(Originally posted on Jul 15, 2007 - 13:46)
Have you ever been confronted with your worst nightmare?
I am facing mine right now.
A few months ago I noticed that my left ear was itching more than normal. At first I thought it was just a minor infection and I certainly wasn't going to subject myself to the major pain in the lower half that is to try to find a human doctor in this country, so I just didn't. Even when the slightly annoying itch became a major annoyance I still thought that the quest of trying to find a normal doctor was still not worth. But then, a couple of weeks ago I noticed that slowly I was starting to lose hearing.
I am facing mine right now.
A few months ago I noticed that my left ear was itching more than normal. At first I thought it was just a minor infection and I certainly wasn't going to subject myself to the major pain in the lower half that is to try to find a human doctor in this country, so I just didn't. Even when the slightly annoying itch became a major annoyance I still thought that the quest of trying to find a normal doctor was still not worth. But then, a couple of weeks ago I noticed that slowly I was starting to lose hearing.
Coincidentally in that same period I was talking online to a lady who happened to had lost her hearing permanently after a misdiagnosed and mistreated ear infection. She had read my last blog entry and she was asking me about Elisabeta and I was trying to explain to her how does her voice sound like.
Now this is a daunting task. How to explain the most beautiful voice that I know to a person who can't hear? As I said before, I am not a poet so I simply can't do a good job of it. I tried to imagine how would it be to never be able to hear Elisabeta's voice again. Chills run down my spine and a fear like a cold hand, gripped my heart. It was a sobering experience.
In the next day I had an audiogram test made and it showed that both ears were affected, the right one considerably so and the left just below the average. Time to brace myself and try to find a human doctor.
The person who made my audiogram recommended a doctor and gave me her mobile number. I called her and the conversation was like this:
Me: Buna ziua, as vrea sa fac o programare...
Dr: Numai saptamana viitoare
(I would like something quicker than next week so I was going to say "am o infectia in ureche si as vrea sa vad un doctor cat mai repede posibl, puteti sa ma recomand un alt doctor, va rog?")
Me: Am o infectia in ure... (she cut me off)
Dr. (raising her voice) AM ZIS NUMAI SAPTAMANA VIITOARE, NU INTELEGI??? Daca vrei saptamana viitoare, bine. Daca nu... (she hanged off the phone).
Well, now you understand why I emphasized "searching for a HUMAN doctor" above and why I was so reluctant to do it.
My reluctance, contrary to what some people who claim to be my "friends" believe, is NOT because I am "afraid of doctors". It is just because when it concerns my health, I am allergic to being treated like merchandise by "people" who are supposed to, expected to, sworn to treat patients as humanly as possible.
So after that call to the doctor I tried another who was recommended by a friend but the doctor was in vacation.
So after that call to the doctor I tried another who was recommended by a friend but the doctor was in vacation.
The company I work for is a medical company and the clinic MedCenter is part of it. So in the next day I talked to our HR girl to get me an appointment at that clinic. She called and of course, the doctor was in vacation and she would come only in the next week and I didn't want to wait until next week.
Then the HR girl said there's a clinic right close to my place, down Barbu Vacarescu. Alright. I left work early and went there. Well, it turned out to be a gynecology clinic... Oh well, I dismissed it as just a mild case of mistaken orifice identity and kept searching until it was already the next week so I went to see the MedCenter doctor.
I explained the situation to the doctor and she said she was going to have a look at it. First she didn't know how to turn on the overhead spotlight on the examination chair. She had to call the cleaning lady to tell her how to do it. I know she was the cleaning lady because while I was waiting for the doctor I saw her collecting the garbage and sweeping the floor. The lady came in and showed the doctor where the on/off switch is.
I explained the situation to the doctor and she said she was going to have a look at it. First she didn't know how to turn on the overhead spotlight on the examination chair. She had to call the cleaning lady to tell her how to do it. I know she was the cleaning lady because while I was waiting for the doctor I saw her collecting the garbage and sweeping the floor. The lady came in and showed the doctor where the on/off switch is.
The doctor examined me and said I have a major fungus infestation and it is clogging the ear canal and she said she'll try to clean it. She took a huge stainless steel syringe and when she tried to operate it, she didn't know how to pull the piston out. And guess what? She called the cleaning lady to tell her how to do it.
Huh? A doctor who doesn't know how to operate a syringe? Hmmm... Scary! Anyway she came back with the cleaning lady and a big plastic sheet that looked suspiciously like a shower curtain, undersea fishes and algae pattern and all. She covered my upper body with it and asked the lady to hold one of those kidney shaped trays under my ear and she did some serious washing with oxygenated water and with some powerful water jets from the oversized syringe and after several attempts it worked. I heard a popping sound and then I could hear better. I was so happy that I forgave the doctor's mechanical and electrical inabilities. She made an appointment to clean the other ear the next day.
