Emory Patient Banned for Giving Negative Feedback

“Please accept this letter as a formal notification to you that all the physicians at Emory Clinic are formally withdrawing from your care. We wish to terminate the physician/patient relationship that has been established because we are unable to meet your expectations.”

Emory Chief Medical Officer - Letter Banning Me Dated April 19th 2016

As I awaited Dr. V’s return from maternity leave it seemed like an eternity. The Dysautonomia continued to spiral out of control and still no treatment for it seemed forthcoming. My digestive tract took turns with my blood pressure and heart rate wreaking havoc on my body. The weight-loss continued, and my hair began falling out. I found it in my bedsheets, on my clothes, on the floor, in the bathtub and it even fell into my food during those periods when I could eat. The Patient Portal had grown eerily silent, and though I occasionally left symptom updates for Dr. V’s Nurse Practitioner it seemed almost as though the conversation had gone cold and for a time I wondered whether anyone was reading (except for Administration whose new pastime seemed to be keeping tabs on me). It became evident that nobody was going to fill in for Dr. V to write orders in her absence and to this day I don’t know why, nor could I get a straight answer to this question when I directly asked staff. I figured why waste all this time for the 3 months she was away when we could be actively working on the problem.

The Nurse Practitioner eventually told me she was forwarding my correspondence to Dr. V at home and that was some consolation. It turned out Dr. V was in agreement with my getting back on IV saline given the fact that there was not a whole lot else to be done about it other than to load me up on beta blockers which neither she nor I wanted. Even so, she held off on writing the order herself while she was home and nobody else wrote it either.

The Gastroenterologist, Dr. J.M. was reluctant to venture into that territory, viewing it as the job of Neurology, and though she was cordial enough she seemed to be very traditional and more in favor of treating the GI symptoms individually with a pill for each one. She did do a couple tests though, so it was a start. Other than the waxing and waning of my symptoms punctuated by several acute crises of near syncope, nausea, headache, and vomiting, everything else for awhile anyway was uneventful and I was grateful for that.

I thought maybe finally Administration had turned their attention to other matters, but no such luck. Just when I thought it might be safe to go on with my life and my medical care and that maybe things would eventually iron themselves out I received a certified letter, then soon after, another copy of the same one in my mailbox with the dreaded logo on the left-hand corner in that severe, bold font in dark denim blue. I wondered what fresh hell they were cooking up this time and all the while hoped it was good news, but when I opened it, the audacity hit me full in the face like a mean left hook. It was an official letter from Emory’s Chief Medical Officer (not the male I’d been told held that position several months ago but this time, a woman whose name was unfamiliar). This was not long after I’d received the report from Patient Relations merely parroting Dr. B’s response and that of his direct supervisor who had not returned my call as she’d promised during the time before Dr. B officially bowed out. I’d called to follow up with Patient Relations and got their voicemail so I’d left a message telling them I was still sick and asked what exactly Emory was planning to do about that. For weeks I’d received no response. Although irritating I wasn’t surprised considering how useless their “investigations” had been before. It now seemed clear that the letter was meant to act as a response, but instead of offering some sort of olive branch, concession, or compromise to come to some positive resolution the content of the letter pushed further in the opposite direction upping the ante from the once rather off-hand suggestion that I could always choose to go someplace else if I was dissatisfied to now directly telling me I was being kicked out by the Royal WE which was the entirety of Emory Healthcare. This is something that they don’t legally have the right to do because they’re considered a non-profit organization and the conditions under which they receive federal funding dictate that they cannot discriminate nor refuse treatment to patients who come to them asking for an appointment. The doctors employed by Emory although technically employees are individuals, and some are better than others.

I have never maintained that every single one of them is crappy and I made that very clear to Patient Relations. I give credit where credit is due and I don’t blame those doctors who are genuinely trying to help for the shenanigans perpetrated by certain other individuals who choose to continue to exercise poor judgment or engage in malicious acts against me.

Despite the vicious nature of the corporate entity there are some good and caring doctors there and it is unfair for some corporate mouthpiece to be so presumptuous as to say she speaks for them. I’m sure that there are many doctors whom would blanch if they only knew how unethical those in the ivory tower behaved, and some might even decide they didn’t want to work for such an evil empire that so callously dismisses patients still needing care.

Hypocritically, Emory spends probably millions (possibly even billions of dollars) on patient satisfaction surveys, yet when a patient gives honest feedback that is negative about an experience there they are personally attacked. This information should be used to improve the system, not used against the patient, and nearly all federal civil rights laws have a requirement that the claimant not be retaliated against for filing a grievance, yet this is exactly what has been done to me.

If I were one of the decision-makers at Emory I would take that money currently spent on surveys that are used just to pump up their false image and all the new buildings being erected around town and put it towards hiring more doctors. More buildings will not make Emory better, that depends on the people in charge and it is incumbent upon them to earn the reputation they so badly want. More buildings cost money and it is highly likely that the care each patient receives will suffer and more rationing will result.

Not long after I had my colonoscopy I developed a horrible urinary tract infection and needed to call the Gynecology clinic to make an appointment since it had been awhile since the doctor there T.M. had seen me in the office, so although it was obviously e-coli she could not just call in a prescription before seeing me to culture it and make sure she was giving the right antibiotic. As it turned out, she had no openings for about 2 weeks and this thing was growing like a weed by the day, so it needed to be taken care of within the next day or two or I was going to end up back in the emergency room. That was how serious an infection I had! The weekend was quickly approaching and I wasn’t looking forward to being stuck with it until the following Monday. The call center informed me that they did have an opening at Emory St. Joseph’s location, but when the representative attempted to schedule me she kept on running into a wall.

“This thing won’t let me advance to the next screen,” she said. “I’m getting a full stop!” I asked if the system were down and she said no, but she wasn’t sure why it wasn’t working now but thought it was a temporary malfunction. I told her in the meantime to have a nurse call me.

Not long afterwards I received a phone call from a nurse, M. whom it didn’t dawn on me until halfway through the conversation was Dr. B’s nurse. I wondered why his nurse in Primary Care would be calling when I had been trying to get an appointment with Gynecology, not her clinic. She told me “You’ve been dismissed from the clinic.” I calmly told her that they could not legally deny me treatment, that it was against Federal law, to which she got very nasty. This was odd that she would seem to have a dog in the fight, but then it suddenly occurred to me that most likely it had been she who had initiated the ban in the first place as revenge for my clearing the air with Dr. B. on the Patient Portal. Obviously there was gossip taking place behind the scenes (more unprofessional behavior than I’d known). Dr. B. was a big boy and it was petty that this woman was fighting his battles for him. She raised her voice, talking over me rudely, telling me I’d have to go somewhere else.

“Where exactly do you suggest I go on a Thursday afternoon?” I asked.

“I don’t know, you’ll just have to go somewhere else.”

” That is illegal” I reiterated. “Emory Clinics get federal funding so you have to accept patients who wish to make an appointment. You cannot discriminate or cherry-pick. I’m an established patient with this doctor and have been for several years”.

“Go someplace else!” She yelled into the phone and hung up. I called the call center immediately and reported what had just happened. A young woman in the call center apologized and said that I shouldn’t have been treated that way and gave me the name of a man who was the supervisor there and said she’d leave a message for him to call me, but he never did.

By the skin of my teeth I was able to get help from a mobile primary care service. Initially they were going to try to get home healthcare out here to get a urine sample to culture but that fell through and we found out that they didn’t do that kind of thing, so a Nurse Practitioner from the mobile service took mercy on me as she too was concerned about my having to wait through the weekend because of the severity of the infection. She called in a prescription for 14 days of Cipro. It turned out I needed all 14 days because the infection was pretty entrenched! Clearly my immune system is compromised, as it seemed to have sprung up overnight and became full-blown faster than normal and was affecting me systemically by the time Friday rolled around. Once I got the antibiotic it took awhile before I noticed feeling any better although slowly but surely the infection started to abate.

I looked up information on this Chief Medical Officer and discovered ironically that she’s an OBGYN herself! Surely she knows what untreated e-coli infection does to the human body, especially to someone chronically ill who is immune compromised. She should be ashamed of herself! What doctor with any sense of ethics does that! She needs to remove the block from my account immediately!

Then a few weeks later I began feeling severely faint and nauseated and ended up in the ER again. The ER doctor at St. Joseph’s wanted me to follow up with my Cardiologist in just a few days but he had no openings until July, so I searched out a Primary Care doctor and luckily was able to get an appointment sooner. She seems very nice and was open to my starting back on IV Saline infusion and was willing to order it but wanted my neurologist to fax her something saying she was OK with it first. She also thought I should see an endocrinologist as she said that there are certain endocrine problems that can cause Dysautonomia.

