Lynn Schmaltz turtles
Joined: 31 Aug 2003
Posts: 1
Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2003 3:39 am Post subject: Paul, hemo dialysis for 7 years, run in with bad medicine
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>People are having all kinds of experiences in our medical system these days. This is my husband Paul's experience recently. He has said that a day will come when he simply says, "no more." Paul practiced veterinary medicine for thirty years and has been a hemo dialysis patient for over seven years. I assisted him with home hemo dialysis for six years when we had the mountain bed and
eakfast in rural Colorado. After losing that property to the impact on business of 911, poor winter snow and forest fires, we moved to New Mexico. His second fistula he'd had for over three years quite on Christmas. Since then he has had two chest catheters and two unsuccessful goretex grafts. He has never complained but he put his foot down when the transplant team insisted he get a colonoscopy. He's tired of being 'rendered' by the medical system. I, for one, can understand the decision some dialysis patients make to quit and check out, and I'm not a patient. I'm just one watching a patient being ground up through the system. <
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>A week ago Thursday was a real red-letter day for the medical system in New Mexico. Two days ago Paul's latest arm surgery where the 2nd goretex graft for dailysis access was put in started hurting. Wednesday night at dialysis they gave him some IV antibiotic, said they would culture his blood and ran dialysis as usual. Thursday he was to have seen the surgeon, and the surgeon's office cancelled the appointment saying he had an emergency and the other two surgeons were on vacation. Paul called his kidney doctor............the receptionist would not let him talk to a doctor or nurse and said he had to call his dialysis unit. He did so. By now it was 3pm and still no call back from the surgeon. The dialysis unit called and said they'd prescribe an antibiotic that had previously made him sick. <
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>He explained what was going on and that his arm hurt a lot, was red and inflamed and he was feeling poorly. They said they'd just have to wait on any antibiotics or he could just to an emergency room and have it looked at. By that time he was royally upset. Around here the ER's are swamped and it would mean a several (four to seven) hour wait while his arm was dripping pus. Our daughter, Steph, whom Paul had not seen for almost a year and a half was here. He told the nurse that he'd just open the abcess himself.............he'd done it thousands of times on animals. <
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>So, he did 'kitchen table' surgery on himself. Steph and I helped...........Steph more so than I as I'm rather klutzy with needles, hemostats, etc. At least five tablespoons of pus came out of the underarm site of the original surgery, and the upper outside of the arm site. Then he sewed in two drain tubes, flushed the wounds, and bandaged it up. It's pretty pathetic when the system is
oken this badly and Paul knew if he waited another day, he'd have general septicemia...........infection throughout his body. <
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>Tonight his blood sugar was over 500 from the trauma. Why am I telling you all this? Several years ago a retired dentist from Alabama, also a home dialysis patient, told us to work out the math. He figured that a dialysis patient was worth about $100,000 a year to the medical system. Rather than a name, a patient is really just an insurance policy number and a medicare number. Now, I'm just wondering how long Paul can hang on. He's had Four surgical procedures since he came to Albuquerque almost a year ago, and three out of the four had major infections.........staph, etc. In his entire career of doing surgeries on over 65,000 animals, he never had staph infections. Was it technique? Was it just dumb luck?<
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>How sad that our system is so
oken that a veterinarian gets to work on himself to get results. How absolutely pathetic. Why is it that animals that were hospitalized for day surgery in our clinics and went right home never came back with infections? Why is it that staph and other infections are rampant in hospitals and not veterinary clinics? Believe me, the 'back room' of the veterinary clinic can present a challenge in cleanliness when you have 20 animals, 10 whose owners didn't keep them off food and water the night before surgery. But no staph. So my question is where does the staph come from? Maybe it's placed on gauze sponges, or suture material (kind of like 'doctoring' the blankets that the Indians were given in the 1800's with smallpox.) Maybe it's placed in IV fluids. Maybe veterinary clinics are cleaner than human hospitals. <
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>Maybe things that are marked as 'sterile' really aren't sterile. In Europe many hospitals use lemon oil topically, and aerosol to control staph and bacteria. It's used liberally. Here in the US we don't do that. And the results are disastrous. And the other disaster is cranking out bottom line, profits only medicine. It dehumanizes everyone in the system from the doctors and nurses to the patients to the collection agencies. I for one do not believe the lie that we have the best medical system in the world. The most lucrative maybe, but not the best. When you stop to ponder that statistics now bandied about in the media are that over 50% of Americans in the next ten years will be diabetic (and ultimately a percentage of those will have kidney failure) you've got to wonder what's going on behind the scenes. A radio announcer in Denver always used to say, "Follow the money." That's what I'm saying now.............follow the money. Who benefits from all this illness? Follow the money. Maybe at the end of the search you'll find some very, very large drug companies. Some very, very profitable drug companies. And who, exactly, owns these companies?<
