My Daily Life and Thoughts while in San Diego |
List of Best Posts
This blog is where I express myself to the world or at least to those who might stop by to read what I post 
. Maybe God will use what I post (I am a Christian and this blog will have a most decidedly Christian bent to it) to good effect in the lives of my readers.
I may turn some of my posts into a book. I may cease blogging here altogether. Who knows. But for now..I am content to post away in this, my own little corner of the world.
Rather than reading through my now lengthy list of posts you may wish to read what I consider to be my very best posts or you can just read the posts that deal with a single subject category that might interest you.
Please know that I am open to any input on any topic I write about. If you have something to say about anything you see written here please....feel free to speak up in the form of leaving a comment or sending me a PM (private message).
And if you are in San Diego and wish to meet the one and only Carlos (that's me)...drop me a private message. I always enjoy meeting one of my readers!
Thanks.
Carlos
PS. If you want to follow my blog such that you will get an email when I write new posts you can subscribe to my blog.
. Maybe God will use what I post (I am a Christian and this blog will have a most decidedly Christian bent to it) to good effect in the lives of my readers. I may turn some of my posts into a book. I may cease blogging here altogether. Who knows. But for now..I am content to post away in this, my own little corner of the world.
Rather than reading through my now lengthy list of posts you may wish to read what I consider to be my very best posts or you can just read the posts that deal with a single subject category that might interest you.
Please know that I am open to any input on any topic I write about. If you have something to say about anything you see written here please....feel free to speak up in the form of leaving a comment or sending me a PM (private message).
And if you are in San Diego and wish to meet the one and only Carlos (that's me
)...drop me a private message. I always enjoy meeting one of my readers!Thanks.
Carlos
PS. If you want to follow my blog such that you will get an email when I write new posts you can subscribe to my blog.
I wake up with a greatly improved knee and leg but I can't explain it!
I woke up this morning still angry at how a major hospital through the collective will of it's combined personnel could have turned me out into the street last night at 1:30 AM with no place to sleep or no place to go. Without even so little as some pain killers to keep the pain at bay for even just last night!!
That's insane!
If I had not insisted and put my foot down and pushed the fact that I had been assured by one of their doctors that such a thing would not happen that IS what would have happened.
Instead they relented and bought me a cab home. Though my insistence on trying to get some pain killers for at least that night if not the next few nights fell on deaf ears.
The final nurse who shooed me out the door even responded to my saying that this would not be the last they would hear of this with a "who cares" attitude as if to say that it was not their problem.
But the bit of good news that I have to share this morning is that my knee is greatly improved! And the swelling in my ankle is hardly noticeable (though my knee still looks like a decent sized cantelope). Praise God!
Of course...in line with last nights inability of the medical establishment to determine definitively what was wrong with me I am likewise left wondering what it was exactly that might actually have helped?
A couple of possibilities come to mind.
The extraction of a great deal of fluid from the knee.
The IV administered anti-biotic that I was given just before I left the hospital.
Those are the only two things that I can think of as having helped.
Yet even there some questions remain. The tests came back negative at least 99% with respect to there being any kind of bacteria in there causing an infection. The bacterial cultures did not grow when inserted with my fluid I am assuming (I am not entirely sure of how they got to the 99% certainty).
Of course the 1% uncertain results might hold the key as to why I am improved this morning.
It is also possible that the fluid extraction itself is the key to my improvement. Since it did relieve some pressure and perhaps get out enough to allow my body to start it's own healing process.
It's hard to say.
The problem for me with respect to the continuing uncertainty is to decide whether to go ahead and get the 7-10 days of anti-biotics and go through the resulting 7-10 days of stomach pain and the destruction of all beneficial stomach bacteria as an unintended consequence of antibiotics.
I mean if there is a 99% chance of there being no bacteria it seems a waste and an unnecessary stress on my system to get on a regime of antibiotics.
Of course there's the 1%??
And without the bacteria how does one explain this morning's improvement? Did my body all of a sudden start to heal itself?
Did someone's prayers start to operate effectively on my behalf?
Did the fluid removal (though it actually caused more visible swelling at least last night) do the trick?
Who knows. I sure don't.
If any bacteria do indeed exist in that 1% and if the antibiotics is what has resulted in this improvement and I do not continue with them for a full treatment...the last state of things might be even worse if any of them have survived and become resistant through a lack of further antibiotic follow up.
