Healthcare in Today's Society

Approximately in 2003, my husband began having pain in his lower abdomen area after going to the doctor he was given antibiotics with a diagnosis of an enlarged prostate. From that point on, he continued to have to return to the doctor with the same symptoms returning every so many months and each time he would be given a dose of antibiotics and sent on his way. Looking back I wonder if he did not do any tests because he was incompetent or because my husband did not have health insurance. Should the lack of insurance keep a doctor from prescribing proper treatment as they agreed to do when taking their oath.

Fast forwarding to the end of 2005-beginning of 2006 once again he was still having these symptoms and each time they came back they got worse and worse and finally I told him he had to change doctor's that I felt this doctor was going to end up killing him because it was obvious the treatment was not fixing the problem after years of going back. So we found a doctor's office that had not too long opened up and made an appointment for right after the first of the year.

It was a normal day for us, we went to the doctor's office planning where we would go for lunch afterwards however lunch would never occur. the doctor saw how much my husband was in pain and sent him to have a CT Scan done at the local radiology office. Afterwards they told us to take my husband back to the doctor so he could explain the results to us. The doctor informed us that my husband had Diverticulitis (inflammation of the colon) and that he wanted to admit my husband to the hospital for a combination of antibiotics and to give him nutrients via IV so that he could go a few days without eating to let his colon rest. So we ended up at the hospital for a period of three days. During that time we had a surgical consult with a local surgeon who said that they would need to do surgery to remove the infected piece of colon however they wanted to wait until the inflammation had resolved some.

The Sunday after we got out of the hospital he was once again in agony so we called the doctor who told us to meet him at his office that Monday morning. That morning he decided to readmit my husband for the same treatment. This time we stayed in the hospital for a week. Afterwards we were preparing for surgery to occur and were scheduled for it on February 13, 2006.

During this time the other doctor's would dance around whether or not the other doctor was wrong simply because they were all doctors and did not want to be involved in any malpractice lawsuit if one would occur. However after the surgery they began to talk about the wrong the previous doctor had done. The surgeon said that he had to literally scrap the colon off the bladder because they had begun to fuse together and had my husband waited six more weeks he would have most likely died. Our now family doctor said that he was thankful that we changed doctors' because he knew that if we had not that my husband would have died and even went so far as to say that where my husband stated he hurt did not even have anything to do with his prostate that it was obvious it was not that based on the location of the pain.

I think everyone should take heed when it comes to their health and ensure their doctor is doing everything that he or she can to ensure that you stay healthy and properly treat anything that is found to be wrong with you. Demand proper service as you are paying the doctor for it.