bone crushing

My husband had to go to the doctor Monday. The office called him and made the appointment. You can bet that set off alarm bells. He has so many health concerns we didn't even know which one to worry about. They did say something about his spinal x-rays, but that really didn't narrow it down a whole lot. Because we have had things show up in x-rays that are not what he was being x-rayed for. An enlarged kidney showed up in chest x-rays.

We were referred to a urologist who saw Rex once, sent him for some kind of test at a hospital that had to have cash before doing anything, and we never heard from that specialist again. Don't know to this day what, if anything, the test determined, in spite of calling and both asking and leaving messages. When our family doctor bulldozed us into this appointment, she felt the matter was urgent. Then, she left the group practice she was with and has apparently fallen off the face of the earth. Could it be his kidneys?

He fractured his spine forty years ago, could it be something from that?

Did something in his lungs show up in the background?

He has osteoporosis. Well, he's had that for a while, but this is advancing, which means getting worse. We've been referred to another specialist, this one out of state. His spinal column is collapsing and disintegrating. The T1 through T4 vertabrae are crumbs, with 'significant wedging' on almost all the rest.

Our doctor, who is new to us, says he has never ever seen anyone with such an advanced case of osteoporosis.  Especially not so young. Especially not a male.

We discussed smoking, we discussed heredity, we discussed childhood malnutrition. All factors. But, to figure out what to do, he needs to be seen by an endocrinologist. My guess is that they are considering he'll need the IV type treatments. (He was on Fosamax but began having too much bone pain in his hips and thighs, and we dropped that stuff like it scalded.)

So, we're again hanging in Limbo, and I'm bouncing from wall-to-wall maybes.

I'm also looking for information on what to expect if the deterioration continues. What do I need to be especially watchful for? How can I help? What needs to be reported to the doctors? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

And I can't find out. There are a few  million definitions of osteoporosis available on the internet. There are a few million treatments being sold, or advised, or encouraged. So far, there has not been one site that answers my questions. Apparently everywhere on the Internet is the belief that calcium, vitamin D and the magic of medicine cures osteoporosis, or at least halts it in its tracks.

Therefore, no one needs to know what advanced severe osteoporosis will do to a middle-aged severely emphysemic man with one big kidney.

I really hate that all the different websites say the same things over and over and over. Sometimes in different languages, but still the same-old, same-old.

In this great Information Age, can no one answer my questions?

Calling All Offices

Another excursion into the telephoning of the doctors' offices. This time to renew one of my husband's prescriptions. Who knew that it could be such an adventure?

First of all, the advisory that if this is an emergency to hang up and call 911. Think I'm safe there. He still has medicine. I'm calling so he won't run out, not because he has.

A few 'push 1's, and I am at the pharmacy line. Found that confusing at first, since I have a pharmacy. I don't need theirs. It's really too far from home for me. But I guess it was the pharmacy call-out number.

I was advised that if I needed to have a prescription refilled, I was to leave 1) Name 2) birthdate 3) name of medicine 4) dosage 5) name of pharmacy 6) pharmacy phone number 7)my phone number. And a partridge in a pear tree. With its shoe size.

The pesky thing about this is that if I had been talking to a REAL PERSON it wouldn't have taken half the time. They have all that information already, because I had a problem before with the pharmacy and the doctor's office had to call and straighten out the matter.

Name: Operator keys into computer.
Birthdate: Operator ascertains the correct patient of that name.
Meds needed: she reads off list and asks
Pharmacy: Still at ???, # on file,
My #: on file.

Instead, a patient has to read unpronounceable pharmaceutical names, a mish mash of numbers, and hope that they are comprehensible.

Is it really asking too much to have a person handling drug orders? If it is too busy to speak when the call comes in, can't someone just do callbacks to the patient later? Isn't someone going to check the records anyway?

How many people have been put at risk because of this system with its laundry list of things to be left as a message? What if the patient misreads the dosage? What if the name of the drug sounds like the name of another drug?

It worked for me, and it works for most people, I suppose. They probably wouldn't do it if it wasn't effective. But it's cumbersome and time-consuming, and there is a risk of misunderstanding. That worries me.

It should worry them.