Dr. V. returned to work and I saw her on June 3rd. We had a long conversation and I told her everything that has happened and she was very understanding. I detected none of the pushiness I’d seen in the first appointment. I thought maybe she was feeling under pressure knowing she’d be giving birth any time, so maybe what I saw the first time wasn’t her usual personality. During this second appointment she seemed very warm and caring and I could tell she really felt for what I’ve been going through and wanted to set the record straight. She is in total support of my having these out of town evaluations and said that Emory is woefully lacking in the right equipment to do this type of autonomic testing. She told me she wanted to know how the two upcoming appointments with the specialists go. Then she ordered a number of blood tests related to various endocrine things to give the endocrinologist a head-start and one or two tests that could be done at their lab on mold. I left there feeling a sense of renewed hope, but then I got home and found that I couldn’t set up the next follow-up appointment with her. I finally have a neurologist who is invested in me and I want to continue seeing her, and make no mistake about it I intend to fight to do so.

Managing Fatigue, and Conserving Energy

50 mg. Caramels horizontal view - Nutrient Bomb DSC_0001

Caramels – 50 Mg. each

25 Mg. Hard Candy 25 Mg.Capsules

With extreme fatigue I find it’s important to pace myself and to look for products, activities, and strategies that might at least over time increase my energy level or at least conserve it as much as possible.

One thing I am very interested in (especially since it has become more and more difficult to tolerate solid food) is Cannabis edibles. (I have been sampling a few that melt away to compare effectiveness, as all the pills I’m taking now are about to gag me).

While none of the products I’ve tried is the “real” stuff with all the elements of the plant, I know that as nutrients some of these products have at least some nutritional benefits of the hemp they are made from.

The above Fleur de sel Caramels with sea salt purchased from a small maker called Nutrient Bomb where I ordered on Etsy have an interesting flavor almost like black tea, and smooth and very stretchy texture. The seller also sent me a few of their other products as free samples. The pills I’m not really keen on (for the reason I mentioned earlier), but the hard candy squares were pretty good tasting and I couldn’t taste the CBD, although the flavor was hard to identify; somewhere between cinnamon, cherry, and mild menthol.

If nothing else, I’m trying to eat 1 caramel a day (I just got 9 to test out and see whether they improve my energy level or GI symptoms). So far I’ve only had 3 days to try them.

After seeing a new Gastroenterologist the day before yesterday I discovered that I have really lost alot of weight. I knew my pants were beginning to fall off me but it did’t hit me how extreme it really was until she mentioned it. I’ve started losing my hair too and it has on occasion literally fallen out of my head right in front of me without provocation! I have been finding it all over my bed sheets, clothing, etc., even on the carpet. I don’t know if it’s some sort of endocrine problem or what. It’s very strange, though. I hope it doesn’t continue dropping at this rate or I might end up bald!

My muscles often burn and even the slightest exertion takes everything out of m so I’m trying to conserve energy as much as possible.

I find that one of the best ways to do this is to literally sleep whenever I feel I need to and not force myself to stay awake because of the time of day or what I’m doing.

Sometimes I need to sleep alot more hours than normal in order to have the stamina to shower once a week, and since I currently don’t have anyone to help me I just can’t do it everyday as I would like to. I have to let certain activities go out of sheer necessity.

I find that alternating activities more often helps as well. Changing positions is very important if you are bed-bound because you are less likely to develop pressure sores, and if you have chronic pain and muscle spasm that’s triggered by sitting squarely putting pressure on your butt, then shifting to one side or the other can make things easier.

Being in pain in itself can wear down your energy and aggravate fatigue and it can make you irritable. I find sometimes pain creeps up on me before I realize it (because I’m so used to it), and all of a sudden I feel awful. I try to identify as best as I can when I’m starting to have pain and take my pain medication as soon as I notice it.

At times I have mistaken it for fatigue when it was actually pain starting up. I have now become pretty good at recognizing this pain aura and know when I need to take care of it to prevent a cycle of pain and fatigue from being set off.

As I also have some severe sensory issues I know about my body that I cannot tolerate any type of suffering for very long before I’m in all-out sensory overload. Symptoms I find are causing significant distress need to be taken care of expeditiously; no waiting around and procrastinating. They need to be treated now. This is something I was not able to get through to my GP, but it is absolutely crucial that any physician working with me understand this and respect it because it’s not that I’m being demanding or being a diva, but that I really can’t stand it. With the way I am wired, this is not a choice or a mere matter of convenience as some may assume, it is a need.

So if any of you readers are in the same boat it might be good to try to have a talk with your doctors about this as early as possible. If they are truly interested in helping you they will understand and try to accommodate you. If not, then it’s better to find out sooner than later after you’ve become invested in that doctor/patient relationship and find a doctor who will understand and meet you where you’re at on this.

Maybe I made the mistake of not telling mine this soon enough, but I think I was less aware of it almost 13 years ago when I began seeing him, so I’m not sure I could have made the connection back then. It has been a long process of self-discovery to fully understand how my brain and body works, but now I know alot more than I knew then and often learned things through rough trial and error.

It takes more energy for me to withstand protracted suffering (pain, stomach upset, near syncope, etc.) than it might be for somebody who does not have sensory issues. It’s as if somebody turned a dial way up and the longer I go with untreated symptoms the more excruciating it is. Someone who does not experience this themselves cannot ever fully relate, but a truly compassionate doctor will take your word for it and not expect you to jump through yet more tiring hoops that only make your life more difficult and deplete your energy.

My not being treated for my Dysautonomia since November, I’m sure, has taken a toll on me both physically and emotionally, and it occurred to me that it might actually be causing me to burn fat and muscle at an unhealthy rate. I suspect I’m probably in ketosis.

This state will deplete the little energy you have remaining very quickly. I’m trying to drink some Pomegranate juice I still have in the house in-between drinking my ice water, as Pomegranate is a super-fruit filled with anti-oxidants and has lots of nutrients in it.

When I need something from the kitchen I try to bring everything in there I need to at the same time, and everything back from the kitchen I need at the same time.

Although I’m in a power wheelchair I get fatigued very quickly just sitting in an upright position and the one I currently have has no neck or headrest so my neck can’t hold out unsupported for more than about 15 minutes.

Having the right adaptive equipment can make quite a difference. I’m working on getting a better chair that will support my body more equally and allow me to recline if I suddenly start to feel faint when I’m up.

Whenever possible I also try to put my forearms on the counter when preparing something, I now don’t bother putting dishes inside the cupboard like I used to, but keep them on the counter so that I don’t have to reach and strain to get a plate or a bowl after taking them out of the dishwasher.

Mental concentration for long periods of time tires me out, so I try to break up those activities and when I feel worse I stop and either lie down and totally rest or sleep, or I do something that requires less intense concentration.

I recently went onto Listia , (which for those who are unfamiliar with it is a site where you can get items for points rather than money), and bid on and won two adult coloring books. Being an artist who is used to drawing, painting, and making jewelry, when I saw these becoming popular my first impression was that is was a little bit wussy to color prefab designs.

However, as I have gradually lost some fine motor abilities in my hands when it comes to the type of art I have done for years and now find impossible and frustrating, I understand the appeal of these for adults with chronic disease.

I think what it is that is so freeing about these is that certain types of executive functioning such as planning out where to position an original design on paper, perspective, and composition require the artist to expend alot of energy.

When you are healthy you may not even be aware of it, but when you’re ill you definitely feel as though the act of creating (the very thing you love) becomes a chore of monumental proportions!

Not being required to do these things that tax your brain and attention gives those of us with chronic illness a break from having to plan things out to the 9th degree, an activity which can sometimes just be too much, especially on days when we have alot of pain and/or fatigue and brain fog.

I would love to hear from readers what you do to conserve or increase energy. Please feel free to leave a comment and to subscribe. 🙂

A Strange Irony

Things have become increasingly precarious as time goes on. I am used to spending time alone and often prefer it but it doesn’t really hit me how alone I am until I find out I need help with certain things and can’t obtain it, yet can’t do certain functions myself either. Then all of a sudden it hits me that there’s nobody there but me, at least noone reliable. With my body becoming less and less reliable that is really becoming a problem.

The past few days have been unbearable with the dysautonomic symptoms out of control and nothing I can really do to stop them. The near fainting spells wake me up from sleep and along with them comes heart arrhythmia; my heart pauses and then beats weakly with a faltering type of flutter. I feel so weak now and just want to rest. I’m finding now that my GI problems are becoming more baseline and that I can’t tolerate much by mouth except yogurt and applesauce. Last night the applesauce didn’t even sit as well in my stomach as it had just the day before. The previous day I’d tried making a rice bowl with cheese and some sour cream and some seasonings and ended up in bed on my side clutching my stomach. It felt as though by the next morning my food was still up in my throat. It was not digesting.

Because of all the stomach upset I have not been able to take most of my medications. It’s harder and harder these days to take anything by mouth but my ice water.

I’m now running out of things I can eat in the house anyway and have neither the money nor the stamina to go out and get more from the store.

There was one person who shopped for me occasionally but he has dropped out of sight for weeks now and I’m not sure what has happened to him. The few people I know locally seem to always have tenuous phone and internet connections. They either don’t receive messages due to a technical problem or else their services are cut off on any particular month for non-payment.

