SG Cordray Pondering the Universe

I never really meant for this site to become a consumer awareness type site but that seems to be the trend in my life right now. Every time I do anything it becomes a consumer issue.

Yesterday I took my car to the mechanics to get it fixed. I had replaced everything I could replace myself (to save a little money) but there were some things I couldn’t fix. They fixed what needed to be fixed so I can’t complain about that… However….

They performed a fuel system cleaning that I didn’t request and in the process of that, they took a part off my car and put it back on with the wrong seal. Gas was pouring out of this part until we discovered it yesterday evening on our way out to dinner. The bad part of this is: I had driven the car on the interstate for a 55 mile round trip as per the mechanic’s instructions to reset the modules before taking it through inspection. The car was pouring gas on the engine and manifold. Get the picture?

We called the service station who told us we had to call a tow truck who told us they couldn’t do anything about it until the fire department was called and cleared the car. Now, that tells me they know exactly what could have happened to me as a result of driving that car in that condition. Trying to get this straightened out with the service station and everything resulted in being placed on hold for hours and the car still sits here.

If I had died, do you think the auto repair shop would have been charged with murder?

 I’m not sure what we are going to do about the repair shop except stop using them. I paid out a lot of money in repair bills yesterday just to have them set me up to be killed. James took the piece off last night and tried to fix the car himself. It can’t be done. There is an O-ring that is used to seal it. The O-ring is in great shape but it’s the wrong size so the part will never seal with it. It looks like the joker of a mechanic took the piece off, lost the proper O-ring and stuck another one on there creating a dangerous situation.

Am I the only one having this kind of luck? First the phone company, then doctors, and now the mechanics. Who’s next?

This will most likely be my last entry on anything health related. I truly honestly hate doctors.

My visit to the gynecologist yesterday.

They lost me. I signed in early, paid my copay, was told to sit and wait. My appointment time of 1:10P rolls around. I see no activity anywhere. There were very few other patients in the waiting room and they had long since been called back. 1:30P I’m still waiting. 1:45P I’m still waiting and finally go ask if I should reschedule or something. That’s when I found out they had lost me. They didn’t even know I was there. On top of losing me, they couldn’t find my records and took an additional 20 minutes before taking me to the exam room.

A med student whom I’ve never met before comes in with a bunch of loose papers in his hands. I don’t know if they were my lost records or if they were there to make me think that’s what they were. By this time I was in tears. When I’m angry I cry instead of shout. Perhaps I’d be better off shouting much of the time. After stutteringly telling me there’s nothing wrong with me and that it’s all in my head, I completely clammed up.

(Men don’t look if you don’t want to know.)I’ve been having menstruation problems such as having one every two weeks. These periods are fraught with flooding, cramps, back pain, and fatigue… which is why I went in the first place. According to them, I’m not in perimenopause, menopause, or anything else… It’s all in my head.

Because I was crying, he finally left, and the doctor who had conducted the exam 4 weeks ago came in, reiterating that there’s nothing wrong with me, so I said, “Fine. I’ll figure it out for myself.”  At which point an argument was about to start all the time telling me they could do nothing for me. I was so angry I just cried and cried. They offered to find someone for me to talk to. I said, “No, thank you. I’ll figure it out for myself.”

They brought someone else in, who said the same things and offered to find someone to talk to me. I again said, “No, thank you. I’ll figure it out for myself. If it’s all in my head, I can fix it.” At which point she said that was wrong. How could it be wrong when that’s what they are telling me? If there’s nothing wrong with me physically although I have all this junk going on, where else could the problem be?

On top of this I have all these other things going on. According to the doctors there’s nothing wrong with me there, either. It’s all in my head.

Well, if it’s all in my head, I guess I don’t need doctors anymore. I’ll take my copay and spend it on fixing my head instead.

Oh, and they offered me vouchers to the hospital gift shop for losing me in the first place. Was that supposed to make it better?

Folks, I gotta tell ya…

When I see posts asking for help with a particular problem, I fail to see what good it does the person asking for help to be told they are stupid (albeit usually in a roundabout, supposedly more tactful, way) for not learning it “the hard way” instead of depending on a piece of software to help them get there.

Some things professionals need to remember when they are supposed to be in help mode:

• We were all newbies once.


• We have all had our times when we weren’t interested in shoudas, couldas, and wouldas. We just wanted to “fix it NOW”.


• We have all insulted by having our intelligence questioned numerous times in our quest for learning technology… often without reason to question it.


• Being at the top doesn’t mean you should dish out the same kind of rudeness to current newbies because you feel it is only your due for having had to suffer through it yourself.

So…

• Why not try encouragement instead of disparagement?


• Your way is not the only way to accomplish a task.


• Put yourself in their shoes. It should be easy enough if you have any kind of memory. You were once there yourself. If you don’t have any kind of a memory, I’d be questioning whether your help is as valuable as you think it is.


• Use technical terms sparingly or at least with good definitions. Who are you trying to impress with the lingo, anyway?

See? Tech help is really simple if you just deal with the problem as is.

 

And aren’t you glad I wasn’t going on about my health issues anymore?

I know I mentioned it in the previous post but for those who might be wondering or concerned about their own health issues I thought it might be helpful if I elaborated on my primary ailment.

 I have Congestive Heart Failure (CHF). I was diagnosed with this condition May 16, 2005. I remember the date clearly because that is the day I almost died. I was told that I developed this condition from having untreated hypertension (high blood pressure). I accepted this as fact as all the literature and internet searches bear this out. I have no argument with any of it.

