Yes, I said "pissed." You'll get it, read on.
Sunday night, I got a vicious burn/itch/pain in the ol' urinary tract. While I've never had a UTI, as a diabetic I didn't want to mess with it, so I made an appointment with my PA-C. Urine test, blood work. Woman told me I was wrong when I told her how much weight I'd lost ("that's not possible, you couldn't have lost that much"). When I asked her to weigh me, she said she didn't need to--no way I’d lost that much weight. I actually said, "No, really, WEIGH ME." She wouldn't. So I said, "Well, you won't mind if I weigh myself, right?" I weighed myself, and my scale is spot on with hers. Which means I've lost the weight I said I've lost. Anyway, that's not the issue. She looked at my urine lab work and said, "No bacteria, no leukocytes, you don't have an infection." She literally sings the praises of my wonder-urine. Sends me home with a worthless script for phenazopyrid, which didn't do a damned thing about the burn, but did turn my urine a lovely color.
Today, I manage to reach her office to fetch the results of my blood work (after six tries--they don't believe in answering phones or returning calls). She won't talk to me (though she's sitting right there, telling the assistant what to say), but her assistant lets me know that my A1c is down from 6.9 to 5.7. In two months. But no, I’m lying about the weight loss.
After hanging up, I take a nap because I haven't been sleeping well. I wake up with a wowser pain, starting in my lower back toward the hips and radiating up and forward, settling viciously right over my lower abdomen and bladder. I call my PA-C's office, only to discover she's already left for the day. Early. So I make an appointment with another PA-C, and, with an agonized shuffle, head to the clinic. The first thing I'm told? I'm someone else's patient, so they're probably going to refuse to see me. I goggled, I was stunned. Then the receptionist leans forward and says, "Don't you let them turn you away. You MAKE them see you." My fear, of course, is that I have kidney stones, and I am in agony--even if you can't fix the stones, fix the pain, please! They tell me to wait, and I walk away, actually start to cry. I sit down, Tommy and Sean with me, and Tommy says, “Don’t sweat it, we’ll just go to the damned hospital if they won’t see you here.”
Nurse/assistant for someone else (not the promised PA-C) comes out, and she starts telling me that, while there’s nothing they can actually DO for me, they’ll certainly SEE me if I insist. I insisted. I expressed my concern that it might be kidney stones. This woman says that it can’t be a kidney stone because my urinalysis the day before didn’t show a bacterial infection. I say, “Are you sure there has to be a bacterial infection?” I asked because I know that’s not true—you can have a kidney stone with no infection whatsoever. She insists, and I’m too damned tired and hurting to argue, figure she went to the same school as the “fifty test strips, testing twice a day, should last you 45 days” creature. They grow ‘em stupid out here. So I give a bright orange urine sample to the lab (same tech as yesterday, she actually said, rather sardonically, “Oh, wow. Happy day after birthday, huh?”) Indeed. So then I see the doc (a REAL DOCTOR!) and he sends me down for a CT scan to look for kidney stones after giving me a shot of Toradol. I come back upstairs post-CT, and the Doc comes in and says, “No kidney stones.” Understand, that doesn’t rule out having already passed one. Then he looks at my urine numbers and says, “Well, your PA-C doesn’t seem to have finished her notes here, so I don’t know what antibiotic she’s put you on, but your bacteria numbers are even higher today than we saw yesterday –“
WHAT? According my to PA-C, my “bacteria numbers” were ZERO yesterday, so I was sent home without a script for abx.
So here I am, a week’s worth of Cipro on the desk in front of me, feeling like utter crap while Tommy and Sean have popcorn and sodas at the “Two Towers” showing. If that silly bint had just given me the damned antibiotics YESTERDAY, I would already be 3-4 doses into it and likely feeling a whole lot better than I am right now. I would also not have had to pay ANOTHER co-pay because I wouldn’t have required another visit!
I have never had a UTI in my life. I’ve had the itchy-burnies, but I’ve never had urinary-related radiating, dull, unbearable pain while just sitting (and utter agony on urinating). Two things—first, next time someone says they have a UTI, they have got ALL my sympathy, and second, I am done with my PA-C. All done. Had hoped to hold off until after the move, but I just can’t trust myself to that careless git any longer. Tomorrow morning, I call and ask for my file to be transferred across the hall to my new doctor.
**UPDATE**
That Cipro? From hell, folks. Each dose left me feeling increasingly awful, until, by three days, I truly felt I was poisoning myself with each pill. Nausea, grinding waves of pain in the back, sides, and belly, and a shaky unsteadiness that left me fearing I was going to go down any minute. This is all on the day we were heading out of town for a few days to catch the airshow. I called the new doctor's office (he's actually at the clinic until late afternoon AND his office answers the phone!), and in 20 minutes they had a new script (for Macrobid) waiting at the pharmacy for me. While the 3 hour drive was still rough, I felt mostly fine by the next day. Thanks, Doc!
**UPDATE-ER**
That snotty, awful PA-C? Wound up getting busted for DUI with alcohol and drugs, evading, reckless driving, and driving left of roadway when prohibited. And yes, I positively CROWED with joy. Does that make me awful? Maybe, but that woman condescended, patronized, was all-around disdainful and, worst of all, careless with my well-being. Glass houses, Madam PA-C.
