Another Routine but Painful Experience

• 19:30 - Experiencing manageable pain, I ask for pain medication.
• 20:00 - I begin to realize that the medication is not coming so I take some Tylenol that I sneak in with each VA visit.
• 20:45 - Yet again, a rogue physician decided to ignore the advice of my oncologists and make arbitrary changes to my pain medication--another sleepless night. I immediately demand to speak with this doctor. I have her name written down on a growing list.
• 21:00 - Although the physician responsible fails to show up, I am standing face to face with another doctor willing to listen. Without yelling or cursing, I sternly explain the situation and demand that the physician who wrote the orders be ask to give an account of what she did and why she did it without consulting my oncologists or me. This doctor seems sympathetic and understands the situation.

Rather than having the patient's oncologist, cardiologist, or other specialist write the orders for the patient's medication, those specialists act as an advisor to an overall medicine team. That medicine team then gives a final report to another team that overseas my medication. Thus, someone with whom I never speak or meet is able to come in and make changes to my prescriptions whenever they so desire. I have had this happen five times now during this three week stay alone. Also, this broken system results in prolonged delays for periods when a patient is in sudden pain and needs medication fast. Just send me home with a bottle of oxy and I'll treat myself better than this.

As a result of the chemotherapy, leukemia patients quickly become neutropenic. It is in this state that I become infected and experience the worst type of pain. General practitioners do not understand this, and they constantly screw up my orders. If this is happening to me, I'm sure it's happening to others.

During the day, I have constant interruptions that prevent me from sleeping. At night it is the constant pain that keeps me awake. I have not slept in a week, as evidenced by the large bags under my eyes. Add the vitals and other night time interruptions and this place is strong argument for purgatory.