Today I got word that my application for the Independent Care Waiver through medicaid was denied. The Reason? Because I am “wheelchair bound and have no circle of support” both things I have no control over. I wonder what kind of people came up with those harebrained regulations?

So if someone is in need, is disabled, with limited mobility and has no support then the response is you don’t give them support? How much logical sense does that make? 40 hours of service a week is sure better than nothing! I would take that if that’s all they can offer, but somehow my voice doesn’t count. This is another example of the patient’s needs being totally and arbitrarily disregarded.

Two more weeks to go before I find out about the other waiver. That one gives you less hours but doesn’t have the requirement that some person in the community sign a form, so we’ll see where that leads.

So nobody’s regularly checking on me locally now and things are worse than they were several weeks ago both in terms of people coming around and in terms of my health.

I have also been unable to reach my son. His new phone contract is now long distance if I call him but if he calls me it’s free to him, but I now get a generic voicemail when I leave a message. Emails have also been unsuccessful. They go through but no response.

I need somehow to reach my aunt to let her know that I will likely need someone to go with me to some of these out of town independent evaluations. She would probably want to know but I have heard nothing from my cousin for months now from her Facebook account who had said she’d contacted her and a few of her children after I got out of Piedmont.

As for making new connections, it’s a bit late for that. I’m not much more than a pet rock at this point, lying in bed only able to sit at my computer propped up on pillows. Honestly, who locally would want to know me? I’m sure they’d be bored after a few weeks at best. I can’t really go places, I have no money to go out to eat these days, and if I did the food would make me sicker. Then there’s the fact that my underlying disease is untreated and totally out of control and this makes me not the best company because I have to first focus on saving my own life on a daily basis. That doesn’t make room for much talk of everyday things that others take for granted and are part and parcel of most friendships.

On my better days I can talk about art and politics, and animals, and if I don’t have to talk I’d much rather hear about their lives than talk about my own as answering questions in itself has become taxing and painful, but my better days are getting fewer and fewer now.

Bills are falling by the wayside because my brain can’t hold any more than what’s right in front of me right now. Processing is at a slow crawl.

I find it hard to do much at all today besides making sure my glass of ice water has enough ice in it. Going to the kitchen even in the wheelchair is exhausting to go get more ice, but I hope I can continue to do at least that because I don’t want to be further dehydrated.

Beneath the surface I am grieving a life lost and the realization that my days are numbered. This is not some sort of depression but a coming to terms with what is, and what could never be despite all my efforts. I never wanted it to end this way, but at least if it has to be I will die at home with dignity. If I don’t make it through then perhaps they will find out what’s really wrong at autopsy and if it’s genetic as I suspect these results will be shared with my son so that maybe he won’t have to meet the same fate as he gets older.

As with any disease, early detection and treatment are key, even in those without a cure. If my story ends up a cautionary tale then my life will not completely have been in vain.

Treatment Stalled Again Because Of Emory

Running Out of Time - Hourglass

Treatment has hit another snag and it’s precisely because of those medical records from Emory; both what they say that is false and what they don’t say that is true. The worst of both worlds. What good are medical records anyway? Isn’t the whole point to help the patient? And if they actually sabotage a patient and prevent them from receiving the care they need then what?

I wonder how long I can go without treatment before this again becomes an emergency. I am so overheated there isn’t enough ice water in the world to relieve it. I can’t seem to stay cool enough and I sweat around the hairline and in other specific areas of the body. It’s strange because it’s not my entire body that sweats, just certain parts of it such as lower back and my face and scalp get spontaneously oily. I change positions but that only helps temporarily. Holding my glass in my hand helps to a certain extent but it also melts my ice faster. Although I have my wheelchair next to the bed even getting in it to go to the kitchen is exhausting especially given the fact that I still have no neck support and am sitting upright. Me and gravity don’t exactly get along.

The weekend was absolute hell with cardiac events waking me up two nights in a row, several times each night with my heart pausing and then straining to beat slowly and haltingly. The only way to prevent it is to stay awake in the wee hours of the morning and even that doesn’t always keep it from happening. It often flairs really badly at around 3:00 AM – 6:00 AM.

My gastrointestinal symptoms have been quite erratic lately and I have noticed loose sticky stool yesterday and more urinary retention. Oddly when I peed it was as though I really wasn’t feeling it coming out. It wasn’t numbness in the usual sense, just lack of sensation or greatly reduced so I was unaware of just how much was actually in there. I had to consciously push with my abdomen to get it out but it was quite alot.

Then later I started noticing some fecal odor and leakage from the back end and have had to change underwear on a number of occasions. It’s not diarrhea but some sort of brownish greenish clear liquid. Sometimes I see it when I wipe myself on the toilet paper too.

I’ve been waking up each morning with headaches that are so debilitating I can’t move sometimes for an hour before the pain lets up enough even to sit up and get more ice water with which to take my pain medication.

My eyes continue to be dry and the skin on my arms is taking on a distinctly crepe look. I must still be dehydrated. The water I’m drinking and salt intake just aren’t processing through the GI tract.

Patients’ Lives Matter

“First they ignore you.
Then they ridicule you.
then they fight you.
And then you win.”

This saying has often been attributed to Ghandi but some version of it has been repeated by a number of people in activist movements the first of which is believed to have been Nicholas Klein of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union said in 1914.

It is especially fitting now for as I’d suspected the offending parties are in fact reading my blog. I got confirmation of it today in a letter dated March 21st, the envelope of which says “Administration”, and inside top left-hand corner says “Office of Quality & Risk”. Apparently T.Js Supervisor decided to write and tell me to shut up, himself. He says and I quote; “This is a response to the various concerns you have continued to raise to several individuals within the Emory system regarding your medical care and treatment at Emory University Hospital on December 3, 2015. At the outset, I emphasize that we thoroughly investigated your complaints properly considered your requests, and responded in writing to them. I direct you to the response letters from Emory regarding these matters. Further, we have performed additional reviews after learning you were not satisfied with our response.”

Interesting he should say they’d done “additional review” as all I was told by TJ in her nasty, unsolicited and retaliatory phone call was that she’d already finished her “investigation” and that “nobody is going to call you back”, (before talking over me and rudely hanging up). There was no chance to ask any questions or raise further concerns, and it was clear she in no way wanted to accept any more nor to help solve any. That was the last correspondence I had from anyone in that capacity.

I received no letters showing any evidence of further investigation nor were any of the gaps addressed in their investigation that I’d pointed out. Many questions remained unanswered and he never returned phone calls I’d made to him when I got the initial response showing that his subordinate had not done a fair and complete investigation. Then he goes on to say;

” While we remain apologetic that you have been dissatisfied, please know that our conclusions and decisions regarding your aforementioned complaints and requests have not changed since the time of the response letters. Please also understand that you continuing to raise the same complaints and requests to different individuals within the Emory system will not change our conclusions and decisions regarding these matters.”

So in other words he as agent for Emory will not remove the libel from the ER record, amend the record, bar the offenders from accessing my record, nor take any other actions to protect me as a patient, nor take any disciplinary action against those who participated in the abuse and neglect even if the CEO himself were to insist on it. (That was who’d I’d written by the way; the head of the corporation. I did not know at that time there were two; one for the University side and another for the medical side, so I mistakenly wrote the wrong one first and then was directed to the one for the healthcare side).

Then he goes on to say this…”If you have any new or additional complaints or requests regarding any medical care provided to you at Emory at any time, please let us know. As we have done with your complaints and requests up to this time, we will thoroughly investigate the complaints, properly consider the requests, and respond in writing to them. We have assigned Ms. T.J., Manager of Patient and Family Advocacy, as your point of contact regarding your complaints and requests. Ms. J can be reached at (phone number).”

As it will be when pigs fly before I ever enter their ER again, Ms. T.J.s “services” will not be needed. She is not allowed to tamper in other areas and if I catch her doing so it is a further violation.

He goes on to say;

“We do ask that you focus and limit your communication to Ms. J so that we can ensure none of your concerns go unnoticed and so that we can manage your communications with us in an efficient and effective manner that does not detract from our goal to provide quality medical care and services to our other patients and families.

We are aware that you have posted and discussed online at patientsrigtsadvocate.com your complaints and requests regarding your medical care and treatment at Emory. While we respect your right to express yourself, we request that you remove the specific references to Emory and our personnel. We also encourage you to direct your complaints and requests to Ms. J in lieu of posting them on your online blogs.

Moreover, as we have stated in previous correspondence to you, it is our expectation that our patients have positive experiences while under our care, and we deeply regret that we disappointed you. If you truly remain dissatisfied and feel that we at Emory have not appropriately met your expectations, please know that you can always seek out your medical care and treatment elsewhere. We do thank you for reaching out to us to express your concerns and for giving us an opportunity to look into them and to continue respond to you.” He then signs his name, LOL.

