As great as Mayo is, I'm a little dissapointed with it. They switch doctors every Monday, which is pretty terrible when it comes to continuity of care. The first doc we had was great - saw him about three times a day and always had updates. The doc we have now, not so much. He sends his med student to see us who is still learning and has never seen a case anywhere close to what my wife is. Annoying. Upon that, he completely disregarded all the work her previous doctors had done, and changed the working diagnosis, ignoring the fact there is brain marrow abnormalities and when we asked him about it, he basically dodged the question. And that was the one and only time we have seen that doctor all week. Highly irritating.
We get a new doctor on Monday though, and hopefully will be able to get some answers. DW has conflicting symptoms. One thing points here, the other says it can't be that. So it's difficult. I thought coming here would be a few days, maybe a week, and be back home. Instead, it's been 11 days, and we're no closer to knowing anything than when we got here.
But this is the best hospital in the world, and has the best doctors. So we're in it for the long haul until we get a diagnosis and a solid treatment plan.
The army has been very supportive of everything. They aren't charging me leave at all, have reassigned me to a local national guard unit until DW is able to go home on her terms, and is paying for room and board in the mean time, on top of my regular pay. I can't ask for much more. We're not out anything financially by being here, which is great. I'm honestly surprised by how efficient my BN has been with this, because traditionally we hear a lot of horror stories from soldiers with their problems. Maybe it's that I know the right people in the right places on a personal level outside of work, but either way, it gives me a lot of faith in it. Makes me almost think about re-enlisting instead of getting out and finishing college. Then I know that what's best for my family is to get my wife healthy while we're active duty, then do what I love and make the money I know I can instead of always moving and never being able to put roots down for my kids.
All in all, we're being taken care of, but I'm dissapointed that we switch doctors every monday. Difficult to get a solid idea of whats going on and when to expect to leave when everyone wants to have their own opinion on it and we don't know anything.
Dissapointed
September 11th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
September 11th, 2009 at 10:11 pm 1252707090
I'm glad to hear that you are getting support from your military command, even it is because of your personal relationships!
September 12th, 2009 at 03:48 am 1252727292
I would take careful notes about the treatment, diagnosis, and wife's improvement (or not) from my end - if you have good doctor 1, bad doctor 2, reasonable doctor 3, good doctor 4 and can document it - I think you'll be in a stronger position to keep bad doctor 2 away from your wife.
September 18th, 2009 at 07:12 pm 1253301156
Jerry