Hi Everyone, Just an update. I'm home from the hospital, my surgery went well, I had the flu along with the surgery so was miserable for at least a week. Ran a temperature of 103-104 for 3-4 days. Was not good. I fired my Surgeon because I got fed up with him not listening to me and my silly requests to stay clot free. Seriously right after the surgery the doctor Did in fact start me back on Coumadin and lovenox. However he only gave me .5 mg of Coumadin and I normally take 7.5 mg a day and 40 mg of Lovenox twice daily which I normally take 80 mg twice a day. He understood that I tend to throw clots when my INR is below 2.5 and that's why my PCP keeps me on high doses of Coumadin and equally high doses of Lovenox while bridging to and from the Coumadin. This surgeon looked me right in the face and told me people don't clot while on Lovenox, so it didn't matter what the dose was, just so long as I was getting the lovenox. Talk about totally stunned. Here I was sitting in the hospital and the doctor is refusing to put me on my blood thinners. Seriously I was flabbergasted and told the doctor OK you may believe this however I am not giving you permission to play Russian Roulette with my life just to prove or disprove your theory. I went straight to the Hospital administrator and informed them if this goof ball of a surgeon caused me to clot then they were going to be looking at the biggest law suit and TV coverage they had ever seen. I finally got the attention I needed because my PCP started managing my Coumadin and Lovenox from that point on.
My other complaint was the pain meds they were giving me caused me to have trouble breathing, (just kind of forgot how to do it). Anyway instead of them stopping the one pain med they just played around with the doses until My husband and daughter raised hell and finally flat told them do not give me that pain med because of an allergic reaction. So no my hospital stay was not a good one. Kind of scary and what upset me more than anything is I work at this hospital and got to see first hand again how the patients are treated. However the nurses, and the rest of the hospital staff were stellar and I knew at least they were watching out for me. But once again I realized just how much weight a Doctor or surgeon in a hospital carries. Once again the squeakiest wheel does get the most grease and I intend to continue squeaking especially when I go back to work. Just remember no matter what , you have to be your own best advocate in the health care field. Don't rely on the doctor always doing what is best for you and make sure you ask lots of questions.
Thanks for all your good thoughts and get well wishes. I felt each and every one of them
Love ya all
Hugs
Ferr