Sunday night, I got a vicious burn/itch/pain in the ol' urinary tract. While I've never had a UTI, as a diabetic I didn't want to mess with it, so I made an appointment with my PA-C. Urine test, blood work. Woman told me I was wrong when I told her how much weight I'd lost ("that's not possible, you couldn't have lost that much"). When I asked her to weigh me, she said she didn't need to--no way I’d lost that much weight. I actually said, "No, really, WEIGH ME." She wouldn't. So I said, "Well, you won't mind if I weigh myself, right?" I weighed myself, and my scale is spot on with hers. Which means I've lost the weight I said I've lost. Anyway, that's not the issue. She looked at my urine lab work and said, "No bacteria, no leukocytes, you don't have an infection." She literally sings the praises of my wonder-urine. Sends me home with a worthless script for phenazopyrid, which didn't do a damned thing about the burn, but did turn my urine a lovely color.
Today, I manage to reach her office to fetch the results of my blood work (after six tries--they don't believe in answering phones or returning calls). She won't talk to me (though she's sitting right there, telling the assistant what to say), but her assistant lets me know that my A1c is down from 6.9 to 5.7. In two months. But no, I’m lying about the weight loss.
After hanging up, I take a nap because I haven't been sleeping well. I wake up with a wowser pain, starting in my lower back toward the hips and radiating up and forward, settling viciously right over my lower abdomen and bladder. I call my PA-C's office, only to discover she's already left for the day. Early. So I make an appointment with another PA-C, and, with an agonized shuffle, head to the clinic. The first thing I'm told? I'm someone else's patient, so they're probably going to refuse to see me. I goggled, I was stunned. Then the receptionist leans forward and says, "Don't you let them turn you away. You MAKE them see you." My fear, of course, is that I have kidney stones, and I am in agony--even if you can't fix the stones, fix the pain, please! They tell me to wait, and I walk away, actually start to cry. I sit down, Tommy and Sean with me, and Tommy says, “Don’t sweat it, we’ll just go to the damned hospital if they won’t see you here.”
Nurse/assistant for someone else (not the promised PA-C) comes out, and she starts telling me that, while there’s nothing they can actually DO for me, they’ll certainly SEE me if I insist. I insisted. I expressed my concern that it might be kidney stones. This woman says that it can’t be a kidney stone because my urinalysis the day before didn’t show a bacterial infection. I say, “Are you sure there has to be a bacterial infection?” I asked because I know that’s not true—you can have a kidney stone with no infection whatsoever. She insists, and I’m too damned tired and hurting to argue, figure she went to the same school as the “fifty test strips, testing twice a day, should last you 45 days” creature. They grow ‘em stupid out here. So I give a bright orange urine sample to the lab (same tech as yesterday, she actually said, rather sardonically, “Oh, wow. Happy day after birthday, huh?”) Indeed. So then I see the doc (a REAL DOCTOR!) and he sends me down for a CT scan to look for kidney stones after giving me a shot of Toradol. I come back upstairs post-CT, and the Doc comes in and says, “No kidney stones.” Understand, that doesn’t rule out having already passed one. Then he looks at my urine numbers and says, “Well, your PA-C doesn’t seem to have finished her notes here, so I don’t know what antibiotic she’s put you on, but your bacteria numbers are even higher today than we saw yesterday –“
WHAT? According my to PA-C, my “bacteria numbers” were ZERO yesterday, so I was sent home without a script for abx.
So here I am, a week’s worth of Cipro on the desk in front of me, feeling like utter crap while Tommy and Sean have popcorn and sodas at the “Two Towers” showing. If that silly bint had just given me the damned antibiotics YESTERDAY, I would already be 3-4 doses into it and likely feeling a whole lot better than I am right now. I would also not have had to pay ANOTHER co-pay because I wouldn’t have required another visit!
I have never had a UTI in my life. I’ve had the itchy-burnies, but I’ve never had urinary-related radiating, dull, unbearable pain while just sitting (and utter agony on urinating). Two things—first, next time someone says they have a UTI, they have got ALL my sympathy, and second, I am done with my PA-C. All done. Had hoped to hold off until after the move, but I just can’t trust myself to that careless git any longer. Tomorrow morning, I call and ask for my file to be transferred across the hall to my new doctor.
**UPDATE**
That Cipro? From hell, folks. Each dose left me feeling increasingly awful, until, by three days, I truly felt I was poisoning myself with each pill. Nausea, grinding waves of pain in the back, sides, and belly, and a shaky unsteadiness that left me fearing I was going to go down any minute. This is all on the day we were heading out of town for a few days to catch the airshow. I called the new doctor's office (he's actually at the clinic until late afternoon AND his office answers the phone!), and in 20 minutes they had a new script (for Macrobid) waiting at the pharmacy for me. While the 3 hour drive was still rough, I felt mostly fine by the next day. Thanks, Doc!
**UPDATE-ER**
That snotty, awful PA-C? Wound up getting busted for DUI with alcohol and drugs, evading, reckless driving, and driving left of roadway when prohibited. And yes, I positively CROWED with joy. Does that make me awful? Maybe, but that woman condescended, patronized, was all-around disdainful and, worst of all, careless with my well-being. Glass houses, Madam PA-C.
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