OK…Now let me get this straight…

First they neglect and abuse me in their ER, then libel me in my records, then refuse to correct their rights violation, turn my own doctors who I’ve known for years against me, play all sorts of dirty tricks to cover it up and sabotage my treatment at Emory and out and because I write about my experience in my blog he wants me to remove it? Aaaah…Nope, I don’t think so. After a full and complete investigation I find everything to be correct and complete as is.

So sorry you aren’t satisfied.

But hey, if you really did nothing wrong then what are you worried about? I stand on my principles.

One has to wonder why little old me, one patient in the entire Emory system has that much power that he implies to warrant that sort of extreme knee-jerk (sorry for the pun) reaction (just a strong reflex, I guess).

Me thinks maybe there’s something a bit deeper going on which has nothing to do with me and that even I do not know.

Oh, and the best part…I’m starting my treatment very soon! (from someplace else that is taking me seriously despite all the dirty corporate tricks and unprofessional attempts to distract, dispute, and derail me from my goal).

Preparing for the Transfer

22 Kt. Heart

I know nothing stays the same, but if you’re willing to play the game it will be coming around again. So don’t mind if I fall apart, there’s more room in a broken heart…Carly Simon

The day before yesterday was one hell of a day. The appointment with my pulmonologist was to some extent a repeat performance of my last meeting with my GP.

Some may think that because this blog’s focus is on experiences (often bad) in the healthcare system and on patient’s rights that I am just angry, but in truth I’m not. Emotions are part and parcel of the human condition and I don’t shy away from them, but what I feel is more frustration, fear, and grief that although it would be so easy in this situation for those in positions of authority to make things right, instead they make the decision not to at every turn, and in their opposition they prolong physical suffering unnecessarily.

Doctors, when you see signs of disease document them, don’t just have verbal conversations with the patient and not put down a diagnosis if treatment depends on it. If you discover later there were procedural mistakes, then for Godsake amend the record! Untreated disease will continue to tap you on the shoulder until something’s done about it. It waits for noone. Leaving the patient on their own with it to twist in the wind is never the answer. If I seem a bit on edge at times, then this is why.

If you’ve ever had a pet who is injured you will understand. They may bite if you try to pick them up, not out of anger but because they’re protecting the part of their body that hurts. It is just instinct; not intent. Humans as well become quite to the point when there’s little more time to waste. This is nature’s way of motivating us to stay on task to find a way out of peril so that we can survive. When the struggle for self-preservation stops then you really have to worry.

While I am an activist this is not all that I am. Some may view me as a radical but if that’s all they see then I haven’t communicated my point effectively. I’m a mother, an animal lover, an artist, and a writer. (The broken heart at the top is a component I cast in 22 Kt. gold years ago from a mold of my own design. The line created from it was about regeneration in the face of adversity). Most of all at the core I am soft-hearted and fundamentally believe in the goodness of people and man’s ability to change and transform. I also believe that not everyone’s path is the same, nor should it be, as we are all individuals.

I am more apt to assume that people are with me when they aren’t than the other way around. It is actually because at the core I think positively that I am like this. This is why I often give people in my life maybe more chances than I should.

I try to stay on topic in this blog because the atrocities that take place within healthcare are what I’m trying to shine a light on so that there can be social change. While I am telling my story, this is not just about me, but about so many people who, like me, end up sidelined because of a broken system that leaves little room for tolerance of differences, individual needs, and those who don’t fit the mold of what doctors, insurance regulations, and levels of government who set the laws and rules dictate. There is no manual for the human body and yet there persists the false expectation that there is within the medical field.

The chubby black nurse with lots of tiny braids came in and took my blood pressure, charted a few stats on the computer and then handed me the standard sleep questionnaire to fill out, watching me impatiently.

“He’s running on schedule so I don’t want it to eat up your time. He can’t spend an hour with you” she blurted out rudely.

I narrowed my eyes at her not knowing what brought that on. I never knew how to fill those things out anyway as my sleep/wake pattern is all screwed up from day to day. She told me to average it out, her voice growing ever more impatient.

“Is Z here today?” (another nurse) I asked her.

“No” she replied. “She’s off for a few days.” I thought back to our last phone conversation and suddenly had an uneasy feeling. I’d told her what had recently transpired and told her that I was going to need the pulmonologist to take over all the order writing. She understood. There was no mistake about it. She’d been open and empathetic and she was hearing me in a way she hadn’t ever before. When I asked for verification she said “Yes Ma’am” in a way that conveyed that now she understood the gravity of what I was up against.

In the past she’d told me this doctor thought for himself and didn’t think he’d buy into the buzz, but in this last conversation I remember telling her I was glad he was not one to buy into group-speak and that he was the only one left, that I was glad that he at least believed me. On that she didn’t respond to reassure me as she usually had.

I never got a call back from her regarding his answer. Then about 4 or 5 days later (the day he’d refused to do the two referrals) another nurse had responded on his behalf on the Patient Portal. When I’d asked where Z was I was told she’d asked off.

Did she know what awaited me at my upcoming appointment? Perhaps she did and couldn’t bear to be there to watch what was about to unfold and didn’t want to go along with hurting me.

Once the nurse in the office left the room with the clipboard in hand I waited in anticipation that at least he was still with me as he’d indicated on the Patient Portal…or so I hoped.

Medicine is more than the mechanical fixing of bodies. It’s about a partnership between doctor and patient and when one is chronically ill this becomes even more crucial. Often along the way that human aspect gets lost in the process. Above all patients need hope when going through a difficult and long diagnostic process and they need to know that whatever happens their doctor is there for them.

The other day even though he’d refused to write the two referrals I’d sent him the information on (Vanderbilt and the Undiagnosed Diseases Network), I still thought positively that he hadn’t diverged from me. Maybe he just wanted to see me in-person before writing any orders or referrals, I reasoned, or maybe he just felt that it was the GP who should have done this. I tried to believe that there was a reasonable explanation in every way I could.

Not long after the nurse had left he knocked briefly and entered the room.

His face was red at the top of his cheeks just under his eyes. Because I am close with him I knew that was a tell. Even still I powered through, tried my best to ignore it, thinking maybe it was just a temporary bump in the road. I had a smile on my face because I was genuinely happy to see him and I still considered him a confidant until such time as I knew otherwise. I was willing to give him a chance, to hear him out before passing any judgment. Even with some weird vibes I was picking up I couldn’t switch gears that fast and suddenly be unhappy with him. There was a history there. He had helped me in the past, maybe more than any of the doctors at Emory. I had the impression he genuinely cared.

“How are you” he asked looking at me from across the room as he sat down in his chair. He made eye contact, but I just couldn’t block out the distracting reddening in his cheeks and kept looking there instead of his eyes.

“Not good. I’ve been feeling pretty bad with this Dysautonomia not treated for the past several months. I’ve nearly passed out several times in the past two weeks.”

“You’re smiling” he said, nodding. I didn’t exactly know what to say to this or why that was significant to him. I grappled as best as I could to find the words, but failed miserably in fully explaining. I communicate better in writing than I do verbally.

“Well things went well yesterday. The nurse practitioner told me that she didn’t think I was nuts, and apparently Dr. V validated my Dysautonomia, so that’s progress.”

“You’re smiling” he said again, a little louder this time, almost cutting into the end of my sentence. I wanted to ask him what his point was but I didn’t know how. It was as though my brain stopped for a moment. I could think it but the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. In the time I’ve known him I have grown very attached to him and in the past he has always been willing to do whatever he could to help me. All I had to do was ask. I told him just the other day on the Patient Portal how much I appreciated that, and suddenly as if the rug were pulled out from under me all that was gone.

I tried to push the gnawing insecurities aside in favor of logic. How could a strongly positive doctor/patient relationship go from 100 to zero in just a week’s time, I wondered? As I sat there across from him something didn’t feel quite the same.

“What is your understanding of the situation right now?” he asked. “Do you think Neurology is moving forward in getting the answers?” It was one of those statements masquerading as a question. I could feel it yet was unsure exactly what he was going to say although I grasped that it wasn’t good.

“Well it’s too early to know for sure. I just started with them, but Dr. V. definitely picked up on something of the underlying condition. She just isn’t sure what it is yet. She’s only seen me once, so hasn’t even had time to investigate very far before going on maternity leave.”

The pulmonologist shifted in his chair from side to side, not a good sign. “She was hanging her hopes on it being the Sarcoidosis.”

“Yes, and it turned out not to be that” I answered the question for him. The red in his cheeks continued to spread outward. “The Gallium Scan was clean” he said with almost an eeriness in his voice.

That meant it wasn’t in acute flair but he seemed to have a much more ominous take on it.

The significance for him seemed to take on an almost supernatural quality to it and I could tell it scared him. We live in the bible belt here in Georgia and one always has to consider that doctors in this part of the country may read in a religious significance to explain things that as of yet are medically unexplainable. That is yet another variable that can and does interfere with trust within the doctor/patient relationship; the good vs evil dichotomy.