My stomach is hurting already from the Ibuprofen I took last night before going to bed. Add to that some further antibiotics and I can be assured of adding some nausea and further upset stomach feelings for another 10 days or so.
Oh I forgot to mention last night that of the two bathrooms I used while at the hospital one their hand soap dispensers didn't even have soap left in it at all! The other barely had enough to squeeze some into my hand. And one even had no running tap water!!
Neither bathroom had a garbage can within reach of the door either. So if someone used some paper towels to handle the doorknob while going out of the bathroom there was little choice but to either thrown their paper towels behind the door on the floor or walk around with their little bundle of germs all rolled up until being able to find another garbage can (which itself was not readily present outside the bathrooms).
Despite having told someone about this on several occasions I never saw anyone change the soap or otherwise check into the lack of running water.
It was like personnel responded about how clean they kept their own hands were while not being overly concerned that patients did not have the ability to thoroughly wash their own hands in patient bathrooms.
I had to go into the ladies room to find some soap the one time I did not find any at all in the men's bathroom.
Once when I went to get some water to mix with soap I had gotten into my hand...I observed an orderly sitting at the main nurses station just running around surfing on Yahoo.
While I cannot say that he was surfing while the bathrooms remained virtually without soap and that certainly there is the possibility that he was surfing for knowledge about how to fill the soap containers properly...the contrast between the need for soap at least (if not running water at the one bathroom sink) and the orderly surfing on Yahoo...well it didn't strike me as particularly indicative of much caring on the part of the staff.
Overall...one nurse told me, when I complained about the bipolar schizophrenic roommate I had for most of the night, how I did not want to continue to be subjected to his at times nearly incessant cursing..."That's what we go through every night".
So perhaps a big city hospital is just that way.
Like a reader said...perhaps they just get emotion shocked. As a survival mechanism to cope with the pain and suffering they see in every day life.
It is not exactly fair for me I think, fresh out of real life, to come in and expect some measure of decency and to be treated respectfully as a fellow human being by everyone at an inner city hospital.
But still...could they not at least keep soap filled in their bathrooms!
And could they not at least make certain that people in pain are not released without some pain killer to go before being sent out the door in the wee hours of the morning without a car, without a friend driving them around, and having to shuffle painfully around on crutches!
I mean emotionally shocked or not that's just common sense that you don't do that kind of thing! You can still hand someone a few packets of sample painkiller while joking with someone on the side and not paying any attention to them at all or showing much care for their pain. Can't you?
Inner city hospitals in Canada (at least where I lived in Edmonton) have their own problems in addition to a general lack of care on their staff as well but if I had to choose between a Canadian inner city hospital and one here in San Diego I would choose the Canadian one.
The cold and indifference I experienced overall last night was quite palpable. Almost thick enough to cut with a knife.
Not from everyone as I have said. The main doctor and the first nurse were very, very good in their professionalism and overall competence. But looking back even the first nurse exhibited some of the coldness I speak of.
A hardened, uncaring, even somewhat blunt lack of empathy to the suffering and plight of those around them.
While inner city hospital personnel in Canada also had some of this...I never experienced it to such a degree as last night.
I think in part that may be because health care in Canada, at least on the front lines is not nearly as much as it is about the money down here.
There...every individual is entitled to equal and good health care no matter how poor or rich they are. Down here...if you don't have money or if the State is paying for your health care (as was the case with me last night), the quality of health care is affected I think.
That underlying difference in the overall philosophy of health care affects the final outcome I think. With respect to how personnel treat you and how willing they are to go the extra mile to give you proper care.
I wish Canada did not have such terrible weather as I would be strongly inclined to go back just for the health care alone I think.
I'll take a little slower delivery of health care any day compared with faster delivery, coldness, lack of caring, and downright nastiness in sending someone in pain out into the streets to fend for themselves without so little as an aspirin.
I think what I need to do is get copies of all the test results to find out what exactly they found out and so that I can have another doctor look things over. Of course that will involve another trip to the hospital to sign something I was told. I don't think they are going to make that easy for me.
Aside from that I need to get to a local pharmacy and get at least my pain killer prescription filled. Hopefully it won't cost much money.
