The AM Forum

As many of you know, for the last 2 years I have been battling with some health issues. After bleeding out and dying twice, I finally got good news from my doctor.

I was diagnosed with liver disease 2 1/2 years ago and this came as a total shock to me as I haven't drank alcohol for 29 years this year. Unfortunately it is a byproduct of having Type-2 Diabetes, playing it off and not taking care of your self.

This condition has left me with a condition called Esophageal Varices which are varicose veins / arteries in your esophagus. (This is a common byproduct of liver disease) After 1 minor and 2 massive attacks where I vomited blood until I bled out. Then the EMTs hauled me out of here they were unable to get a BP on me and had pretty much given me up for the worst.  

After being treated at a local neighborhood horsepistol I was told that there was nothing they could do, and my only hope of survival was a liver transplant if I could get one. Their liver specialist told me that If I got out of there to get my afairs in order that I didnt have long on this rock. That was pretty crushing news for someone who was always a tough guy!! It left me feeling very drained and helpless.

(Here is where It all changes) Thanks to my loving wife (that I often refer to as the "war dept") who was determined not to give up on me, started inquiring around for a liver transplant. She / we battled with my insurance company to cover it and after the threat of death and dismemberment, they agreed to it. This quest for a liver transplant took us to Johns Hopkins Hospital here in Baltimore. After many tests and consultations with their liver specialist things changed.............

On one of our consultation visits he floored me with a remark:  "I got some good news for you and also some bad news" After receiving a years worth of the worst news (including the passing of some close friends) I said to give me the good news first. He said that I was ineligible at this time for transplant. I said if that is good news I'm terrified at the "bad news". He said: "well, the bad news is that you will probably have to work until I was 65."  I looked him with a very puzzled look and said how is no transplant good news??

He said that my liver, although damaged is still functioning pretty well as long as I dont overwork it. Then I asked him : "Well what about the bleeding and the varices?? I have survived 3 attacks of something with a 25% survival rate?" He looked at me very confidently and said: "We'll patch them up and you will be good to go".

Well......................... After the 6th endoscopic proceedure friday, and a grand total of 41 rubber bands being put around my esophageal hemmrhoids. (that is exactly what they amount to be) These are no fun, and you are a sick, nauseated, hurtin puppy for a few days after (and unable to eat anything). He has released me!! And told me to schedule an appointment in 6 months for follow up and maintenance if necessary.  It's about time for a little good news.! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! I have been a bit groggy and dopey for the last 2 days trying to shake off the cobwebs from the anesthesia, but it's over for a while! !   :)  :)

I just want to thank all of you that have kept in touch with us through the whole mess!  God Bless you all from both of us!  :)  :)

And to those of you who are having health issues, do not play them off, get it taken care of, and most important of all- - seek the absolute BEST medical care you can get!! The right doctor / hospital can make all of the difference in the world. The "liver specialist" from the local neighborhood was a babling idiot!! and that hospital did everything wrong and came within inches of finishing me off! My new liver specialist at Hopkins is the man!! He / they dont play!! They get it done!  

GREAT NEWS, Slab!!

Nice to read some upbeat news for a change! I knew it was sunny today for a reason.  ;)

We'll be expecting many more years of torment & entertainment from you now, no getting off easy. Because you know we'll be giving it to you! ;D

Nice to hear the good news, Frank!
Kind regards.
Vincent

The climb back out of the pit is tough, but the best part is being around to do it! :D

73DG

Great news Frank. Go fire up the station and tear up the neighbrs TV for fun. ;)

73 N8QPC

Glad to hear the good news!! Proud for you!!
                                                     Joe W4AAB

Frank,

You are one tough dude.. I have always respected your attitude about the past, future, and living life to the fullest..
Congrats on the great news my friend!

Jeff

Awesome news Frank. I concur with Detroit47. Go tear up a TV set  ;D

Good news!

That's great news, Frank.  It goes to show you that is important to get another opinion from another specialist. 

Eric

Frank, you remind me of a Buick 430.

(good hearing your story in person last night on the WTFD Net.)

now that IS some good news...   Glad to hear it. 

Great news

Great News Frank!

Fantastic !
The very best to you and your secretary of war, the August Carol.

Awaiting proper celebration later this month...

Alleluia!
Great news Frank, we just keep truckin along.
Q

Great news Frank; what a blessing.  Johns Hopkins is one of the three top places to go in the U.S. 

Gud news.  I'll have  a beer and a few pickled eggs in yer honur.


klc

It's always nice to get and to hear good news.  Thanks for sharing!!!

Regards,

Steve

Excellent news! Get some rest and get yourself on the air.

Yayyyyy!    Good going Slab!

