Reaching down to put my French horn away I was suddenly hit by excruciating shooting pain on the left side of my abdomen. I had just finished playing a good show with the alternative rock band I played in. I wondered if I had eaten something I shouldn’t have. If this was a gastrointestinal event with potentially embarrassing outcomes prudence told me to get out of there and gasping from the pain I limped to my car. I had difficulty driving home. Had I blown my horn too hard?
I didn’t sleep at all that night. The antacids I kept taking were not working. By morning I had a vague memory of kidney stone pain that seemed similar to what I was experiencing. I needed to be seen by a doctor. And of course it was a Saturday. I would have to go to an Emergency Room.
Health care is one important field that is the most important one of all as it concerns the well being of people by keeping them fit and healthy and, therefore, free from diseases and maladies and has taken the form of online business so as to serve people far and wide, the result of which is that now business is in its booming phase and that too for moral and humanitarian issues, causing jealousy to rivals. [google_bot_show][/google_bot_show]Should your medical practice bother with it? No, just carry on with your noble cause and get blessings from well wishers that motivate you to work more for the benefit of mankind.
Choosing a small hospital not too far away, in Orlando, Florida, I planned to get in, get out, and get on with my life. I could not drive myself. While being registered they asked me if I had been kicked by a horse? (What? Umm..no!) Within just thirty minutes they discovered the source of my discomfort- a hematoma on my left kidney artery.
Soon I was admitted into a room. A doctor I didn’t know came and saw me later that day and said that they would use a ‘wait and see’ approach. Just moments later the worst pain I had ever felt in my life tore from the left side of my abdomen to the right side. I was sure a Thanksgiving turkey might feel like this if it had been carved open with a knife while it was still alive. Screaming and writhing overtook me.
Before I knew it I ended up in intensive care and was hooked up to a morphine pump that delivered relief at regular intervals. One day quickly turned into six. At this point I had already been given three transfusions. The really strange thing was that while I was experiencing all of this internal bleeding, none of the blood was leaving my body but was instead filling up my abdominal cavity. My lips turned blue and I was bloated like a pig.
The doctor insisted that doing nothing made sense.
A profusely bleeding major artery suddenly and magically deciding to stop bleeding on its own with no medical intervention on a perfectly healthy woman made no sense to me whatsoever.
But no one listened to me.
Family and friends alike agreed with whatever the doctor said. As a patient in a bed I had somehow lost my voice. I was in some bizarre twilight zone where no one beside me could hear the words coming out of my mouth. I kept asking for my primary care physician who had just given me a clean bill of health two months earlier. He didn’t come. I didn’t know why.
When a nurse came to give me a fourth transfusion I protested. She asked “Are you saying that you don’t want this transfusion?” Gathering what little was left in me I screamed at her “No! I am saying that I DO NOT WANT TO DIE and YOU ARE LETTING ME DIE!!!
Within moments I found myself in the back of an ambulance and on my way to a bigger (and hopefully better) hospital. As I was laying there listening to the siren screaming and watching the blur of lights passing by I felt relief.