As for the antibiotics? I still haven't made up my mind. My stomach has a constant dull pain in it already from just a little Ibuprofen. Do I want to add a nauseated feeling on top of that and the destruction of all my good stomach bacteria for the next ten days?
Come to think about it I wonder if all my good stomach bacteria was already destroyed by last night's IV antibiotic dose?
Maybe I will pick the Pharmacists brain on that one and maybe get some further ideas from them as to why I am improved if there is a 99% chance (according to the tests) that any further antibiotics would do nothing at all for me.
If anyone is praying for me please continue to pray.
Thanks.
Carlos
UPDATE
I forgot to mention one other piece of good news! My blood pressure has greatly improved from what it was back in Canada.
Last night when I first got to the hospital it was only 148/101. That's a remarkable improvement given a situation (having a bum leg) that would have normally caused it to go beyond that. My blood pressure has hit 195/115 before from what I can remember. So 148/101 is quite an improvement.
And that's under physical stress! I imagine it's even less if I take my blood pressure when at rest.
That was definitely, also a piece of great news!
That's insane!
If I had not insisted and put my foot down and pushed the fact that I had been assured by one of their doctors that such a thing would not happen that IS what would have happened.
Instead they relented and bought me a cab home. Though my insistence on trying to get some pain killers for at least that night if not the next few nights fell on deaf ears.
The final nurse who shooed me out the door even responded to my saying that this would not be the last they would hear of this with a "who cares" attitude as if to say that it was not their problem.
But the bit of good news that I have to share this morning is that my knee is greatly improved! And the swelling in my ankle is hardly noticeable (though my knee still looks like a decent sized cantelope
). Praise God! Of course...in line with last nights inability of the medical establishment to determine definitively what was wrong with me I am likewise left wondering what it was exactly that might actually have helped?
A couple of possibilities come to mind.
The extraction of a great deal of fluid from the knee.
The IV administered anti-biotic that I was given just before I left the hospital.
Those are the only two things that I can think of as having helped.
Yet even there some questions remain. The tests came back negative at least 99% with respect to there being any kind of bacteria in there causing an infection. The bacterial cultures did not grow when inserted with my fluid I am assuming (I am not entirely sure of how they got to the 99% certainty).
Of course the 1% uncertain results might hold the key as to why I am improved this morning.
It is also possible that the fluid extraction itself is the key to my improvement. Since it did relieve some pressure and perhaps get out enough to allow my body to start it's own healing process.
It's hard to say.
The problem for me with respect to the continuing uncertainty is to decide whether to go ahead and get the 7-10 days of anti-biotics and go through the resulting 7-10 days of stomach pain and the destruction of all beneficial stomach bacteria as an unintended consequence of antibiotics.
I mean if there is a 99% chance of there being no bacteria it seems a waste and an unnecessary stress on my system to get on a regime of antibiotics.
Of course there's the 1%??
And without the bacteria how does one explain this morning's improvement? Did my body all of a sudden start to heal itself?
Did someone's prayers start to operate effectively on my behalf?
Did the fluid removal (though it actually caused more visible swelling at least last night) do the trick?
Who knows. I sure don't.
If any bacteria do indeed exist in that 1% and if the antibiotics is what has resulted in this improvement and I do not continue with them for a full treatment...the last state of things might be even worse if any of them have survived and become resistant through a lack of further antibiotic follow up.
My stomach is hurting already from the Ibuprofen I took last night before going to bed. Add to that some further antibiotics and I can be assured of adding some nausea and further upset stomach feelings for another 10 days or so.
Oh I forgot to mention last night that of the two bathrooms I used while at the hospital one their hand soap dispensers didn't even have soap left in it at all! The other barely had enough to squeeze some into my hand. And one even had no running tap water!!
Neither bathroom had a garbage can within reach of the door either. So if someone used some paper towels to handle the doorknob while going out of the bathroom there was little choice but to either thrown their paper towels behind the door on the floor or walk around with their little bundle of germs all rolled up until being able to find another garbage can (which itself was not readily present outside the bathrooms).
Despite having told someone about this on several occasions I never saw anyone change the soap or otherwise check into the lack of running water.
It was like personnel responded about how clean they kept their own hands were while not being overly concerned that patients did not have the ability to thoroughly wash their own hands in patient bathrooms.
