Second Opinion

As you all know, I haven't been getting any answers from my doctors as to what's making me sick. Yesterday I had an appointment with my doctor. I was SOO short of breath I felt like I was going to pass out just from walking about 20 feet. They got me a wheelchair and wheeled me the rest of the way to the examination room. Normally, my breathing slows back down once I'm sitting or laying, but it took a while this time. There were about 5 nurses and 2 doctors swarming around me checking me out, and everything went back to normal eventually.

Sometime after my doctor came in to start talking to me, my face started feeling really numb and tingly - it was scary. She put a wet paper towel on my face and it went back to normal after about 10-15 minutes. She never did say what may have caused that feeling though.

Later that evening I decided that I was fed up with not knowing anything and that I was also growing more concerned about the worsening of my symptoms. So I called Jim and asked him if he would take me to a different ER after he got off work - he agreed that we should go in somewhere else.

When Jim got off work he took me to St. Joe's, the hospital that I wanted to go to, even though he doesn't like it. When I was taken back to see the triage nurse, she was extremely rude with me. She told me, "I can tell you right now that you're making yourself sick breathing that way - you've just got anxiety." And she said it in a very rude manner - I wanted to smack her. When she was done making me feel like I was worthless, I told Jim that I wanted to leave and what she had said.

He and Barb (my best friend, who had come up to the ER to wait with us and be there for me) both said that we should go to U of M instead of just giving up and going home like I was ready to do. So we went to U of M. Erica (my other best friend) was there waiting for us before we even got there. I felt really bad because I knew there was nothing Barb or Erica could do for me and that they couldn't really visit with me in the ER, but at the same time I was thankful to have their love and support.

The ER department at U of M was MUCH better than St. Joe's. They seemed genuinely concerned about my well being. After they finally got all of the records from Oakwood, they reviewed them and came in to talk to me. By this time they had already given me medicine for nausea, so I was pretty much out of it, I could barely hold my eyes open to talk to the doctor. So she talked to Jim instead.

She explained to him that they felt Oakwood had run the same tests that they would have started with and asked that we relay the results of the tests to her after they were received. She also explained that because my vital signs were okay and because Oakwood had already run the preliminary tests needed, they couldn't admit me to the hospital because my insurance wouldn't cover the same tests twice so close together. After this discussion, the released me and Jim took me home.

I don't really remember the trip home at all, but I know it was about 5 am when we left the ER, so it was probably 5:30 when we got home. I slept like a zombie until around 3:30 this afternoon, and I still feel like I could sleep for 4 days straight, but I forced my self to get up for a while.

It's good to know that U of M agrees with the steps that Oakwood has taken...I was starting to think that Oakwood wasn't helping me at all. So it's back to the waiting game. I'll post again when I hear some results from some of the tests that have been run so far.