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>On Monday the surgeon managed to find time in his schedule to see Paul. The goretex graft is coming out I was appalled when we went to the dr's office yesterday by their lack in standards. The nurse came in, took off Paul's bandages and dropped some on the floor. Picked up the 'pus' covered gauze and threw it in the trash and never wore any gloves. Then she left the room. Later she came back in and helped in bandage up. At no time did she wear gloves or wash her hands. Have they never heard of Pasteur and why you try to keep things sterile? This morning he was to go in for surgery to remove the infected goretex. He sat in pre-op for two hours. Nothing. So he asked if there was a mistake. Oh yes, they think he was scheduled to come back at 5pm. Was he just supposed to sit there all day long? He came home for most of the day and is now down there as I write this. Paul practiced veterinary medicine for over 30 years. It's basic knowledge that you always, always, always maintain basic standards of cleanliness when working around abcesses and infections. No wonder our hospitals are such a mess. On the other hand by having sloppy techniques the doctors and hospitals have lots more business. <
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>When an acquaintance of mine heard what happened, she wanted to know of Steph and I knew sterile technique. I'd say we knew a bloody lot more than those in practice on humans today. Staph infections don't just 'happen'........they are assisted by lackadaisical medical personnel. They get paid and those in the insurance and tax system get to pay the bill. That's what separated veterinary medicine from 'real medicine' on humans. There was third party pay for the human side. The veterinarians on the other hand had to be accountable for their work. Take care. Lynn<
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>PPS Update from 8-28: Paul and I went to the surgeon's office today. He pulled the packing from the wounds and showed us how to repack them twice daily for the next week. As far as wounds as abscesses go, I'd say this ranks up there with some of the worst Paul ever treated on cats or dogs. Why isn't he in the hospital? Over 60% of the time he's gone in for procedures he's gotten some type of infection. The infection of the now removed goretex graft was the most recent. When the nurse pulled off his bandages I commented that I was surprised that she didn't wear gloves. From then on she did wear gloves. She knows better and the surgeon did manage to wear gloves. However, he is the one who sets the standards in his office. He can see when he has gloveless (and perhaps clueless?) personnel working on patients.<
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>Now Paul is home and twice a day he pulls the packing out of 5 different incision sites. And the he repacks the sites and we bandage them up. They have to be left open like this to let any remaining infection drain out. At least I'm assured that the care he is under here at home is top quality. After all, it's his own.
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ridgerunner
Joined: 11 Jan 2003
Posts: 101
Posted: Tue Sep
02, 2003 11:52 am Post subject: paul,s story
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paul there is a great difference between yours and my profession and medicine. we make a mistake and we do it over for free but the medical world you ture a 5000 fee into a 50000 fee with a mistake. also i do not think they really under infection control they put a machine on the market and think 160 degrees of water will make it infection free you know you cannot sterilize a needle with out using an autoclave. so cannot serilize a dializer unless you autoclave it. i think the medicos. need toke a course in infection control 101.
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Lin
Joined: 28 Oct 2002
Posts: 337
Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2003 3:58 am Post subject: Autoclaving
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No offense Ridgerunner, but autoclaving is mostly outdated; nowadays they use disposables and chemical sterilization for most items used.<
>Lynn, I left a post on the "other" board we belong to. Paul's whole experience was disusting to say the least! It must be especially perplexing for him, being in the medical profession and treating animals better than humans have treated him. I just can't get over this story. It really should be
ought to light! Lin.
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ridgerunner
Joined: 11 Jan 2003
Posts: 101
Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2003 1:20 pm Post subject: infection control
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lin the autoclave is not out dated. there are somethings that you have to do reuse because of the costs. the reason they do not use aotoclave it will destroy the materials or devices. for a cold sterilizer to work it must come in contact with the total surface material. it cannot do this in the case of needles hollow tubes as you find in dialyzers. also the device must be totally clean. you cannot clean a dialyzer. ther will be blood and blood products left in tubes. yes autoclave is work but if done right is totally effective. chemicals are not , read dialyzer reuse on fyi. come on take me apart.