I had to go into the ladies room to find some soap the one time I did not find any at all in the men's bathroom.
Once when I went to get some water to mix with soap I had gotten into my hand...I observed an orderly sitting at the main nurses station just running around surfing on Yahoo.
While I cannot say that he was surfing while the bathrooms remained virtually without soap and that certainly there is the possibility that he was surfing for knowledge about how to fill the soap containers properly...the contrast between the need for soap at least (if not running water at the one bathroom sink) and the orderly surfing on Yahoo...well it didn't strike me as particularly indicative of much caring on the part of the staff.
Overall...one nurse told me, when I complained about the bipolar schizophrenic roommate I had for most of the night, how I did not want to continue to be subjected to his at times nearly incessant cursing..."That's what we go through every night".
So perhaps a big city hospital is just that way.
Like a reader said...perhaps they just get emotion shocked. As a survival mechanism to cope with the pain and suffering they see in every day life.
It is not exactly fair for me I think, fresh out of real life, to come in and expect some measure of decency and to be treated respectfully as a fellow human being by everyone at an inner city hospital.
But still...could they not at least keep soap filled in their bathrooms!
And could they not at least make certain that people in pain are not released without some pain killer to go before being sent out the door in the wee hours of the morning without a car, without a friend driving them around, and having to shuffle painfully around on crutches!
I mean emotionally shocked or not that's just common sense that you don't do that kind of thing! You can still hand someone a few packets of sample painkiller while joking with someone on the side and not paying any attention to them at all or showing much care for their pain. Can't you?
Inner city hospitals in Canada (at least where I lived in Edmonton) have their own problems in addition to a general lack of care on their staff as well but if I had to choose between a Canadian inner city hospital and one here in San Diego I would choose the Canadian one.
The cold and indifference I experienced overall last night was quite palpable. Almost thick enough to cut with a knife.
Not from everyone as I have said. The main doctor and the first nurse were very, very good in their professionalism and overall competence. But looking back even the first nurse exhibited some of the coldness I speak of.
A hardened, uncaring, even somewhat blunt lack of empathy to the suffering and plight of those around them.
While inner city hospital personnel in Canada also had some of this...I never experienced it to such a degree as last night.
I think in part that may be because health care in Canada, at least on the front lines is not nearly as much as it is about the money down here.
There...every individual is entitled to equal and good health care no matter how poor or rich they are. Down here...if you don't have money or if the State is paying for your health care (as was the case with me last night), the quality of health care is affected I think.
That underlying difference in the overall philosophy of health care affects the final outcome I think. With respect to how personnel treat you and how willing they are to go the extra mile to give you proper care.
I wish Canada did not have such terrible weather as I would be strongly inclined to go back just for the health care alone I think.
I'll take a little slower delivery of health care any day compared with faster delivery, coldness, lack of caring, and downright nastiness in sending someone in pain out into the streets to fend for themselves without so little as an aspirin.
I think what I need to do is get copies of all the test results to find out what exactly they found out and so that I can have another doctor look things over. Of course that will involve another trip to the hospital to sign something I was told. I don't think they are going to make that easy for me.
Aside from that I need to get to a local pharmacy and get at least my pain killer prescription filled. Hopefully it won't cost much money.
As for the antibiotics? I still haven't made up my mind. My stomach has a constant dull pain in it already from just a little Ibuprofen. Do I want to add a nauseated feeling on top of that and the destruction of all my good stomach bacteria for the next ten days?
Come to think about it I wonder if all my good stomach bacteria was already destroyed by last night's IV antibiotic dose?
Maybe I will pick the Pharmacists brain on that one and maybe get some further ideas from them as to why I am improved if there is a 99% chance (according to the tests) that any further antibiotics would do nothing at all for me.
If anyone is praying for me please continue to pray.
Thanks.
Carlos
UPDATE
I forgot to mention one other piece of good news! My blood pressure has greatly improved from what it was back in Canada.
Last night when I first got to the hospital it was only 148/101. That's a remarkable improvement given a situation (having a bum leg) that would have normally caused it to go beyond that. My blood pressure has hit 195/115 before from what I can remember. So 148/101 is quite an improvement.
And that's under physical stress! I imagine it's even less if I take my blood pressure when at rest.
That was definitely, also a piece of great news!
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