“It was the inconsistency in the exam that concerned me” said the Pulmonologist, his cheeks reddening further. At this point he was looking kind of ill himself. I knew what he was thinking because doctors are trained that way.

I felt the need to reassure him that I had not been taken over by some strange evil force and that there was and is a reasonable explanation, that we just needed to find out what that is. There is a confounding variable neither he nor Dr. V were taking into account which elicits inconsistency in an exam, but the growing sense of mistrust and feeling of utter futility held me back from telling him what it was. I opted for the simpler of explanations.

“This is just the beginning”, I continued. She’s just started with me. Sometimes it can take as many as 6-8 years for patients to be diagnosed. I sure hope it won’t take that long for me, but the point is that alot of people go through this. It’s not that uncommon for things like that to come out negative or inconsistent, but at least they can start by treating the Dysautonomia since they know that the Saline helped when I was at Piedmont. That would be a start.”

It was all he could do to stay put in his chair. He seemed to be grappling within himself pulling to one side, then the other. I could imagine opposing dialogue going on in his head.

“You keep coming up with that word; Dysautonomia!” his speech accelerating and growing in urgency. “There’s no evidence of Dysautonomia.” (pregnant pause) “that’s your perception. That came from you. She said by patient report.”

“What do you mean no evidence? “It came from Piedmont” I replied. “Didn’t you see the BP stats that were entered into the electronic records system? My blood pressure was all over the map for 11 days, measuring it 6 times a day!”

“That could be anything. A cardiologist would have to determine what that is….and you need to consider that this could also be…psychological. I would recommend seeing a Psychiatrist and a Cardiologist.”

“Well it sure isn’t in my head. Believe me, I went that route first, as I had problems on my left side a number of years ago. The therapist suggested I get it medically checked out because she didn’t think it was psychological.”

“It can reoccur.” he replied ignoring the fact that I’d said it had been ruled out.

“Blood pooling in my feet? Pictures I sent Dr. B. on the portal.”

**“There’s no evidence of Dysautonomia. That’s your perception. They have to do tests for that!”** at this point seeing he was losing this argument but sticking to his story so as not to lose face.

“They should have done that testing 4 months ago. I’ve been telling people this since I was discharged from Piedmont in November. The doctor there had a conversation with me about this. It didn’t come from me, it came from him. He just didn’t document it and I didn’t know that until I got the records later. I believe it’s secondary and that it and the movement disorder are all part of the same syndrome. They need to find the underlying condition.”

“If there is one. Why not see a Cardiologist?”, he said.

“I could. That’s another reason to go to Vanderbilt. They have specialists there and I’m sure they have Cardiologists there as well as Neurologists.”

“You could see one here… or at any place locally. You don’t need to go out of town for that.” I wondered why he was so wedded to the idea that I stay here in town for such an evaluation.

“The thing is if I went to just any Cardiologist they may be too general to recognize this. Many Cardiologists are generalists and they have many other heart related disorders to focus on. I need an expert who knows what to look for.”

“I would recommend doing it here.” I’m sure he would, I thought, beginning to feel as though he wanted to control the situation. Odd, given the fact that just a few days previously he’d taken a hands-off approach.

“Then my chronic constipation, the fact that I’m thirsty constantly, how can you say there’s no evidence?”

“That could be dehydration. Dysautonomia is extremely rare statistically.” He seemed genuinely afraid and holding onto this denial for dear life, like a security blanket, although I wasn’t sure why. The whole time we’d been talking I was drinking water and sucking on ice cubes.

“Well why am I dehydrated? As you can see I’m drinking ice water constantly. I have a cup with me at all times and yet I’m still thirsty.” He was out of excuses and just looked at me seemingly frustrated. He asked about Dr. B. and I said “He’s gone.”

“Gone? What do you mean?”

“I mean out of the picture; gone” I did not elaborate.

“He’s not your primary anymore?”

“No, he was doing me more harm than good anyway. You see, nothing was moving. My treatment was going nowhere. I tried to tell him but he wouldn’t listen. I’ve been untreated for almost 4 months now and I can’t wait much longer. It’s getting worse.”

“Untreated for what?“

“Dysautonomia.”

“And you really think Neurology is helping you?”

“According to the Nurse Practitioner she is supposed to be good and I was told she thinks outside the box. I figured I’d give her a chance.”

“OK then, I’ll take a back seat to Neurology then and just follow what they’re doing with you.” he replied seeming somewhat offended or hurt, I couldn’t tell exactly which. “I still think you should see a psychiatrist” he threw in for good measure.

“I just don’t want to cloud the issue. I want this looked at on it’s merits. There are several problems in seeing a psychiatrist. Every specialty tends to look for what they specialize in and they can’t bill insurance for situational problems so that motivates them to fudge and give you a psych diagnosis when you really don’t meet the criteria. Would it make any difference at all if a psychiatrist wrote a letter saying that what is going on with me is not psychiatric but medical?”

“Yes” he said emphatically, “It would help alot”. Somehow his words rang hollow as soon as they’d been spoken. I found it hard to believe that he could ever go back to the way things were before. A line had been crossed and another rung of trust broken. Even if he could go back I couldn’t. It scared me that he could so easily go from supporting me 100% to being so determined not to support me. It was like the air let out of a balloon. Knowing that deep down he was not trying to rule it out but rule it in was what hurt most of all. The way he looked at me just killed me; a mix of irritation, amusement, and pity as though I had wasted his time.

“I feel like you don’t believe me” I said. I wasn’t smiling now.

His face clouded over and he looked through me rather than at me. “Ms. Carlington” he said with a forced new formality “I need to move on” he stated dismissively looking somewhere to my right, then avoiding my eyes and looking to my left.

The first level I perceived right away (move on as in to his next patient), but then I picked up something on a deeper level.

He was officially uninvesting himself in me and though I was still technically his patient I’d clearly been relegated to the cutting-room floor.

A thousand pieces of paper wouldn’t change anything now with his resolute mind-set and knowing, that psych is a soft science and based more on individual clinical opinion than provable fact, to take that particular piece of advice and gamble with my future could put the last nail in my coffin.

As both of us exited, he to the left, and me to the right he called back over his shoulder that I should really get a new Primary Care physician to coordinate all these specialists and I told him that with managed care and heavy caseloads I really don’t know if one would, so I wasn’t in any great hurry to do that. It didn’t work out for me the last time. He said that’s what they’re supposed to do. Yes, I thought, they are supposed to.

I went to the front checkout desk where the young receptionist with the long wavy black hair and black-rimmed glasses greeted me with their customary “Did you have a nice visit?”

“No, not so much. Not this time. I feel a bit uneasy.” She got on the phone to ask the doctor when to schedule me for my next appointment.

“Six Months” she said as she turned toward me. I winced. (It was usually more like 2-3), but still feeling that sense of futility I didn’t ask her to make it earlier, only asked if I could if I needed to, and she said yes, that he was here 5 days a week and if need be it wouldn’t be hard to get an appointment should something come up.

Yesterday Dr. V finally responded through her Nurse Practitioner, but since she’d not heard of the IV Saline treatment she told her she wouldn’t authorize her to write the order “at this time”. None of the other items on my list of priorities (other than the med refills) had been addressed, so I wrote back and asked if she had authorized her writing the referral to Vanderbilt, and provided her several pieces of information about the treatment and contact info for two specialists familiar with it.

Yesterday I got the name of a guy at another specialty clinic out of state and am waiting to hear back, as he is out for the week. The office is supposed to call when he returns. All the pre-registration was taken care of over the phone. If I don’t see some action out of Emory Neurology soon I’ll go that route, as he seems to have diagnosed lots of people who had the same experience I’m having now and there you don’t have to have a referral. As gut-wrenching as it is to be losing doctors I’ve known for years locally I wonder if maybe, just maybe with doors closing at Emory, another window is about to open.

Dare I Hope?

Hand drawing back branch

As Spring brings new buds after the thaw from the harshest of Winters sometimes one finds unexpected reprieve even at the 11th hour; maybe even because of it. Although I don’t want to jinx it today’s visit to Emory General Neurology was more hopeful than I’d expected. I’d prepared a list of things I needed help with, placed it in my soft briefcase, and after dragging myself out of bed having barely slept, back and core aching, dark circles under my eyes, feeling gutted and weak I forged ahead not knowing what lay ahead. 7 AM is not my best time of morning and I was holding it together by a thread. As I arrived on the 5th floor I was already starting to feel worse and sucked on ice cubes from a large styrofoam cup with a plastic lid on it in a rather ineffective attempt to settle my stomach. After about 20 minutes in the waiting room a nurse in a light green scrub outfit, red hair parted slightly to the side and flipped upward called me to come back. She had a Hispanic accent, so at first I thought she was the Nurse Practitioner although the name of the woman I was to see sounded quite WASPY. I didn’t quite get a good look at her name tag as she sat at the small wraparound desk in front of her computer terminal. She asked me the usual mundane questions about my medications, weight and height and took my bloodpressure which as is usually the case at Emory appointments runs somewhat high. It seemed as though they were well versed as to what I was asking before I ever arrived and although it was a little unnerving, it didn’t appear that they were at all viewing it negatively. I wondered if they’d had a meeting earlier that morning. The nurse assured me that I was in good hands and that this was a “good team”. She informed me that the Nurse Practitioner would be in shortly.

