A Walk in the Park...

it was not!  ...  my hospital procure that is ...but I had to go on one to recuperate from it.... I needed to come back to earth..figuratively speaking of course...but it did seem as if I had entered another dimension when I entered that nuclear imaging room...

I have had several nuclear medicine procedures over the years and they have all gone tickety-boo..no snags, no glitches, nothing out of the ordinary.. or at least to my knowledge, which is, I guess, at the heart of this? This time, I was aware.. of every snag and every glitch..and that made all the difference! 

The experience was worthy of a Saturday Night Live skit, and I reacted to it as if it was... and my mind kept thinking of the book I could write Absurdities Encountered in Hospital...but upon reflection, it doesn't seem like just a laughable experience, but more of an indication of the chaos in our health care system ..and the lack of effort they now make to keep that chaos behind-the-scenes! They are tired, over-worked and the system is in shatters...It is right out there for all to see and it is rather disconcerting....

I wish I could tell the whole crazy story along with a blip photo, but there are some obstacles to doing so..like no cameras allowed and the nature of the procedure itself.. not suitable for prime time..

I was sure that most people have, at some time though, had to undergo a medical procedure that left no dignity intact.. So imagine one...and then imagine being asked to have a young student "observe" the procedure, "because it is one that a student seldom gets a chance to see and is a great opportunity not to be missed?" (Like, I thought this was just routine?) 

Then imagine listening to the running commentary of that med school lesson whilst you are enduring it..  every last detail. At the end of it all, I suggested to the technician that she might like to go for a coffee now as I would happily perform the next one for her! I had it all down pat..

But that was just the beginning...I was there when they discovered they were missing a key ingredient for the procedure  and that there was none to be found. A substitution was necessary. (Oh great..does no-one around here take inventory and order supplies?) ... I was there when they were paging the radiologist and no-one knew whether he was even in the building yet. I was there, waiting for him, prepped and ready, lying on the bed of the scanner so long they eventually brought me a blanket to keep me warm. I was there when the radiologist found that the equipment in this lab worked faster than what he was used to..and I was there when he commented that he did not like the substituted item because he didn't think the images would be as clear now as they would be normally? (Good to know? NOT!) 

But the pièce de resistance? The "You've Got to be Kidding" moment? When the radiologist asked ME what he was supposed to be recording - a specific section or the whole thing? Say what?  How would I know? I am only the patient! But if I am deciding? Go for broke - take it ALL! and he did... 

Of course there must be some reasonable explanation for that last one... surely there is....I assume the requisition did not specify? (Which should have been discovered before the procedure? Who missed that little detail?)  I also assume that my surgeon was not "in house" to be asked? In retrospect, I think perhaps it was her they had been calling for, not the radiologist and that was why he was late! Imagine his frustration! He needed an answer and he needed it now!  OMG..a comedy of errors all around. No-one gets off the hook for that one! No-one told the radiologist? Geez...

My one simple piece of advice to the staff to help patients cope with this crisis in our system without raising their stress levels too?  

Do not bring the patient into the room until you have all your ducks in a row...have it set up and ready, all glitches discovered and dealt with..and then? Bring in the patient!  Be the duck swimming smoothly along the surface, but with your feet working madly below! 

And a piece of advice to our government? Fix the system! It is crumbling and give our health care folks a raise! They deserve it.  

PS: the walk in the park was helpful.. the extras include things I saw there that told me that all is well with the world..the natural order of the seasons is still intact.. autumn is still following summer...(although the details behind-the-scenes may not be that rosy) and, good to know, I am still on this planet!