However, when I first first diagnosed with high blood pressure I was assigned to a doctor who made me wait for hours in spite of scheduled appointments, spent two minutes in the office only partially with me and threw pills at me further in spite of me telling him “Yes, I am taking them as prescribed.” and “They aren’t working.” This went on until I finally gave up on him ever listening. A second doctor was assigned who did much the same thing. She did spend more time in the exam room while I was in there but the time spent there was of as little quality as the first doctor’s care. She spent her time telling me how gross I was and how, of course, I’m not taking my meds properly in spite of my protests. I’m not a doctor or any other kind of medical professional but I did realize that high blood pressure wasn’t something to fool around with. However, I would come out of the visits with the doctors with higher blood pressure than I had going in.

I decided to give up on the doctors in this area figuring they were all going to be the same even though I knew high blood pressure wasn’t something to fool around with. My hope was that if I changed my diet and did all the right things it would slowly come down on its own. It wasn’t that high at that time, either… typically around 145/98 except after a visit to the doctor when it would go as high as 170/120. Not good, huh?

All this was decided sometime in the year 2003. For the next two years, I tried very hard to do what I ought to be doing to manage my condition. Apparently it wasn’t enough. I became increasingly more fatigued doing the simplest of tasks. My husband urged me to go to the doctor because he could see the changes in me. I continually asked why I should go to a doctor just to have a bunch of pills shoved at me that weren’t going to do any good and he would drop it.

We bought a house in October of 2004. The move exhausted me in ways I could never have imagined. The changes my husband had seen me undergo gradually accelerated to a much faster pace after that move. With the holidays, worry over my son (stationed in Iraq), trying to unpack and get some kind of order to our new home, and run my business I was always exhausted. Our sex life suffered, the grandchildren suffered, everybody suffered and I was slowly killing myself because I refused to see a doctor.

The catylist that sent me to the emergency room.

May 2005: I was talking to one of my friends whose computer had died… completely irrevocably, not to be resuscitated dead. She was having financial difficulties and couldn’t afford a new one. A computer or some form is a necessity to her. She is a writer and a damn good one. I knew I had all kinds of spare parts lying around here and while it wouldn’t be a top of the line model straight off the assembly line, I could build it with a decent video card, a couple of now small but adequate hard drives, and a decent speed CPU. May 15th I started building it. I was increasingly short of breath doing the simplest of tasks, none of which were physically demanding.

My husband got a little short tempered with me because I ferquently stopped what I was doing just to catch my breath. Having had a cold for several days, my initial thought was that I had contracted pneumonia, although I didn’t say anything to my husband about it. I didn’t want to get into another debate about going to see any more quack doctors.

The morning of May 16 I could no longer ignore it. I woke up breathless and I couldn’t take a step without losing my breath. I tried very hard to get everything prepared for my husband who would be going to work soon and knew as soon as he left I would be going to the doctor whether I wanted to or not. I was positive I had pneumonia. My husband didn’t go to work. Instead I had to wake him up to ask him to take me to the doctor because I couldn’t do anything. To move an inch was more than I could breath to accomplish.  It was obvious that I was completely incapacitated by that time. He was grumbling because I never listened to him and went to see the doctors before when he begged me to do so. I was crying and telling him that he was right all along and I was so sorry I didn’t listen to him… which only worsened the discomfort. I don’t think either one of us was prepared for what the doctors would tell him later.

He took me to the emergency room of Baptist Hospital and stuck me in a wheel chair. I felt very silly being in a wheel chair and said so. He replied that if I couldn’t walk without losing my breath completely that’s where I needed to be. I didn’t argue. I didn’t have the breath to argue but I did feel very silly. The waiting process was fairly long but considering it doubles as an outpatient clinic in spite of being an emergency that was to be expected. I felt like a sham being there for what I thought was pneumonia which I felt could have been handled through an outpatient clinic.

By the time I was in an exam room I couldn’t move a finger without losing my breath. At some point I lost coherent thought. I don’t remember any of the fine details that happened. My husband filled those in later. The last memory I have of anything that transpired was looking up at one of the monitors they had hooked to me was my blood pressure was 203/145. I remember being wheeled about on a bed for a lot of tests but what the tests were each time and what order I did them I couldn’t tell you. I remember the oxygen and the thing they stick on your finger that’s hooked to the big machine that tells you what your heart rate and blood pressure are. Sometime during all this a doctor told my husband that another 24 hours he wouldn’t have been bringing me to the emergency room but an ambulance would have been taking me to the morgue.

They did get me stabilized while I was in the emergency room. I began to feel a bit better from the oxygen and the doctors came to talk to me. They then told me I had congestive heart failure and that I would be in the hospital for awhile so they could run more tests and figure out what kind of treatment I needed to manage my condition. During this time I also saw a dietician and several other specialists to help me with the lifestyle changes I needed to make to continue to live.

Now, ten months later I feel better. I can honestly say that. I don’t lose my breath at the drop of a hat. I’m very grateful for that. But…

I don’t feel better enough. I have some very bad days sometimes. I also have some other female problems that have continually gotten worse over the last ten months. If I exercise on my bike, I’m exhausted and useless for the rest of the day afterwards. My mental functions are nowhere near as sharp as they used to be. I lack concentration and focus and it’s a struggle to get anything mentally challenging done. I don’t do graphics any more than what is necessary for my work. I have lost my creativity and drive to do much more than try to survive.

I’ve done everything that I was told would be required if I wanted to get better. While it has helped, I feel like there is still something wrong somewhere that is keeping these things from helping as much as they should be.

I’m afraid to say anything to the doctors because if I say something and they don’t want to hear it, I might wind up back where I was in May 2005.

I’m becoming increasingly frustrated that nothing seems to work as well as it should be and has had no lasting effects on the quality of my life. I’m getting depressed over the whole thing. So depressed that I wonder if trying to stay alive is the best thing. Perhaps I should just accept this is the beginning of the end, get my affairs in order, and wait for it to come.