Gregg's appointment with the kidney doctor on Friday didn't yield much new information. He basically repeated what we had already heard: yes, a renal blood clot is rare; the most important thing is to figure out why it happened; blood thinners are the main treatment. They've scheduled him for some heart tests starting May 3rd to see if there's an underlying condition there, and then he goes back to the nephrologist in four months for a checkup, barring anything else happening to his kidney in the meantime.
The only good news was that the affected kidney may not necessarily have permanent damage after all this is over. When Gregg asked why it's still hurting so much, the doctor said, "Think about a heart attack. This is basically the same thing, but in your kidney. Yes, it's very painful." Gregg then told him that he was almost out of pain medicine, the guy told him to see his regular doctor, since pharmacies will "flag" pain prescriptions from more than one doctor. Okay, fine, Gregg said, and then went by our family doctor's office right afterwards to ask for a refill. And guess what? The doctors at her practice take half days off on Fridays, and there was no one there to give him the refill. He asked the nurses: "So what the hell am I supposed to do this weekend? Go back to the ER and spend another $10,000 if the pain gets bad and I run out?" to which they replied "Probably."
Can you believe that? It all makes me so mad!
And then, of course, the pain has been getting bad again. He's down to his last couple of pain pills and they probably won't last until tomorrow when (hopefully) his doctor will be back in her office. In fact, the pain was so bad this morning that he seriously thought about going to the ER again anyway.
This seems beyond ridiculous that he's still hurting so much and no one seems to have any sense of urgency about helping him. Maybe we got spoiled when he was going through cancer treatment....you always have access to your doctors and to pain management drugs when you have cancer!
He plans to have a serious talk with his doctor tomorrow about his medical needs and whether or not she's going to be taking them seriously enough to continue to serve as his GP. I realize she's not a specialist,but after the serious health issues he's had, he deserves better care than this and when he has a problem it needs to be given more urgent attention than this. I hope she apologizes and tries a little harder. Finding a new GP is another headache we don't need right now.
This morning Gregg apologized for "ruining your spring break" which made me feel terrible. I don't care about spring break, there will be more. I just wish he could start to feel better. It scares me when he's in pain and I'm feeling a constant low level anxiety that I'm doing my best to keep under control.
Not a great way to end the vacation, though. Wish me luck that we don't end up in the ER tonight.
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