Healthcare...health'scare'?

So my dad is an avid bowler. Has been since I can remember. It's one of his favorite hobbies next to his garden and he's damn good too. Unfortunately, last week he had an incident at the bowling alley and it looks as if he may not get to play for the rest of the season. Now, you may be saying...why is she telling us this? Well, I want you to read this because of the events that took place after the incident.

He's on the boards, focused and set on the strike zone...he makes the approach, pulls the ball down for the swing through when a sharp paralyzing pain runs down his left arm. Dropping the ball and writhing in pain, he barely makes it off the lane to the chairs behind him. It's at that moment the ambulance is called for fear that a man in his mid 60's is having a heart attack.

My mother is there to comfort him while they await the paramedics arrival. I was 60 miles away in the mountains when my mother notified me of the accident. It was 7pm when I got the call and according to my mom, the paramedics took their time getting to the alley to assess the situation. The clock is ticking in a possible heart attack situation and it seemed that is wasn't that big of a deal to the emergency crew. Once they got there and did their initial overview they determined it could be either a mild heart attack or a pulled bicep. They threw on the oxygen mask, stuck an IV drip in his good arm then loaded him up on the gurney. By this time my brother had made the 15 minute trip to the alley from his home which has now extended the wait time my father needed to get to the hospital to over 20 minutes. All I can say at this point is...if it is a heart attack...my dad's going to die.

It was a scene from the Keystone Kops, according to my dad, as the paramedics wheeled him out the bowling alley doors to the awaiting ambulance. It seemed the only thing the emergency workers did right was open the door to the vehicle. Once opened, they shoved the gurney into the back with such force the oxygen mask ended up being disconnected from the bottle and his IV was ripped out of his arm leaving him bleeding and the juice just spraying all over him and the back of the truck. Heart attack or not, I'm thinking he was wishing my mother had just dropped him off at the emergency room because it's not looking like he's going to make it there alive anyway.

At this point almost an hour had passed before he even made it to the emergency room. Maybe this is the way the paramedics tested him to see if it was actually a heart attack or a muscle tear. If he dies before we get there...heart attack. If not...muscle pull. And I think the emergency room personnel felt the same way based on the events of the next hour.

He's admitted and stuck in a room where a nurse hooked him up to a heart monitor, took a reading and that was the last anyone saw of any official health care worker for the next hour. No doctor came in to assess him until well after 9pm. So, he too must have been under the 'not dead, not heart attack' theory as well cause there was no alacrity in any one's actions. Oh, wait...except to get every last bit of his insurance information, copies of his cards and ID's, signature, next of kin, name of general practitioner and of course...did I mention...every last bit of his insurance information? I doubt they even took his temperature but I'll be damned if they miss who's going to pay for all of the 'Muppet Show' medical procedures.

At this point Dr. Honeydew and his sidekick Beeker still haven't made their presence known so, with boredom setting in for my brother he grabs his cell phone and starts Google-ing and WebMd-ing everything he can about bicep pulls and tendon tears and starts evaluating my dad himself. Within 10 minutes my brother, the IT Tech, had determined he tore his bicep off the bone at the tendon. He would need to contact his primary care physician and schedule a follow up to see what the rehabilitation is going to take. It was then the Doc decided to show up for work. He came in, noticed my dad was still alive so he knew it wasn't his heart so the next obvious choice was his arm. Much to no one's surprise he tore his bicep off the bone and needed to contact his primary care physician to set up a follow up for rehabilitation. Wow, de ja vu. So, with outrageous medical bills in hand, he was discharged and sent home for the extended holiday weekend.

He called his PCP the very next morning and was told by Dr. Doofus that he could see him if he could be in the office in five minutes. We live off Research Pkwy and his doc is off San Miguel and Academy. At least a 15 minute drive without any traffic. Ok, not a possibility so my dad asked when the next time available would be. Once again Dr. Dorkus said he could see him at five-o'clock the next morning or he wouldn't be able to see him until start of business on Monday. At that point my dad just asked Dr. Don't-Know-What-I'm-Doing-Here what the procedure may be to repair a torn tendon. It was then that my dad finally realized his doc is a quack and most likely shouldn't be in the practice anymore when Dr. Wiggity-Whack said 'you can't do surgery on a tendon'. With that response my dad retorted...really, so you're saying I'm stuck with a muscle off the bone, balled up in my arm for the rest of my life. And the ducks response was 'yep'.

Now, my brother...the IT Tech, looked up the next step for a muscle tear as severe as my fathers online and found that not only CAN you do surgery for this it's a very unobtrusive surgery that can be done as an outpatient procedure!! I even questioned Dr. Death's answer to my father about not being able to perform surgery because what do they do for the athlete's that this happens to? They're in and out of surgery and back on the ball field in no time. So, just because my dad's last name isn't Favre, or Elway or Woods, his absolutely incompetent doctor just shoved him to the side.

Good thing is, my dad's in great spirits after his painful ordeal and has learned a lot about the medical world. They don't call it 'practicing' medicine for nothing after all. But more than that I got some clarity too. I used to wonder what actually happened to those people's family members that stand on the corners of intersections claiming that our local hospitals killed their loved ones. You've seen them. They hold signs about how their mom went in for a simple headache and landed in the morgue because Ibuprofin was prescribed for a brain tumor. Or they've gone in for a muscle ache and it turned out to be a heart attack but they assumed since the person wasn't dead yet that all will be fine till they get back in from their smoke break. Now I know. I know that unless you're bleeding profusely from you eyes you're not an emergency. I've learned that no matter how bad off I am...don't put me in the hands of some 19 year old paramedic straight out of Goofy's School for Ambulance Drivers. Take me there yourself. And I've learned not to be afraid to speak your mind. When your life or the life of someone you love is in the hands of these people that claim helping others is what they're meant to do, then speak up and out loud. Heart attack or not you're being charged out the ass for these procedures so get your money's worth. Make them do their jobs and call them out on it when your IT Tech son has diagnosed and healed you before the doctor even finds out your name.

Scary and true...thanks for reading.