Re: Things I learned yesterday

From: jenny low (jenklow@hotmail.com)
Wed Mar 28 03:13:28 2001


Dear Rose,

Wow! This is wonderful! You know I experienced the almost exact thing you did. I went and saw my gyn for my 3 week post op and when I told him I was still in pain, he called the surgeon that did most of the surgery and they sent me over for a STAT CT. The only bad thing with me is that I had a TAH last June so I have nothing left but a vagina. So I am now considered more of a general surgery patient. I hate this because my gyn has taken care of me for 11 years. He has always listened to me and never doubted when I told him I was in pain. And now that I have no female organs left I can't go to him for the adhesions. And I am not real fond of the surgeon that helped him. I never saw him in his office before surgery. I met him in the pre-op holding area. I never saw him after my surgery either. I saw his 2 colleagues. And the day I had the CT I was supposed to go directly to his office and see him. I saw his colleague. Then they were supposed to call me on Monday or Tuesday with the results of the CT. I called them Wednesday because I hadn't heard from him. He still hadn't looked at the films. They said if I hadn't heard from him by the next Monday to call them. Well I did. They were supposed to call me later that afternoon, well guess what? They didn't. SO I called them Tuesday. He still hadn't looked at the films. The nurse promised me he would call that day. Well he didn't call, she called. The CT was normal, of course, adhesions don't show on those. When I started telling her it was not in my head. SHe said she knew that and that they believed adhesions caused pain. And I started asking her questions. SHe asked me if I would like to talk to the surgeon. I said that would be nice. So she put him on the phone and he said there was nothing surgically that he could do for me. He thought I should see a pain dr and get the pain under control so I could have a life again. Then he put her back on the phone. When I asked what I should do if I ran out of pain meds, could I call them for a refill you know what they did? Told me I would have to go through my gyn. The surgeon had called me in a prescription on the Monday of the week that I talked to them. Do you know how many they called in? Ten. Ten lousy pain pills. My gosh I could go through those in 3-4 days. And that is exactly what happened. So my gyn is so wonderful that they told me they would refill until I got into see the pain dr. I go there April 10. I sure hate that I can't use my gyn any more though. I trust him so much. And that is what I am afraid of, not having a doctor who will listen to you and think you are nuts or better yet just trying to get pain meds. I cried tonight after dinner because I was really trying not to take any pain meds. I took the last one on Monday around 2pm. Well after dinner tonight, I was hurting so uncontrollably that I finally took one. But I sure cried because I don't want to live like this. I hate taking pain meds just to function doing every day things. I really pray that this pain dr will be trustworthy and will listen to me and believe me. By the way, can anyone tell me what the pain doctors usually do? I have had a few people ask me and I don't even know. This is all new to me. So if anyone can share with me what their pain doctor did, I would appreciate it. Anyway, this is where I am. I am just waiting for my appointment on April 10. I hope this doctor will be the right one for me.

Love, Jenny

>From: anonymous@medispecialty.com (Rose Lunn)
>Reply-To: adhesions@adhesions.org
>To: Multiple recipients of list ADHESIONS
><adhesions@mail.medispecialty.com>
>Subject: Things I learned yesterday
>Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 07:34:49 -0600
>
>I saw my gyn yesterday, he was very sympathetic. Sceduled my for a CT
>scan TODAY, not later! Gave me pain meds. Explained exactly what he was
>looking for with the tests he was going to do. After I got home and
>took a pain pill, I got to thinking about why I felt so good even though
>he hadn't done anything other than give me pain pills. It turned out
>like this:
>
>Being listened to........think about it. We literally hear thousands if
>not millions of sounds a day. Does that mean we are really listening to
>them? NO! We only listen to the sounds that are important to us. This
>doctor listened to me. He asked questions to clarify what I was saying.
>He didn't just scribble a few notes, nod his head, and then do what he'd
>decided to do before he even saw me. I no longer felt like a
>non-person, a chart, an unimportant carrier of my disease!
>
>Being trusted..........how many doctors look at you like you have no
>idea what you are talking about? I thought about all the doctors I've
>seen over the long, long years and I realize that the only ones that did
>me any good were the ones that trusted me to know what was going on in
>my body. They are also the only ones that I remember both their faces
>and their names. To all you nameless doctors out there.......now you
>know how I felt!
>
>Believing in myself.........I have seen far more doctors that don't fit
>the above criteria than those few gems that shine in my memory. And now
>I realize that they had convinced me that I should be a good little girl
>and let the big, specially trained doctors do all the talking and tell
>me what I am supposed to feel and do. Well.......PHHHHHHHHHHT! I'm the
>one in this body, not them!
>
>Sorry to go on so much about this, but even though I still am in some
>pain (much less, thanks, Doc!), emotionally I am feeling GREAT!
>
>Thanks for listening to me ramble on!
>
>kcmo rose
>


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