-=> Quoting Jeff Smith to Nancy Backus on 01-Jan-2016 14:10 <=-

 JS> 03 Sep 15 18:20, you wrote to me:
 NB> -=> Quoting Jeff Smith to Nancy Backus on 31-Aug-2015 23:33 <=-
 
It's been a while...!   ;)   Good to see you appear again... :)
 
 JS>> I'm that way too. Never cared for doctors much. While it's hard
 JS>> for me to ask I do enjoy and feel better about going if someone
 JS>> decides to go with. I guess it's nice to feel your not alone
 JS>> sometimes.
 NB>> It certainly helps to have two people to listen to the doctor and to
 NB>> ask questions... and to remember what was said... ;)  I started going
 NB>> with my friend/neighbor when she'd been complaining to me on the phone
 NB>> after every visit to a certain doctor how bad he was and how he wasn't
 NB>> dealing with what she thought needed attention...  Turned out that he
 NB>> really was that bad, so I helped her find a better doctor...  But then
 NB>> I went with her to all her doctor visits thereafter, even with a new
 NB>> better doctor... it made helping her remember what was going on easier
 NB>> for me... :)  And she appreciated having the company...

 JS> I go to the doctors as little as possible. Recently though I decided
 JS> to "Bite The Bullet" and drive myself to the hospital. I wasn't in
 JS> pain really. Just didn't feel right. Turns out (They told me) that I
 JS> had a total blockage of blood feeding the heart muscles. And that I
 JS> made it to the hospital with minutes to spare. That was reaffirmed by
 JS> how fast they were rushing me down the halls on the gurney. They used
 JS> their little "Roto Rooter" machine to clean my pipes. 

Sounds like that got caught just in time....!  Pain isn't the only
symptom that one should be paying attention, just the most likely to be
an attention-grabber... unless one has been dealing with chronic pain
all along... ;0
 
 NB>> I've long felt that it's important to have a doctor that listens to
 NB>> you, and that accepts you as an equal partner in your care... I've
 NB>> been fortunate over the last couple of decades to have all my doctors
 NB>> be that way... it makes the thought of going to see them a lot less
 NB>> onerous.. :)

 JS> The doctor that I had seemed to be nice. He seemd to be someone
 JS> that a patient could actually hold a conversation with.

Did you get to follow up with that doctor, or was he just a
hospitalist...?

 JS> Did I mention that I really HATE hospital beds. That was the most
 JS> uncomfortable thing to even try to sleep on. Which isn't helped by the
 JS> folks that stop by every couple hours to see if your still alive. 

Some are worse or better than others... the "hospital" beds that one can
buy/rent for home use are generally worse than the ones in the
hospitals....  And quite true about the parade of nurses/techs/docs and
then the therapists...  And then there's the noise level... things
beeping, conversations in the hall, the geriatric down the hall....

 JS> Im doing ok but can't handle stairs or hills very well. Guess my
 JS> plans to be a mountain climber are shelved. 

Glad you've come through it ok...  maybe with some good cardiac rehab
you'll be able to at least manage hills... or even a small mountain or
two...  ;)  I'm not good on stairs either, though... but my problem is
mostly my ankles and knees... broke the one ankle (back in 2005), had to
stay off it for 10 weeks so damaged the other knee... and then the
opposite ones tried to compensate, to their detriment as well... ;)

 JS> The sad thing to me was being a dad and having none of my kids showing
 JS> up or at least calling. I did get a glad your ok msg after I got back
 JS> home from one though.

At least one of them cared enough to let you know...  
 
ttyl      neb

... Experience is yesterday's answer to today's problems.

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