Tuesday, January 26, 2010

At Least I Had a Choice

I got into the GI doc's office today. Unfortunately, if I wanted to see one of the actual MDs, I would have had to wait 10 days. So I reluctantly agreed to see a nurse practitioner.

Now, I don't mean any offense to nurses or nurse practitioners. But I know my situation is complicated between my latest intestinal problems and my ongoing chronic problems. And I felt I would be best served by seeing an MD. And, well, there's the minor issue that I have to pay a more expensive co-pay to see a specialist, and I don't get any discount for seeing an NP (although I know my insurer will pay less).

Erica was very nice, but sure enough, she needed to call in an MD to figure out what to do with me.

Apparently, I'm a borderline case, in that they couldn't decide whether I needed to be admitted to the hospital, or whether I could wait and have more testing. They also think it's not a clear case of diverticulitis, mostly because I "should" be feeling better by now after a week of the double doses of antibiotics.

And that's one of the problems with seeing new doctors -- they don't know my history, and really, they often aren't all that interested in hearing it. My GI doc might have decided to tweak my antibiotics or something. Instead, I'm scheduled for a colonoscopy on Monday. Which seemed like a better choice than being admitted into the hospital this afternoon and undergoing a bunch of tests while they tried to diagnose me. (Been There, Done That in August 2007.)

Sigh.

So I'm under orders to go to the ER if my pain is severe and/or I spike a fever of 101.5 or higher. Meanwhile, I have a prescription for something that's supposed to help with stomach pain that I haven't picked up yet from the pharmacy. And of course I get to look forward to the "prep" for the colonoscopy.

However, when they get my blood test results -- hopefully tomorrow -- depending on what my counts look like, they may order another CT scan prior to the colonoscopy. The doctor also said depending on what they find once they get inside me, it might be a brief version of a colonoscopy, because if they find inflammation, they won't go any farther due to risk of perforation. And I definitely would prefer not to have a perforated colon!

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Apologies to those who are kind enough to comment publicly on my blog, but I've had to turn on moderation because I've been getting some weird posts in my comments and I couldn't figure out how to delete them without turning on moderation.

4 comments:

SharonMV said...

Dear Aviva,
I'm so sorry that you are ill & hope the GI doc can help you. It's true about new doctors - even if they know your history they still expect you to be like every other routine patient. Hope the tests go well.
Sharon

Anonymous said...

Did you get the bloodwork results yet?
Make sure you're taking probiotics to counter all those meds.

Aviva said...

Sharon: Thank you!!

Yaya: No! I can't believe it, but no. I went to a nearby standalone lab that's convenient to my home. The MA who sent the test orders there for me neglected to mention that they are notoriously bad about sending the test results back promptly. Sigh. If only she'd told me that before I had the blood drawn, I would have driven farther and they'd have been able to get the results the same day. :-( So I'm still waiting ... *sigh*

Aviva said...

Oh, and yes, thank goodness for probiotics! I always take them when I'm on antibiotics, and with the dual hit right now, I'm remembering them everyday!!