In just a few minutes another woman came in. She had dark brown hair a little longer than shoulder length, but as bad as I was feeling I didn’t register much more detail than that. She introduced herself as the Nurse Practitioner and explained that Dr. V. was going to advise her and that she didn’t have a clear-cut idea about where to go from here. She told me that she could write orders but had to check with Dr. V. first although she was covering for her.

It was unclear whether she’d read the scan or if any of the doctors had but at that point I really didn’t care since it was the Dysautonomia that was most pressing. I handed her my succinct list which she was grateful for and she looked it over, commenting on several of the items favorably.

This was very different from my recent experiences with Dr. B. I felt comfortable with her enough to tell her what happened in the ER and told her they treated me like I was nuts, and what had transpired since, including the dumping by Dr. B after he failed to treat my Dysautonomia for so many months and she didn’t bat an eye.

“I’m not nuts; I swear” I said preemptively, but no opposition came.

“I don’t believe you are either” she responded looking me squarely in the eye. She seemed warm and genuinely open. She went on to tell me she’d heard alot about the Undiagnosed Diseases Network and that many of Dr. V’s patients asked for referrals there. Apparently Dr. V. liked to see patients 3 times before referring them so that she was familiar enough to write a good letter but that given my difficulty getting the help I needed until way late she would ask if there was enough in the file and from my interview with her (the Nurse Practitioner) to make the referral sooner. This was more like it! Finally, someone who really wanted to make some headway!

I told her about how my adoption yielded no medical history and that there was no documentation of my ever having been born in the State of Pennsylvania, how I’d had strange symptoms for years ever since early childhood and that I’d needed genetic testing for a long time.

I went on to tell her that it had mainly been brushed off. She thought my line of thinking made perfect sense and was intrigued by the possibility that I might have some genetic form of Dystonia or that this may be secondary to a larger genetic syndrome.

“I don’t know what so many doctors have against acknowledging Dysautonomia. It seems like this dirty little secret that nobody wants to touch with a ten foot pole.” She smiled in agreement.

“I don’t know what it is that makes people view it any differently than any other disorder.”

“I Don’t know either” I said. “It seems like the doctor at Piedmont who had that unofficial conversation with me at my bedside didn’t want to go on record for the diagnosis nor the IV Saline treatment, but when I got home I discovered there are quite a few doctors doing that for the condition. It’s really not that controversial.”

“Really Dr. V. is into controversial!”

“Really?” I had to hear this.

“Yes”, she continued. “She really likes that.”

“So I have the right doctor” I queried.

“Yes.”

“I really hope she’ll do it because I’m absolutely miserable going for almost 4 months untreated. I don’t know how much more I can take.”

“I’m sorry”, she said looking a little sad.

The nurse practitioner asked a few details about my abnormal movements and noted these, then said she’d call Dr. V. at home and see if she could get permission to write these orders and that she’d get back to me once she got an answer. I got her card and headed out into the waiting room to call my transportation service. Then I went downstairs to wait by the front entrance. After sitting there awhile I got really cold and the near fainting spells hit me like a ton of bricks. My core ached from the spine inward and increased in intensity. I doubled over in pain and tried holding my head down but that wasn’t very effective and I began seeing stars and getting dizzy. I figured I’d better go back upstairs because if I fell and passed out in that downstairs lobby alone it could be bad.

Heading back upstairs I went to the front desk and asked if there were some coffee as there was in some of the other doctor’s offices. The receptionist said no, but that she might have some in the back she could bring me. I needed some sort of external heat source to warm myself up. As she went to bring me some coffee I lay down on the one couch they had in the waiting room and put my feet up on the armrest. Finally the faint feeling started to subside but the hot and cold spells continued to alternate every few minutes. I managed to drink the coffee but still felt very nauseated.

It took an inordinately long time to be picked up to go home, and even longer to be picked back up from the pharmacy after refilling my prescriptions.

Once home and situated in bed I called Daria. The woman answering at the front desk asked who it was and after giving my name I had the feeling that was why she was unavailable. I was told hastily that she’d call me back as soon as she could, but it was implied it wouldn’t be today.

I hope after all this that she isn’t tired of all the doctors not having followed through and that she’s not bored with me already just when I might be getting this treatment successfully.

I sent the nurse practitioner an email to follow up and send her the photos of blood pooling in my feet and a few other details I’d forgotten when I was in the office as well as filling her in on the fact that my condition has continued to get worse. Hopefully she called her today and didn’t wait, as I’ve waited too long already.

Tomorrow I have an appointment with my pulmonologist. I might have him do liver enzyme blood work, as it always seems to be elevated again when I feel this way.

The Politics of Hate and Social Dawinism

Padlocked

Maybe at some time in our evolution the Darwinian principle “survival of the fittest” made sense for the continuation of a strong gene pool, but as human beings in modern society we should be more evloved than that, yet it continues to permeate our culture, or work, our healthcare, and even our relationships and when we as humans no longer meet the criteria of viability we are discarded like yesterday’s garbage.

For those of us with severe chronic disease this baser nature in those around us can prove fatal, be it a spouse, a friend, a relative, even a doctor who has been charged with treating us for these conditions for a long time.

I found out yesterday that at some point my GP decided he didn’t like me, and I guess that makes my life worthless and my not being liked is punishable by death. The “pink slip” was coming. It was just a matter of time, I sensed, but nevertheless it hurt to know that he was just barely tolerating me for God knows what length of time.

Apparently the straw that really broke the camel’s back was the “tone” of my message, but I had reached the limit of my patience after so much mistreatment that I was one raw nerve, and after 3 months of being left to suffer I was like a tormented animal in a trap. It wouldn’t have mattered what I’d said, he didn’t want me as a patient and was just looking for the nearest trash can to throw me into.

Because he didn’t like me he was impervious to my pain, my near fainting spells, my unquenchable thirst, my need for home healthcare, and the worst thing of all is now I know without a doubt exactly why he didn’t like me. It in truth was not what I said, or really anything I’d done, but most of all my very failure to thrive and the secret I continue to keep to myself which is part of the reason why. I almost told him, but after the last appointment when it became clear he was being mean to me I knew that secret would only be used against me, so I thought better of it.

The evaluation for that unspoken thing is stalled, like most of the other independent evals; there’s a long wait. In this instance it’s Medicare holding it up; some arbitrary limit on the number of providers in the state of Georgia. It could be 6 months before I can fully make it official and safely disclose it to any of my doctors.

It is this very condition that Emory is really discriminating against that which makes so many others a target of bullying and abuse. This thing has no curb appeal when you’re no longer a cute 5-year old. Even so, one can only do what one can with the tools available and I have lacked all the supports and resources I’ve needed all my life in order to cope with all my disabilities much less this doozie, and I know in my heart I’ve done the best I could given the fact that I’ve had to do it alone. That is all anyone can really expect, but they don’t care. They expect more anyway. It is only when I’m backed into a corner that I become the hellcat only after having been way too patient and way more tolerant than anyone should have to. Why is it only me who should be tolerant?

He says he’ll be available only for emergencies, isn’t that a laugh. What good could he be as he has no admitting privileges and besides what’s been happening has been a slow emergency that festers and worsens with each passing day. It is in the emergencies that I’m most vulnerable and why would I trust myself in such a condition to someone who despises and in his heart wants to hurt me? Perhaps they (those in the ER) are lying in wait for me to hit the floor so that they can finish me off. I will not give them the satisfaction.

I wanted him to understand me but he didn’t want to. He’d already made up his mind and nothing I could say would ever change it. It was as though every atom and every cell within me was rotten in his eyes and there was nothing in it worth saving. With a double-bind like that it leaves you no hope.

He said that he was highly offended by my saying he wasn’t honest, but the truth is he wasn’t. On a very core level he didn’t like me but he pretended he did and he led me on to believe he would act in my best interest, but he didn’t. What is that other than dishonest? His actions gave him away. If you care about somebody you don’t just stand there and allow them to suffer.

Besides, it’s in the Hippocratic Oath; First Do No Harm. Doctors seem to think that there’s a loophole, that they can get away with it as long as it’s passive-aggressive, but the truth is that medical neglect is doing a patient harm! He’d have handled it better just to put me out of my misery than to subject me to this Chinese water torture of a death by a thousand cuts.

On yet another level, maybe it was too easy for him not to like me as a convenient excuse for poor judgment the cause of which was something even more disturbing. I have my suspicions because this is not the man I knew for the larger part of nearly 13 years. It seemed almost as though his soul had been taken over by someone else. The last sentence I wrote to him was that he must be going through something and that I hoped he got healing for whatever it is going on in his life that would cause him to do what he did.