Next morning as soon as she arrived she called the cleaning lady to help and started the procedure in my left ear. It was tough. Several attempts after and she said we need an aspirator but the clinic doesn't have any. So she said she will take me to the Coltea hospital.
We went there. She parked her car at the back of the hospital and we took a back door. On the way we passed the garbage storage area. Read it: "HOSPITAL GARBAGE", get it? And there were nurses around it smoking and talking. We entered the hospital. It was a nightmare! It was like a horror movie. Something out of SAW or... have anyone seen The Last King of Scotland? Do you remember that seedy hospital in a poor village in Uganda where Mrs. Amin went to do the illegal abortion? Yeah. It reminded me of that hospital.
Filthy corridors, stained walls, sick people crowding the corridors, people on stretchers and wheelchairs, people with blood stained bandages, babies crying, children complaining, old people coughing, the smell of medicine, chloroform, alcohol, cheap air deodorants and other unspeakable odors, flies buzzing around, stale hot air, rusted equipment, instruments so old that the chrome is worn off, showing the brass beneath, instruments stored in rusted metal boxes covered in yellowed gauze...
I heard it was the first big hospital in Bucharest. And it certainly does look like the Dacians founded and supplied it.
The doctor left me in front of a consultation room and asked me to wait in the middle of that crowd.
I waited and watched.
In a room behind me, an old communist doctor was examining and yelling at a patient when a very well dressed and obviously rich couple, ignoring the queue outside the room came to the door. As soon as the doctor spotted the couple, his expression changed from anger to the patient to a smile with dollar marks eyes ($)($). He tells the patient to wait outside and he "poftiti, va rog" the couple in and closes the door.
In the room in front of me, another big old communist doctor is attending another patient. A little girl, probably around 5 or 6. He puts the girl on the chair, orders her to open her mouth, take a look inside. With his hands he jerks the girls face up, looks inside her nose and tells her parents that she needs an operation. Just like that. Lightning 5 seconds examination with no instruments and the diagnosis is "she needs an operation". The parents asked him "but, but doctor, isn't there anything you can do?" And the doctor yells: "I said she needs an operation! If you don't want her to spend the rest of her life with her mouth open like this she has to be operated!!" and before the parents can say anything he looks out the corridor and yells "Next!".
Remember that I was emphasizing that I was looking for a "human doctor"? Well, these are NOT examples of it.
My doctor comes back and ushers me to the same room as the big operation-thirsty, quick-with-the-knife doctor.
She puts me seated on a chair, grabs a yellowed, filthy-looking rubber hose hanging at the wall, asks me to hold it while she picks a nozzle from a rusted tray covered with yellowed gauze. She connects the nozzle to the hose and asks the nurse to turn it on. After a few false starts, the motor started chugging and coughing and finally turning. making a noisy racket. She then inserts the nozzle in my ear, hitting the clog and my eardrum hard. I squirm and tried to pull my head away. She tells me "Don't worry! it won't hurt!" Huh?? Hellooo?? Does she think that if she says that it doesn't hurt I will believe it and pretend that it doesn't hurt like hell as it did??? Or did she believe that I almost jumped 3 meters to the right out of sheer joy of having my ear painfully poked?
Next morning as soon as she arrived she called the cleaning lady to help and started the procedure in my left ear. It was tough. Several attempts after and she said we need an aspirator but the clinic doesn't have any. So she said she will take me to the Coltea hospital.
We went there. She parked her car at the back of the hospital and we took a back door. On the way we passed the garbage storage area. Read it: "HOSPITAL GARBAGE", get it? And there were nurses around it smoking and talking. We entered the hospital. It was a nightmare! It was like a horror movie. Something out of SAW or... have anyone seen The Last King of Scotland? Do you remember that seedy hospital in a poor village in Uganda where Mrs. Amin went to do the illegal abortion? Yeah. It reminded me of that hospital.
Filthy corridors, stained walls, sick people crowding the corridors, people on stretchers and wheelchairs, people with blood stained bandages, babies crying, children complaining, old people coughing, the smell of medicine, chloroform, alcohol, cheap air deodorants and other unspeakable odors, flies buzzing around, stale hot air, rusted equipment, instruments so old that the chrome is worn off, showing the brass beneath, instruments stored in rusted metal boxes covered in yellowed gauze...
I heard it was the first big hospital in Bucharest. And it certainly does look like the Dacians founded and supplied it.
The doctor left me in front of a consultation room and asked me to wait in the middle of that crowd.
I waited and watched.
