GOING HOME!!

By the time most of you receive and read this I shall have returned to my beloved NYC apartment following the 'The Big Cut' other wise known as my knee replacement. Ahhhhhh, there is so much to take from every experience...

The most important thing I learned from this one, is to never go 'under the knife' in any way shape or form unless a beloved family member, friend or hired aide is going to be with you 24/7 for quite some time. Hospitals are there to assist with whatever is needed in the OR, to carefully tend to the patient's vitals and medicinal needs directly following surgery, and then to bring the patient to a room.....AFTER THAT....FUHGETTABOUTIT!!

When you do not need help and really can benefit from sleep, they are there...every 10 minutes! When you do need help (to perhaps go to the bathroom) they don't know from you! You could wind up sitting on a bed pan forever before anyone answers the little cord you pulled. They have their own schedule to which they are trained to adhere, and you could be lying on the floor bleeding to death and they would step right over you in order to get the lunch meals out on schedule!

Our health care system appears to have taken everything into the equation but the PATIENT! They have to do what they have to do, and don't you, Mr. or Madam patient, get in the way!! This is why everyone taking a bed out should have an advocate. Maybe that way you won't have to wait till your pain is, on a scale from 1-10, a 20, before receiving your pain medications.

Just a note about medicines. I have 3 computerized pages of my medical history as well as everything I regularly ingest, both medicinal and herbal. Every doctor, either in an office, or in the hospital has always mentioned how good an idea that is to do. I always thought so, until on this recent trip I realized that there is absolutely no communication between the doctors, the nurses, and the pain medicine or pill people. On the rare occasion that they do seem to be on a wave length, the problem will then be that the medicine they ordered, (which you, of course, have plenty of in your own home), has not yet arrived from the pharmacy!!

And the nursing home/rehab care is about the same, only there, the food at least matches what you ordered...it may be inedible, but it matches. In the hospital it became a game to see how far from what was ordered the end result was. And pain does not help the PT process. Your advocate (and I had a great one named Leah!) needs to make sure that the painkiller is taken prior to the therapay. Most often the PT person would arrive and the painkiller had not been given so the therapy would be unbearable. Or, on the occasion when the painkiller had been given and you are 'rarin to go', the PT person is nowhere to be found!

Point is, New York doctors are indeed among the best, but our healthcare here is in the toilet! Could we not try to pay these people (who indeed are still attempting to do God's work) so that there is some compatibility between the two areas of medicine?

Hope today's session was somewhat enlightening. Owwwww! My knee hurts!!!!!

Mimi Scott, Ph.D
917 846-2449
212 721-2979
mscott13@aol.com
www.drmimiscott.com