room mate for a little while or, like today when I was sleeping, having some well meaning volunteer wake me up, (by yelling at me three times,) to ask me if I wanted some ice cream. I said “No, I want to sleep!”, where if I’d had just a moment more to come up with an answer, I would have said, “No, I want your phone number!”, and when he asked why, I’d reply, “So I can call you up in the middle of the night when you’re asleep and ask you if you want any damned ice cream!” LOL…
So… I see Dr. “Q” at UNM hospital on May 10th, and will most likely find out then when I’m going to have this big surgery.
The one thing that has come to mind with all this is that going to get a second opinion from an outside Dr., (and expert in hemipelvectomies,) was probably the smartest thing I’ve done in the 30 years I’ve had of dealing with the VA.
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