You've still got a lot of  [Harley] miles left in you, OM.

T

Fantastic news Frank.  I remember all the health horror stories you told me about in person when we met up at the Timonium Hamfest last year.  

It nice to hear some good news for a change.  As you very well know, 2011 was a tough year with loosing so many good friends.  

Keep those filaments lit!

Best Wishes,
Joe, GMS

Outstanding!!!  Glad your ornery ass will be a fixture on the air for a long time.

Seems to me I mentioned Johns Hopkins a while ago... *ahem*  ;D

And there I was complaining about a stupid little sore throat......

Frank, I sincerely hope to work you many times on the air!! Congratulations OM!!

Great to see you on the mend.

Steve

Frank,

I think my finishing the imaginary 813 rig made all the difference.  Well, actually it's not exactly finished,  I still have to finish the front panel.  Maybe I'll hold off finishing it for awhile. HiHi

You always said you wouldn't last long enough to see it finished.

Even though we never meet in person, I think of you as one of my best on-air buddies.

Hang in there, we all love you.

51watt Fred

I think Dennis put it very well! ! This kinda sez how I feel about the whole thing.
It feels really good to put this all behind me and get on with life. It has had it's moments when I just felt like giving up. After all, when a doctor tells you to "get your affairs in order" it definately knocks the wind out of your sails. Especially when you were one who never backs down from anything. It left me pretty broken up for a long while, I just did my best not to show it. The first hospital put me through total hell and just left me out to dry. It was very tough to get through mentally, but I guess I'm still a tough old bastard.

The first warm day after I got out of the hospital 2 years ago, I walked up the street to check on my mother and felt the sun in my face. After realizing that I thought I would never feel that again, I went to tears and fell to my knees giving thanks for being able to experience the warmth of the sun one more time.

It all goes to prove one old saying will ALWAYS be true: "Any day on the right side of the grass is a good day!"

It really feels so good to know that you are on the mend!! It's not totally over, but the worst is now behind me!

Again I want to thank all of you for your concern and support through this ordeal, I cant thank you all enough! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Now it's time to raise a little hell and have some fun again! ! !  ;D  ;D
One thing that hasn't changed, I'm still orneryer than ever!!   

Amen!

That sun is nice. Isn't it?

Ahhhh... yes.

Well Bac-o-bits, good deal then!
You had best take good care of yourself now, so that I can hear you on 75m for a long time to come. Ok?

And on another topic - don't trust your local doctor(s). Don't trust any of them. About 1 in 1000 REALLY KNOWS what they are doing. The rest are just automatons going through the motions pretending they know what they are doing. It's an act. It is worth it to push to find one that is really good. Having been down that road more than once, it is really really true.

Most people would spend more time and effort finding the right shop to shoot paint on their car than they do to find the really competent doctors. And it is harder to find the competent doctor than to find a top shop to shoot paint by several orders of magnitude.

<gets off soapbox>

Great news Frank... cu on the air!

                   _-_-bear

That is great news...
It certainly hits home for me...
My wife was diagnosed with Ovarian cancer last summer. She went through 2 surgeries and 4 months of Chemo. We go to the docs tomorrow to get the results of her blood tests and CT scan. All indications are we will hear good news..
It's a shame that it sometimes takes something like this to wake you up and makes you appreciate every morning you open your eyes.  I just wished many more people would have this epiphany without a illness or other strife.

Great news, Frank. None of us is guaranteed even to-morrow.

I can thank the miracles of modern medicine for my own good health.  If this had been a century or two ago, my wife and son would both be 30 years dead from complications of child birth, an untreated infirmity would quite likely have morphed into cancer by now, and in any case I would be crippled with double hernias and an unusable hip, and blind in both eyes with cataracts.

Frank,
 I'm glad to hear "your good to go" from the doctor. Thank you for sharing your scary experence and your advice from it. Hope you have a expedient recovery.
Joe Sposato    

Boy!!, aint that the truth! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

And I must confess that I was guilty of that. Also "tough guys" are usually the worst about getting things looked at or checked out. (just ask me)  Sometimes at the cost of waiting too long for an effective repair.

But finding a good competant doctor / specialist can be like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. But finding one that really knows what they are doing makes all of the difference in the world. I got real lucky on this one!! But then Johns Hopkins is a "world class" institution and known for doing the hard jobs. I guess if they can't fix ya, no one can.

Just about all of the doctors and specialists from the first hospital were bumbling idiots!
None of them impressed me with their ability, but at first I used them out of convenience. Almost a teriminal mistake!

My wife works in the health care field.  She says that guys are the worst for not attending to health issues.  Some men just plain refuse to go to the doctor until the symptoms become unbearable, and by then it is sometimes too late.


