My Hospital-Acquired Hypochondria is acting up again. Last Friday I did a Terminal Clean on 7 East (terminal cleans are for the REALLY nasty bugs a patient comes in with...the whole room has to be sanitized top to bottom with Cavi-wipes).
So Friday I do the Terminal. Monday my gut feels like I've got a rabid Alien in there. I rest on sick call Tuesday and Wednesday and go back to work still feeling sick but not SO sick Thursday. Friday my gut still hurts. I get nausea if I smoke a cigarette on an empty stomach. I get nausea if I don't.
Hernia? Cancer? Diverticulitis? Killer HAI (hospital-acquired infection)? All I know is that my gut feels terrible and I'm not protected by Obamacare. All I've got is VA healthcare and previous experience tells me that THAT ain't worth a popcorn fart in a hurricane. I'd go in to the VA emergency room and after waiting 6 hours the witch doctor will tell me something goofy, like it's acid "influx" or couch potato gut (diagnosis's I have previously received) or sleep apnea or any other damned thing that would make me ask for a 6-month-away consult and get the hell out of their E.R.
This don't feel like no acid "influx." I feel like I've been poisoned, like the time my sister Beth put arsenic in my omeprazole capsules.
Are ALL the doctors jerks?!? Just the ones I go to.
Actually, I HAVE had some decent ones, quite by accident. It's just that I can't ask for them specifically when I go in. I have to see the ones I'm assigned to. And it seems like the doctors who have the time to see a walk-in have that time because nobody else wants to see them.
One of my supervisors told me Thursday that what she does is go up to her primary care doctor's nurse and beg to be squeezed in for 5 minutes. Begs, like a bum at the back door of a bakery pleading for bread crumbs.
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