New Year, New Update Part 1

When we last left our sponsor on May 31st, I was just starting to have nightmares. Things became a whole lot worse. I was diagnosed with full-blown PTSD based on my post-op experiences from the surgery. I was in a haze, I was not sleeping very well, and I was having more nightmares. I also knew I needed to do something, so I went on a quest for answers. What really happened to me? I requested my hospital records. It took two requests before they finally sent me the entire file. I found it to be both disturbing and unremarkable. They were disturbing because honestly, no person needs to read about how they were strapped down to the operating table or when their vitals became a little unstable. They were unremarkable because the IV failure during surgery that I both heard about in recovery and was told about the following day were not documented. I also thought the records were inaccurate when it came to documenting the times I was given painkillers. The cherry on top of all of this was the inclusion of "versed," an amnesia-causing anti-anxiety med I was given in recovery, some 35 minutes after I actually needed it. Funny, I was never told about this drug and I never gave consent.


So then it was time for the complaints. I left out some details in my original post about my TT experience, but more things happened that were less frightening but were still needless and careless. I first filed a grievance with the hospital. With that pending, I found a swollen lymph node on my neck which landed me in the office of...Dr. M.


I called him first, a little wired, a little scared and he was completely laid back, telling me he needed to see me to check it out. He found a time for me to come in the next day. I was terrified. I was oozing PTSD issues by now and I could not handle the thought of another surgery, though that was the first thing that hurtled through my mind when I felt the lymph node. I was shuffled all around by his nurse, played name-your-own-weight, and was in and out of the waiting room twice before I was finally was settled into a room some 20 minutes after my official appointment time. He came in the room and said, "Okay, so tell me your story again. You found a swollen lymph node on your neck and you are freaking out?" I tried not to laugh (he said "freaking out?") and to just clear my mind of all my sexual thoughts about him.


"Yes!" I said emphatically, leaning forward in his direction. I showed him where and he ran his hand down the side of my neck, then had me turn my head as he felt the opposite side.


"Return to the midline," he said, as I furrowed my brow and gave him a quizzical sideways look.


"Uh, face forward."

I HATE it when he does that; either speak the same language as me, or don't. I don't know what the hell the midline is! (Well, I do now...) I "returned to the midline" and this is where things started to get a little muddled, a little confused, a little blurry, boundaries-wise, for me.


"I'm going to feel you from behind" he said in that killer deep voice of his as he pulled himself onto the examination table and sat behind me to feel my neck.

Um, WHAT?! It's a good thing he couldn't see my face! He put his hands around my neck and set out to feel all around my neck and under my jaw for anything suspect. In sharp contrast to his usual rough and pressure-filled neck exams, he was very gentle, almost sensual. We were both silent as he did this, only his breathing was audible in my right ear. Finally, he asked me if I had been sick lately; I said no. He sighed and said he didn't think it was anything, right as he applied pressure above my scar. Then his hands came off my neck and dropped onto my shoulders. A million alarms went off in my head as his hands dug into my shoulders and his fingers swept across my collar bone. Then he got down from the table.


"It's nothing. It was probably always there and you never noticed, it had no meaning to you. Look, he got it all during the surgery. Your chance of recurrence is really low. How did you find this?"


"I was taking a shower and washing my hair. I turned my head and felt the lymph node and thought, WHAT is THAT? I'm not feeling my neck everyday or anything like that."


"Good, because you could really drive yourself crazy with this."


"I know," I said, nodding.

He leaned over the counter now with a lab form and told me to have new labwork done, turning to look at me with a very sheepish smile on his face. He began to write on the lab form, saying my name, enunciating it, saying my file number...and then he messed up, exhaling hard and closing his eyes like we all do when we think, "duh!"


"I'll be right back."


He returned with a new lab form and started to write on it only to realize he had not pushed the point of his pen down. I was trying not to laugh at this point. He handed me the form and said to go get the bloodwork done, that he would call me when he returned from his vacation in a couple of weeks but in the meantime, he would get me samples of my meds. He left and I got down from the exam table, amused and a little befuddled over how this appointment had gone. He came back and handed me the meds, then he shut the door. I stood there looking at him as he glanced over a couple of pieces of paper in his hand. Finally he looked up at me.


"I'm looking over Dr. ___'s status report and I didn't realize you had such a hard time in the hospital. Do you want to tell me about that?"


Oh man. I did NOT see this coming. I felt every cell in my body go on high alert. I had seen my PCP for sleep meds and vaguely told her what had happened to me. He clearly had her status report in his hands.

I put my hands on the counter and leaned over slightly, putting the boxes down in the process. I admit that I don't remember exactly what I told him, but basically, I imploded. I felt on the spot and I had no verbal rap prepared for this. My friends had all told me to "get over it" and I felt at that time there was something wrong with me for being affected by it. I was able to get bits and pieces of the story out but I ended up so frustrated with it all I just became angry and I told him how angry I was about the entire thing. He stood there, looking withdrawn, a total 180 from how he had appeared during most of this appointment. After I was done waving my arms around and telling him how mad I was, he asked me how my PTSD symptoms were, if I was sleeping at all or having nightmares. I said my sleeping was still very disturbed and he asked if I was taking the sleeping meds I had received from my other doctor. I was not. I told him that they scare me, he told me to break them in half. I said I had not had nightmares in a few weeks.


"I think you are going to be okay," he said to me. I nodded.


"I think so," I replied, not very convincingly. And then...something amazing happened.


"You know," he said, having completely softened again, now leaning on the exam table, "I have nightmares about what I see here sometimes and I wake myself up and tell myself, thank goodness that wasn't real." I looked up at him and for the first time, he appeared human to me. He was slightly disheveled and clearly exhausted. I literally felt warm and full inside and as I gazed up into his face a million thoughts went through my head about death, about my own death and thoughts that he would be the last person I would ever see. But it was not morbid, it was not fear. Something felt close, and warm, and comforting.


"You are going to get over this," he said. I nodded.


"Yes, I think so," I said again, somewhat more convincingly. I almost believed it. He held out his hand and I took it. He held my hand like I was a lady; he didn't shake it. Then he opened the door for me and I stumbled out and over to the lab for the bloodwork.

When I left the appointment that day, I was upset with myself for not being able to tell him the entire story. Suddenly, he appeared to be someone I could trust with my story, someone who genuinely wanted to know. I decided to do what I do best: write. I wrote him a three-page letter detailing everything that happened to me that day, how one thing led to another and to another. I wrote it in one sitting, then I became scared. Should I tell him this much, I asked myself?

Five days later, he called me (during his vacation) with the lab results. They were all normal but he wanted to adjust the meds. I missed his call so he left a long, breathy, rambling message on my voicemail that I have not deleted to this day. I will explain why in a later post. I also finally mailed the letter.


At the beginning of August, I received the official response to my grievance. Predictably, they blamed me, saying I must have ripped out my own IV. I was livid. The following day, I was pacing around my office plotting my next move when my cell phone rang. It was the clinic's number and I wondered if maybe I was in trouble for something else now!

It had been nearly a month since I had mailed the letter to Dr. M and I was no longer expecting any kind of response. I actually had a dream that he sent it back to me after marking it up with red pen to highlight what was wrong. At this point, I assumed he had just handed it off to his attorney because quite frankly, it reads like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Anyway, I went ahead and answered the call from the clinic and launching my first name through the phone with breathless, intense precision was Dr. M. What timing!