In a room behind me, an old communist doctor was examining and yelling at a patient when a very well dressed and obviously rich couple, ignoring the queue outside the room came to the door. As soon as the doctor spotted the couple, his expression changed from anger to the patient to a smile with dollar marks eyes ($)($). He tells the patient to wait outside and he "poftiti, va rog" the couple in and closes the door.
In the room in front of me, another big old communist doctor is attending another patient. A little girl, probably around 5 or 6. He puts the girl on the chair, orders her to open her mouth, take a look inside. With his hands he jerks the girls face up, looks inside her nose and tells her parents that she needs an operation. Just like that. Lightning 5 seconds examination with no instruments and the diagnosis is "she needs an operation". The parents asked him "but, but doctor, isn't there anything you can do?" And the doctor yells: "I said she needs an operation! If you don't want her to spend the rest of her life with her mouth open like this she has to be operated!!" and before the parents can say anything he looks out the corridor and yells "Next!".
Remember that I was emphasizing that I was looking for a "human doctor"? Well, these are NOT examples of it.
My doctor comes back and ushers me to the same room as the big operation-thirsty, quick-with-the-knife doctor.
She puts me seated on a chair, grabs a yellowed, filthy-looking rubber hose hanging at the wall, asks me to hold it while she picks a nozzle from a rusted tray covered with yellowed gauze. She connects the nozzle to the hose and asks the nurse to turn it on. After a few false starts, the motor started chugging and coughing and finally turning. making a noisy racket. She then inserts the nozzle in my ear, hitting the clog and my eardrum hard. I squirm and tried to pull my head away. She tells me "Don't worry! it won't hurt!" Huh?? Hellooo?? Does she think that if she says that it doesn't hurt I will believe it and pretend that it doesn't hurt like hell as it did??? Or did she believe that I almost jumped 3 meters to the right out of sheer joy of having my ear painfully poked?
She tried a few more times, every time poking my eardrum hard, making me jump in pain and in the end making my hearing even worse. She got angry (probably because I didn't believe her suggestion that the pain she was causing me was actually pleasant) and gave up. I told her that now I hear even less and she said of course, you keep moving while I'm trying to help you!
Huh? So should I just let her pound my eardrum and pretend that the pain is not there?? She said she will prescribe me a solution for me to put in my ear that will help dissolve the clog and she will only treat me again after I do that. She had to fight with the other big communist doctor for the pen to write the prescription and told me to come back the next day. Yeah right. I will NEVER EVER go back to that place EVER DAMN AGAIN.
So I was back to zero again. Searching for a human doctor. The HR girl of my company tried to convince me that THAT hospital is the best ENT hospital in the country and I should go again. Yeah right. Maybe it was the best by the time the Dacians were conquered by the Romans. Or maybe it is, if you have a wallet big enough to make the doctors smile with dollar marks on their eyes.
Other friends suggested me to go to other hospitals. But I am decided. I will NOT walk into any horror movie ever again. I want a human doctor who works in a private, 21st century type clinic.
And surprisingly, I was recommended a doctor who has a private clinic very close to my place, by none less than Elisabeta "La Contessa" Marin herself. The doctor use to treat opera singers when they have vocal chords problems.
So I was back to zero again. Searching for a human doctor. The HR girl of my company tried to convince me that THAT hospital is the best ENT hospital in the country and I should go again. Yeah right. Maybe it was the best by the time the Dacians were conquered by the Romans. Or maybe it is, if you have a wallet big enough to make the doctors smile with dollar marks on their eyes.
Other friends suggested me to go to other hospitals. But I am decided. I will NOT walk into any horror movie ever again. I want a human doctor who works in a private, 21st century type clinic.
And surprisingly, I was recommended a doctor who has a private clinic very close to my place, by none less than Elisabeta "La Contessa" Marin herself. The doctor use to treat opera singers when they have vocal chords problems.
So this is my worst nightmare. Losing my hearing. Not being able to listen to Elisabeta's voice or Bach's music anymore.
I got myself an appointment for tomorrow and I really hope everything will go well and I will have my hearing back soon enough.
I got myself an appointment for tomorrow and I really hope everything will go well and I will have my hearing back soon enough.
P.S. - I haven't posted an update on this case in the period when my blog was originally published so, in case anyone is wondering:
I went to see the doctor recommended by Elisabeta and she found out that I didn't have any fungus infection. What I had was even worse: I had a bad Staphylococcus Aureus infection.
Fortunately, after a long treatment including some potent antibiotics I got cured and my hearing restored to normal.
I went to see the doctor recommended by Elisabeta and she found out that I didn't have any fungus infection. What I had was even worse: I had a bad Staphylococcus Aureus infection.
Fortunately, after a long treatment including some potent antibiotics I got cured and my hearing restored to normal.
0 comments:
Post a Comment