What’s Wrong with the Doctors?
Five years ago my doctor phoned and told me that my blood work was abnormal. She told me to go to Emergency at the local hospital, that she was faxing my paperwork ahead of me. Then after I waited four hours in a chair at admissions and then another four hours in a bed in ER, the staff wheeled me to the pre-operative ward, where I received blood transfusions — six units in all — and intravenous prednisone.
I had seen six doctors about the bleeding during the two years leading up to my hospitalization with severe colitis, and I had seen three of those doctors about my symptoms during the two weeks preceding the hospitalization. I had had a colonoscopy about two months prior to that hospitalization and it was after that colonoscopy that I experienced abdominal cramping. Knowing nothing about colitis at that time, I thought the cramps were caused by the air they had pumped into me during the colonoscopy. I did not even know that colitis existed.
The gastroenterologist told me that I had mild inflammation, but I later discovered that he had diagnosed my condition as proctitis. If he had had the presence of mind to inform me of that very specific diagnosis, I would have then known (from my own research on the Internet) that mild proctitis can progress to severe colitis, and (despite the three general doctors I saw during the two weeks preceding my hospitalization two months later) I would have accurately self-diagnosed my rapidly escalating health problem before I became so sick that I ended up with IV tubes full of blood, electrolytes and corticosteroids sticking into my hand and arm.
The good news is that by the time I was well enough to leave the hospital, I had switched to a better (and far more conscientious) gastroenterologist.
See Ulcerative Colitis Advice.