Hopefully those whose job it is to hold him accountable will do that and not let him just pretend nothing’s wrong, as I do not believe this only affects me, but other patients now and in the future (if his superiors fail to insist he take care of his problem).

There are times when I truly wish I wouldn’t wake up the next morning. I’ve been able to sleep less and less the past few days, and last night I only slept in catnaps because the last thing I ate didn’t digest. I can feel it still sitting in my stomach, yet it has upset my whole GI tract from top to bottom. Also, I’ve been overheating almost continuously now with just short periods of normal temperature sensation and cold spells in-between. I feel like I am truly in hell. My autonomic nervous system has turned on me and I can’t make it stop. I need that saline ASAP!

As for the referrals to Vanderbilt and Undiagnosed Disease Network the only thing I can do now is to ask General Neurology to do them and hope some random person filling in for Dr. V will do it. Also, they need to get a message to her as to what’s happened. She won’t be back until May, but I think she sees through the bullshit going around and really might actually care (based on what the Nursing Supervisor said on the phone) and my being able to read people on multiple levels. Despite her being a bull in a china shop I could decipher something else; something underneath. It took awhile to fully process but nonetheless it was there and I knew she had no ill intent. That energy was very different from The Dark Man. My first reaction was not to like her because she forced herself onto me, but I read that it was not malicious like he had been, and that something underneath was good.

Maybe in her mind she was thinking she wanted to get it over with now because she knew she wouldn’t be here for several months to do the exam if she’d waited. It’s too bad that she didn’t get to read the films from Piedmont or the Gallium Scan herself. She sounded as though maybe she was better than some others at looking for Sarcoid lesions. If they are there and someone else misses them, then what will happen? Will they want to take the extra time and effort to be sure?

I was glad that Dr. B. didn’t try to touch me when I saw him the last time. I could read enough just in his body language and tone of voice to know he was not on my side. To read it in his touch would have been like being clubbed over the head with it.

On Monday when I go into General Neurology I may be a mess but at this point I don’t care. Maybe they need to see how it really is for me after I’ve been targeted so callously and viciously by the system that grinds people up and spits them out in the name of healthcare, how I’ve been left a mere shadow of my former self. In some distant corner of my being I remain strong even now. I’m trying to hang on to the shred of dignity that still remains.

People who haven’t experienced this cannot imagine what it’s like to be branded with such libel in their medical record and then told it will sit there for eternity assumed to be accurate even though it’s all lies because of “policy”. Imagine someone took a piece of shit and put it in your clothing and you had to wear it going around stinking for the rest of your life. It wasn’t a part of you yet anywhere you went people would assume it was.

And then to be sick on top of it and not treated feels like I’m being punished for something I didn’t even do wrong. All I did was ask for what I needed. All I did was stand up for myself.

All I can do with this awful feeling is sit here and lick my wounds at home at the moment. It is the weekend, and on top of that I really trust no one right now.

I’m still talking but I fear that might end soon. When it happens I can’t will my brain to do it. Sometimes it just happens for a few minutes when the stimulus is short-term, but when the stimulus is longer-term I have been known to go for days and even weeks.

On the practical side I have gathered the names of some attorneys who are in the right specialties to right the wrong and have emailed one of them. I hope someone will help soon. That stuff cannot stay there if I am to have a chance for the treatment I need.

Call To Action: Wronged at Emory? Contact Me

If you have been discriminated against in your healthcare at Emory I would be very interested to hear your story, especially if you have had a bad experience in the ER there.

There is a particular practice referred to as “gaslighting” or “psych-shaming”; in effect calling you crazy and undermining your credibility which is particularly damaging to one’s reputation and it can have the effect of slowing down or stopping your testing and/or treatment for your very real medical condition! When this is entered in your chart (even if it is not an official diagnosis but implied) it can cast a shadow of doubt like a black cloud above your head anytime a doctor in or out of that system requests your records.

To those of you just tuning into this blog I’ll recap briefly; this happened to me at Emory’s main Campus’s ER on Clifton Rd. on December 3, 2015.

I was medically neglected for most of 9 hours while in the ER, then abused physically and psychologically by an on-call neurologist, Dr. P. R. M., and then defamatory verbiage was charted implying that I had some sort of mental illness and/or was “feigning” my condition. His resident a few minutes after leaving the room came back and plopped her butt down on my weaker left foot. (See my archived post The Dark Man to read the whole story).

This atrocity was a malicious form of organized bullying and exploitation and I strongly believe violates Federal anti-discrimination laws; Federal Hate Crime statutes, The Americans with Disabilities Act, and The Protection & Advocacy Act of 1986.

Just yesterday the “patient advocate” T. J.” who actually is internal (employed and paid by Emory) made a harassing call to my home in an attempt to shut me up. She informed me repeatedly that “no one will be calling you back” and implied during the call that she has been tampering and interfering with my right to seek redress from her superiors and others within administration to get the complaint properly resolved.

This too is a violation of Federal law. Retaliation and intimidation against a patient for filing a complaint is strictly prohibited and is an added violation. If she were a true advocate she would know that.

I was instrumental in writing the 5-organization contract in Georgia when the P&A Act was first passed and have had extensive training in both individual and systems advocacy, have worked alongside attorneys, and used to be paid to investigate abuse and neglect complaints from patients in a whole range of facilities.

My agency Alternative/Atlanta; Center for Patient Advocacy covered the metro-Atlanta area. Due to funding cuts the original contract was taken over entirely by the organization whose job it was to manage the funding and disburse it to the 5 organizations.

Advocacy is not like it used to be anymore, and sadly patients have suffered because the demand far exceeds the supply of good advocates. This was my line of work before I became too ill to do it fulltime and before Georgia lost most of its funding.

When I did this officially I advocated for my clients as though they were family. I worked late to make sure they got what they needed, was on call nights and weekends, and it was not uncommon to see me show up at a hospital to meet a patient who had been placed in restraints or who had been physically, emotionally, or even sometimes sexually abused by staff.

I understood that in order to properly advocate for a patient one has to look deeper than “he said, she said” and deciding whom to believe. There was never any question as to whose side I was on; the patients’! There were no divided loyalties or conflicts-of-interest and I pursued the course of action and outcome the patient wanted.

I also participated in annual reviews of all advocates nationwide by an independent evaluating agency, and my charting was deemed best in the country of all advocates employed by this Federal Protection and Advocacy system.

I had hoped to one day make a good living at it, as it has always been my passion to help those who need someone to stand up for them to level the playing field. I have a saying;

Old Advocates Never Die;

They Just Lose Their Funding!

Since my funding was cut I have continued to advocate wherever I saw a need, lending my skills on a volunteer basis to a variety of worthy causes. I believe I have been called to do this and that my life experience is in a sense a test-case which has led me to understand many different populations and their needs.

There is nothing more devastating than fighting for ones’ rights alone, but every cause worth fighting for has its true allies. One just needs to find where they are. I believe that very rarely is anything just an “isolated incident”. Most incidents are a microcosm dictated by pattern, and if you look beneath the surface you find what the pattern is and usually the motive as well.

For every complaint you officially get there are likely many more that never reached the official grievance stage for one reason or another. Patients are often too ill or too busy, or they are too upset by what has happened to them to go through all that’s involved in filing an official complaint, compiling the evidence, and following up (sometimes numerous times) to obtain the outcome. If the complaint is denied, then they are required to complete numerous other formal procedures, fill out forms, call and leave messages, and keep documentation of names, dates, places, and other events relevant to their grievance.

This is precisely why good advocates are needed, especially in instances in which the victim/survivor’s credibility is under attack.

All the self-advocacy in the world will not save you if at the very core those you go to for help do not believe you.

When authorities see one patient with a complaint they might not take it as seriously as when there are 5, 10, 50 or 100 such incidents because now we are talking about a pattern of conduct that raises the antennae of state and federal regulators on multiple levels.

Remember that even when things feel hopeless and you feel like the only one, most likely it’s not and you aren’t. There are people floating around, maybe closer than you realize who have been through something very similar. You just need to locate them, come together, and organize to affect social change!

Maybe you have had an experience at Emory in which you have been discriminated against in your healthcare because someone didn’t believe your symptoms were real, you may have been accused of “feigning” or making them up, “exaggerating”, being “dramatic”, being a “hypochondriac”.

A doctor may have called your condition “functional”, “psychogenic”, “emotional”, “psychological”, “psychiatric”, or “Hysterical Conversion”, “Factitious Disorder”, “Somatoform Disorder” (see my earlier post The Dark Man).

Then you noticed a lack of concern from your treating professionals, their treating you as if you were a minor child and not respecting your boundaries or wishes (see Bull in a China Shop General Neurologist), irritation directed at you, your symptoms ignored or directly disregarded, and ultimately a slowdown or stoppage of care. (For examples of this see my blog post Not Being Believed).

The above terms are buzzwords that are designed with maximum shock value to sabotage a patient’s credibility and an implicit warning to doctors to steer clear.