Remember what Derb went through after his recurrence.

Myself and many of you are old enough to remember a time long ago when doctors were treated like demigods and placed high on the proverbial pedestal.

In those days many chose that profession because they really wanted to help people, and honestly really cared about their patients.

Now it has for too many become juat another lucrative profession with money being the real concern. To those that really want to make a difference, I salute.
But to the rest I now look at like a plumber or a mechanic- - someone that I am paying for services rendered. If I am not happy with the services you give, I will fire you and find a replacement. Unfortunately mediocre doctors are now a dime a dozen. Believe me, the first hospital raped me with copays and bills from doctors that I never even saw. If they poked their head into your room and said "HI" you got hit with a bill.

The dumb asses pumped so much IV fluid into me that my abdoman blew up like a baloon. I actually had extreem dificulty breathing, and the a$$holes told my poor wife that I was possibly having a heart attack. But......they left me lay there that way for 2 days because they didn't have anyone there that knew how to put a drain into me!! I finally started screaming and raised such a ruckus that they got one of the ER doctors to come up to my room and do it. (AND MADE SURE i WAS BILLED FOR IT) They drained 5 quarts of fluid out of my belly!!  This was just one of the episodes at the first hospital.

At Hopkins, I was billed once for a copay for the initial visit and have not paid another copay since because they considered all of the procedures to be "follow up". Not only are they good, but they are honest!!

As I was disputing some of the billing from the first hospital and waiting for more accurate itemized billing those miserable SOBs turned me over to a collection agency!! Having not much left to look forward to since my days were numbered I literally threatened them with "death and dismemberment" until I could sort all of it out. I finally just payed it with a few of the doctors copays still in question. When I wrote out the last check, I actually wrote on it "I hope you choke on this"  After being released and being home for 10 minutes (they released me still bleeding internally) I was 911ed back to that place. I wasn't out of there a 1/2 hour total and they still had the nerve to charge me another admission fee!! This happened twice the last time!

FINDING THE RIGHT HOSPITAL AND DOCTORS MAKES ALL OF THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD

I just can't stress this enough. Johns Hopkins has made me a believer! This place is world class, and their specialists know what they are doing to fix the tough problems!

One last thing I forgot to put in:

Dont take your health for granted!! If you lose it, you will never get back to what you once were, dont do like I have done, take care of yourselves now before it becomes an issue and you lose it!


Thanks again and God love you all for caring! ! ! ! !

Slab
 It's always good news when you know A friend going be around when you need them!!

                                                                                                       KB3RDT Carl

Great news Frank you may not remember me but I was at you place last year and bought the NC-300 which is working great. God Bless

Great news Frank.
The moral of the story is we all need a health care advocate (a persistent wife or relative) to keep the veterinarians honest & the ability to choose where we go & the level of care.
My wife is one of those advocates and I pity the Dr. that tries to pull a fast one on her. I am here because of her tenacity.
Skip

Slab,

Great news.

You are absolutely correct - All hospitals and doctors are not equal.

Glad to hear you found the right ones.




Pat
N4LTA

Thanks again, guys! !

One last thing I forgot to include in my rants:

YOU HAVE TO BECOME PRO-ACTIVE IN YOUR OWN HEALTH CARE! !  Do not let people who dont know your case make uninformed decisions in your health and well-being! !  Assign someone (like your wife) to make those decisions for you if you are unable to at the time. If they want to do something to you that doesn't sound right DO NOT HESITATE TO SAY NO! ! ! ! It may save your life. To most doctors / specialists that are working on you you are just another something to be repaired (or experimented on)

When I was in the first horsepistol those idiots came in to give me Heparin? ?
So I wouldn't get blood clots in my legs. After just barely surviving a massive GI bleed, blood clots were all that was keeping me alive, a clot buster like heparin would have finished me off for good! ! ! !

I told the nurse what I would do with that needle if she even thought about coming near me with it. She said: "Well you can refuse it" I asked her if she even read my chart, she said "no, it was ordered by the attending physician".
I then told her to bring me the paperwork and the attending doctor as well.
She brought me the paperwork and I signed it, but I never saw the attending doctor. He wouldn't show his face because he knew he was gonna get an ass chewing. Then.............. After signing the paperwork, those idiots came back into my room the very next morning to do it again! ! ! !  And once again I told that nurse what I would do with that needle, even if it took my last dying breath.

 

My wife may not have known the technical aspect of everything, but she stayed by my side through the whle ordeal, and also without her tenacity, I may well not be here!!

The medical business in this country generally sucks. My sister in law just went to Tailand for cheaper and better dental care. She needed fillings replaced. It was cheaper to travel there and pay cash. The insurance blood suckers have driven many of the good doctors away.

