A Medical Rant (Caution-Bad Language may ensue)

I am VERY, VERY upset tonight at that doctor that treated my spouse while he was in the hospital undergoing treatment for his recent heart attack. Upset does not even begin to touch the surface of my anger and resentment. I got several calls from the facility that he lives in today with the final call telling me that this so called physician took him off of his psychiatric medications while he was hospitalized.

As anyone that knows me or is long time readers of this blog knows, Butch has had numerous hospitalizations dealing with the psychotic episodes that comes with his type of vascular dementia. He was in a half-way decent mental state when he was admitted due to his continuance on these medications.

This doctor upset me from the start due to his ignorance of dementia and his insistence that Butch was "competent" to make his own medical decisions. Just because one is having a good day and is able to state where they are and why they are someplace at that moment does not make them a competent individual. My husband has always been able to "present" fairly well and that is part of why I have had such a fight when it comes to his diagnosis. The facility that he lives in has seen first hand a rapid decline when he plummets into one of his psychotic episodes. They now understand, especially since they deal with him on a daily basis.

I fully intend to write a letter to the hospital and to the Medical Board of N.C. of my disappointment in how we were treated and what has ensued. Perhaps when Butch spirals into another episode, as I'm sure will happen, I will have to see if Dr. Williams is so hot to take another patient off of medications that they so desperately need. Maybe if Dr. Williams or his spouse has to deal with the anger outbursts, the hallucinations, the wanderings, the rantings, the violence, the peeing in a Coke machine because he thinks it's a urinal, the refusal to take a bath, the refusal to urinate or defecate in the toilet and the ensuing fight to get one cleaned up, then the bastard might change his mind.

I would be willing to bet my last dollar that that S.O.B. has never had to deal with anything remotely as a patient that is in the throes of a psychotic episode. Was Dr. Williams there when Butch was seeing little girls in pink dresses? Was he ever there when Butch swore that the facility had him out picking tobacco in a field with prisoners? Was he there when Butch thought that the facility had a plot to kill him and was killing other patients? Was he there when I had my spouse at a doctors office and he locked himself in the toilet and defecated on himself and smeared feces all over the bathroom? Where was he when Butch was almost kicked out of the facility due to aggressive and abusive behavior?

No!!! The bastard did not even have the common sense to order prior medical records from the same hospital that he was at and look at some of his prior hospitalizations. His thoughts were on dollars and cents. I nixed the idea of cardiac bypass surgery because his blood clotting disorder would potentially kill him or at the very least cause another stroke that could put him in a situation worse than he is currently in. Then they were all hot to do a stent. Once talking with his prior cardiologists it was revealed that stents were not an option and even if it were, that stents do not keep another heart attack from happening and they do not change the mortality rate. The only thing that Butch was concerned with during all of the recent hub-bub was that I had "kept him from going on a helicopter ride". What a freakin shame!!!!

You want to know what's wrong with our current system? It's that it is driven by money and not what is in the best interest of the individual patient. It's that those that are in the decision making process do not even have enough common sense to order medical records or read the ones that they do have. Doctors are not Gods and just because I didn't bend down and kiss his ass, he got pissed. Well baby, now I am pissed and there nothing worse than having me pissed off at you.

I am going to complete this letter and will post it here once I have calmed down and am able to put my thoughts together in a manner that will show that this bastard, at the very least, needs to be watched closely. How dare he do this? Yet again, another MD that thinks he will make the miraculous cure all for what has plagued us for the last 20 years. Dr. Williams, if I saw you on the street at this moment I would beat you into next week. You have come up against the wrong woman. I will pursue this matter and you will regret making the changes that you have made. May you rue the day that you ever threatened me.