Let’s just be honest; there is nothing helpful in charting such things about a patient and this can only indicate malicious intent. It is fear-mongering of the highest order and one of the most vindictive acts a doctor can level against a patient because its effects follow the patient long after the doctor is gone. Any seasoned investigator will recognize this immediately and people who work in the ER (if they are honest with you will know the subtext they imply).

If any of this sounds familiar to you please get in touch with me by posting on this blog in the comment box below and I will give you some ways that you can submit a signed statement to me about your experience. If you can also get the statement notarized then that’s even better than just your signature alone.

In my post Educating Doctors of the Future; Affliction as Strength you will read some cogent points arguing against the assertion made by doctors that a patient’s condition is “functional” or “psychogenic”.

I’ve included some links to articles written in peer reviewed medical journals that suggest that patients given this label even when it is given as an official diagnosis do in fact have a real neurological problem.

These citations will help you make your case should you decide to take legal action or even if all you want to do is to get your doctor to stop viewing you and treating you in this stigmatizing way. The post A Few Lateral Moves, but an Ace In The Hole provides you several avenues by which you can file external grievances such as with the Office of Civil Rights and Health And Human Services’ Secretary Silvia Burwell. These are the branches of government most powerful in righting these types of wrongs committed in healthcare settings.

If you are a news reporter and are interested in doing a print of TV story on this or an expose on a longer show, feel free to get in touch with me. I am ready and willing to do interviews and as time goes on there most likely will be others who would speak publicly about their similar experiences.

As Emory has been consistently refusing to take responsibility and to correct this problem I feel it’s imperative now to use all available platforms to exert pressure on the corporation to ensure that they put the best interest of patients first and to stop these unprofessional and corrupt practices. I will be drafting a press release shortly.

–> You can make a statement to The Powers That Be now <—to have legislation drafted that would stop and prevent this from happening to patients on a national level! Several of us organized and have created a petition which will address Institutional Bullying in Healthcare Settings as a unique and enforceable unlawful act treated as particularly heinous because of the extreme power differential between medical professionals and patients and the inherent vulnerability of those of us chronically ill/disabled.

We must rely on doctors to look out for our best interest when we’re ill at a time when we’re at our most vulnerable, and when they don’t they must be held accountable.

It’s only fair, so please sign the petition and add your personal account detailing what abusive/neglectful/reckless, or malicious behavior healthcare professionals and/or healthcare administrators have done to you where it says “Reasons for signing” below the body of the petition on Change.org, and be as precise as possible. Each signature and letter will be auto-forwarded by the site to Secretary Burwell for consideration by her committee and Congress as a whole.

Don’t let these unscrupulous people get away with this type of cruelty any longer! It’s time for the patients to rise up and insist that we be treated as valued customers with the authority to choose what happens to our own bodies, not treated as minor children, the “village idiot”, trouble-makers, nor common criminals for exercising that right!

Political Hot Potato; Is It All About The Money?

Hot Potato at Emory DSC_0002

It seems my case has been made into a political football, and the Dysautonomia, a hot potato. Although I do think some headway has been made it is far from over and there are still some elements that wish me harm who are trying as hard to have things not work out as I am trying to make things work out.

I don’t think my GP is going to treat me no matter how many diagnoses I get. Once I meet that bar I can pretty much bet he will produce another one. If obtaining a diagnosis were his intent then I truly believe he’d have been actively facilitating these independent evaluations.

Earlier today the woman answering the main switchboard informed me that my pulmonologist and GP were talking. I don’t know if it’s possible for my pulmonologist to talk sense into him and since by the end of business I’d heard no new news I had to conclude that any attempts must have fallen on deaf ears.

There is something going on that I’m not privy to, and probably neither is my pulmonologist; probably something of a systems nature and maybe Dr. B’s also burned out or has some personal problem he’s not willing to admit. None of this adds up. He himself has enough proof to diagnose me with the Dysautonomia 10 fold. They can sort out whether it’s Primary or Secondary later.

I can tell you that there are some political things going on behind the scenes that I’m becoming aware of now. I was informed today by the “patient advocate” who deals with main campus ER (and I use that “advocate” word loosely) that “nobody will call you back.”

She is making rude harassing and unsolicited calls to my house now to try and intimidate me because she knows she’s handled things very unethically and people are now aware of it. I don’t respond to threats and intimidation no matter how ill I get and this corruption will be rooted out. T. J. is no patient advocate. She is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. She’s most likely logging into the messages that come in and reading and violating patient confidentiality.

I’ve already caught the Head of ED doing exactly that. He’d admitted it in a letter he’d sent me in which he tried twisting around something I’d said in confidence to my GP on the Patient Portal. Since he did not treat me that is by Emory’s own regulations a violation of privacy!

There are some people at Emory who are not connected with T.J’s office that have not called me back today either, people who ordinarily would, so I wonder whether that has any connection to her. She implied in what she said to me by phone that she was messing around trying to block things she has no business blocking. Emory does not need to employ people like that.

I finally received the certified letter from Emory Medical Records. They have officially refused to even amend the ER record and are claiming it’s “correct and complete”. With a position like that these people are really throwing the dice that I’ll roll over! They clearly don’t know me. I’ll die before I ever let myself be defamed in such a malicious way. If they think this will run me out of town they have another thing coming. This is where I live and I’m going no damnwhere!

A woman fighting for her life is nothing to mess with. I have my warpaint on and I am ready for them! Clearly I have threatened to unearth something much bigger than my individual incident. Although I am not entirely sure what that is, I suspect the hospital may be hiding some malfeasance involving care rationing of low income patients. This is discrimination! Emory is a high volume hospital with a mix of patients from one end of the spectrum to the other. The only exception to this is that they don’t take totally uninsured patients and don’t write off charges.

As a high volume hospital they would have a vested interest in limiting time and resources given to low income patients while concentrating more time and resources on higher-income, better insured patients. They are not ethically supposed to do this, but it often happens in such health systems. People just don’t openly admit to it. If they receive Federal funding they can lose it if found to be discriminating based on income, disability, or any other minority status.

That could account for why when my disease accelerated my care did not also accelerate. One would think that care would be expedited to match need, but in an instance where there is care rationing it actually is just the opposite. That would also explain why my GP and several other doctors waited until I totally crashed in November and I had to make the decision to go to the ER. That way they incurred no costs and instead Piedmont admitted me (saving Emory even more money). Then 4 days after I was discharged from Piedmont too early I ended up at Emory’s ER and they found every possible way to cut costs on me.

* They put in an IV but didn’t use it for fluids even though it was indicated.

* They ordered but never offered nor gave me Maalox and Ibuprofen

* They ordered and offered only Valium (2 in a 9 hour period to be exact and I only accepted the first).

* They saved money for the hospital by not feeding me for 9 hours and only issuing 1 meal at the very end.

* Nursing care was minimal so they spent almost no time/money on that. I was mostly left unattended.

* They didn’t officially admit me other than moving me to their bridge unit for about an hour and I was discharged without an overnight stay.

* They had the ER doctors and the resident do a neuro exam on me (3 to be exact) which they figured they could bill for and gain a higher reimbursement rate because the skill level was higher than nursing. They had better not, but in case they do, Medicare might think something looks funny that 2 doctors felt the need to test my reflexes one right after the other (except that Macdonald came in to do it later). Overkill nonetheless!

Then after all that the 4 of them (Hudak included) couldn’t manage to put their microcephalic heads together and come up with a real diagnosis!

Yup! Sure looks like care rationing to me! You can bet that ER will get no more business from me no matter how sick I become! The other day when I almost fainted twice I could have gone 2 blocks down the street but refused! That’s how much I can’t stand that place.

I’m already working on a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Silvia Burwell to appeal Emory’s Dept. of Medical Records’ refusal even to amend my records from that awful ER experience and I will be asking for a full-scale investigation not only of the mishandling of my case but systemically. Some staff have shared with me that the ER has alot of complaints. While I’m at it I can have her check and see how many of T. J’s complaints are ruled “unfounded”, and how often records are not amended as requested. I’m sure that will be quite illuminating.

Tuesday I have an appointment with the Nurse Practitioner at General Neurology to go over various scans and come up with a “plan”. With all the internal politics going around this place I really feel uneasy about meeting total strangers at Emory and discussing my case. Piedmont was supposed to be FedExing a disc to them so that doctors there can read the films themselves but I was not able to reach a live person there in Piedmont Radiology. Nobody at Emory General Neurology got back to me today to confirm the shipment on their end as promised yesterday. Dirty tricks? One has to wonder.

I think it’s time to order some more CBD chocolate covered Pistachios and maybe other edibles, as it could be a while before I see treatment from a doctor. I didn’t order enough really for 2 weeks the first time around as I found I needed about a quarter of a pack per day to feel improvement in my pain (probably about 125-150 Mgs/day). Nonetheless when I did reach a high enough dosage I got some relief. Maybe also the sweetness will get rid of this terrible taste of salt in my mouth that is now present nearly constantly.