Frank this is an amazing story and i am happy to be able to read about the success vs the obvious. I also head to Brazil for dental work as health insurance is nuts here. My son saved several thousand dollars by having work done in Brazil and the by product was that we got to party like Brazilians.

The flip side of this is that many people come to the states from other countries because their system is much worse than ours when it comes to the complicated stuff. The technology here is very good. But absolutely keep an eye on what is going on. The numb-nuts as you describe are what keeps the malpractice insurance rates off the deep end. The lawsuit does no one any good if you are not here to enjoy those fruits. Other countries do not afford this opportunity to fight back against this sort of idiocy.

I work in the medical billing world and it is amazing to see what the minimum wage flunky can do to screw things up. Mistakes are made at every level and trying to undo them is a daunting task. It is no wonder that the billing error correcting industry is flourishing well.

Good luck Frank!! 

At least I DONT have to worry about dentristry!! My Dentist is a long standing personal friend. We go back many years and used to do some serious partying together. I tough times we used to barter it out. (we still do) He'd fix my teeth, I'd fix his air compressor, etc.

But........... Medical records and billing is a total nightmare! ! !  Once something gets F'ed up in their system, it is sometimes impossible to get it corrected. Many times simply because the person you are talking to / working with is just too lazy to hit a few keystrokes while they are already in that screen! ! ! !
It has been a real nightmare! ! !

As far as the first "butcher shop" that I was taken to is concerned, there must be something political tied in to that place. I actually tried to start a malpractice suit with them. What I really wanted was for it to get some attention to hopefully keep those a$$holes from killing an innocent patient. No one will touch that place? ? ? ?

I started out with a high end law firm that assured me I had a solid case. Ieven went out and got copies of all of the records, test results, doctor's charts, etc before they got wind and altered them. (I still have them) The first firm handed it off to another firm after telling me how much they were looking forward to it.
The second firm some weeks later sent all of the paperwork back to me in a sealed registered letter, ans enclosed a letter stating that they would not touch it!! (the hand off was done without even telling me) I was starting to worry when after 8 months they wouldn't return my calls.........

I then called a handful of the ambulance chasers that advertise on TV. As soon as I mentioned that hospital's name most of them hung up on me and one of them actually cussed me out on the phone ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Keep in mind that this hospital despite it's new / rebuilt facilities has a reptation in out area not much better than a $2 hooker. With affectionate names like "the butcher shop" and "the dog & cat hospital" etc. Not many have much good to say about that place. I had no choice in being taken there as it is the closest facility. Thank God in heaven that this time I had the warewithall to at least have an idea what they were (or trying to) do to me. If not those idiots would have finished me off.

All that I can figger is that they must be politically connected to someone way up there as no lawyer will even look at them. But it really sucks, they really need to be stopped and or looked at closely before they kill someone. (if they already haven't)

If anyone remembers that stupid b-rated sitcom movie from the late 80s
"Young Doctors In Love" That is what my last stay in that place was like.
Or even better: The keystone cops meet Ben Casey.

Ed, WA3PUN had almost an identical experience with his wife.  Unfortunately she didn't make it.  There was an issue with misuse of a blood thinner (Warfarin, the same stuff used in rat poison).

Same story.  He had a good case for a legitimate malpractice suit, but once he presented his story to a lawyer, no-one in the legal system would touch it with a 10 ft. pole. Too much politics involved. He even tried to get an out-of-state doctor friend to help him out, but he was unable do anything.

 
These are good words for all of us to live by Frank. Thanks for sharing your experience as it will certainly give me pause for thought when the inevitable day comes that I am face-to-face with someone I don't know who is making life and death decisions on my behalf. Thanks for sharing the good news too! I'll be looking forward to more sarcasm and wit from you on the WFD net!

:O)

Rob W1AEX

Bacon:

It is wonderful you are getting back to yourself. Thanks for taking the time to post.

Remember, this group is really family.

Dan

Hi Frank
I never knew how really serious your situation was that the main breaker was about to trip. I read your first posts, but not the detail you just gave us here.
I will not get on any soapbox but the Chief Engineer was responsible for you pulling through. The technology in the hospital was HIS tools to bring you back.

I / WE enjoy you and your thoughts and posts, technical input and making Ham radio a people thing.

Fred

That is the way I have always felt! ! !

My son took a ride through the Emergency room after football one night and the bill almost stalled my main pump. What a scam. My paid the bill for the whole staff that night. Good thing I have insurance. My deductable was a fair price if I paid cash in the real world.
The system is broken

Good news Frank.  Guess your number isn't up quite yet.

73,

MrMike