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What happened when my wife died

newyorker.com

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Re: What happened when my wife died

#31

Post by cfeduke »

igetspam wrote: post #19

I don't know how this is relevant to HN but it feels well timed, for me. My wife is alive. She doesn't a terminal diagnosis. But for the last five years, she's had no diagnosis. Visually, she's stunning and fit. According to every test they run on her, there appears to be nothing wrong. There's no explanation for the temporary blindness, the rapid onset arthritis, the partial spinal fusion, the diverticulitis, the ra…

Right there with you. We had a scare where my wife had to go to the hospital and stay at the emergency room for four days for stroke-like symptoms. She has many of the symptoms you've listed, and though her assigned emergency room doctor was unwilling to provide a diagnosis, it turns out that that thyroid medication has helped stabilize her condition.

What's baffling is the lack of any sort of help at the hospital and the inability to find a rheumatologist or specialist or just a regular doctor who gives a damn. They will maximize wealth extraction from their patients and provide no meaningful service. Every step of the way has felt like gross negligence when it comes my wife's medical care.

I have a couple of young kids. I stopped reading the article because I don't want to imagine my children growing up without their mother.

Re: What happened when my wife died

#32

Post by Test0129 »

cfeduke wrote: post #31
igetspam wrote: post #19

I don't know how this is relevant to HN but it feels well timed, for me. My wife is alive. She doesn't a terminal diagnosis. But for the last five years, she's had no diagnosis. Visually, she's stunning and fit. According to every test they run on her, there appears to be nothing wrong. There's no explanation for the temporary blindness, the rapid onset arthritis, the partial spinal fusion, the diverticulitis, the ra…

Right there with you. We had a scare where my wife had to go to the hospital and stay at the emergency room for four days for stroke-like symptoms. She has many of the symptoms you've listed, and though her assigned emergency room doctor was unwilling to provide a diagnosis, it turns out that that thyroid medication has helped stabilize her condition. What's baffling is the lack of any sort of help at the hospital an…

> What's baffling is the lack of any sort of help at the hospital and the inability to find a rheumatologist or specialist or just a regular doctor who gives a damn.

I guess this depends on your situation. I've been in and out of doctors my entire life. The doctors that give a damn are generally locked away from you if you're using some sort of state health plan or HMO. I have only ever had luck finding a good doctor by going through PPO. If you can do this, I would recommend it. PPO doctors make far, far more (because it's expensive even to you) but the specialist access is second to none. It took 3 months to get an appointment with an ENT once, and when I switched to PPO my GP had me into an ENT at my request the next week. Then you start the cycle of feeling them out and finding out which ones mesh with your goals.

It's tough, but navigating healthcare is tough. Just avoid HMO insurance and you'll do a lot better (or at least better than baseline).

Re: What happened when my wife died

#33

Post by kwhitefoot »

belkarx wrote: post #20

>If she does not understand or employ traditional feminine wiles that, offensive though it may be to admit, are necessary to getting along in a patriarchy? Is this really true in this day and age?

Yes. Well perhaps not feminine wiles, but a greater degree of determination than men need.

Even here in Norway, which is a bastion of egalitarianism, men still have life time earnings substantially in excess of women and are a larger proportion of industrial workers, politicians, and board members.

In other societies that are less advanced in this respect I can easily imagine that the occasional wielding of a 'feminine wile' might count for something.

Re: What happened when my wife died

#38

Post by speeder »

cfeduke wrote: post #31
igetspam wrote: post #19

I don't know how this is relevant to HN but it feels well timed, for me. My wife is alive. She doesn't a terminal diagnosis. But for the last five years, she's had no diagnosis. Visually, she's stunning and fit. According to every test they run on her, there appears to be nothing wrong. There's no explanation for the temporary blindness, the rapid onset arthritis, the partial spinal fusion, the diverticulitis, the ra…

Right there with you. We had a scare where my wife had to go to the hospital and stay at the emergency room for four days for stroke-like symptoms. She has many of the symptoms you've listed, and though her assigned emergency room doctor was unwilling to provide a diagnosis, it turns out that that thyroid medication has helped stabilize her condition. What's baffling is the lack of any sort of help at the hospital an…

My mom had a sudden acute glaucoma, we didn't knew it was glaucoma yet, and she was sent to hospital.

Same shit, wealth extraction, no proper care.

We begged help from her usual eye doctor, sent to him photos of her eyes that had obvious glaucoma for someone that know what glaucoma is, and he just replied she is fine.

Eventually we found on our own she had glaucoma and transferred her to a university, where students wanting to learn treated her, or tried, since they couldn't do anything without permission from licensed medics, and the medics and their teacher all were for "some reason" unexpecteadly absent.

She is getting better now, but got some permanent damage that wouldn't have happened if someone bothered to look at her.

In the initial hospital she went to, nurses told me they asked for a medical specialist to come and see her, that I could rest easy and they would fix the issue. Later on, my father asked one of the hospital administrators that is his friend, and he checked the records, and found out the nurses lied.

If that is the treatment you get when you are paying and when hospital administator is your friend, imagine when you are poor...

EDIT: in general, I don't trust medics, almost all medics I know are liars, scam artists or butchers, I have a list of medical malpractice on people I know bigger than the list of stuff fixed, including deaths caused by medical malpractice.

My personal issues are mostly self-treated, with me going to medics only because the law obliges me to to get the needed prescriptions.

My wife is pregnant, and her medics told us a lot of suspicious stuff, I hired a doula and some nurses out of my own pocket, a team that helped with childbirth of a friend of my wife, and asked them about all sketchy stuff the medic said, and they gave me the details, including the science, to prove to me the medic is actually trying to scam my wife into having a privately paid caesarean section in a expensive hospital. And indeed when I asked the medic later how much he expects the birthing to cost us, he quoted us a totally eye-watering figure and said our health insurance wouldn't cover it (a lie, we checked this already).

EDIT2: how to be a butcher: insist a guy has cancer, when everyone insists he doesn't have cancer, then have a exploratory surgery to find his cancer and kill him on the sugery table, then you say "oops, he didn't had cancer after all!"

Re: What happened when my wife died

#39

Post by brunooliv »

Oh God, I saw the title and was kind of scared of reading this... I mean, I'm young still, not married or anything, but, I think I am a very empathetic person and kind of like to be understanding of other people's lives and feelings, maybe because I feel it's a way of expanding my own life perspective or something, but anyway I was reading this and feeling pretty emotional during the whole thing and then I read the final sentence that Lilly said and I basically just... Started crying, so those were a few awkward minutes... It's an extremely raw and well-written piece... Ahh that's a strange way to feel on a Sunday...

Re: What happened when my wife died

#40

Post by berdon »

igetspam wrote: post #19

I don't know how this is relevant to HN but it feels well timed, for me. My wife is alive. She doesn't a terminal diagnosis. But for the last five years, she's had no diagnosis. Visually, she's stunning and fit. According to every test they run on her, there appears to be nothing wrong. There's no explanation for the temporary blindness, the rapid onset arthritis, the partial spinal fusion, the diverticulitis, the ra…

You might consider going to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. It’s world renowned for diagnosis. My wife had various, random symptoms and all local doctors were either baffled or suggesting absurd things in desperation. In two days a doctor at Mayo correctly diagnosed the issue and offered suggestions on treatment that worked. The local doctors were both disbelieving and angry.

Diagnosis was POTS (brought on by pregnancy) and the solution was exercise. Most doctors gravitated to a cardiological issue and prescribed various blood pressure medicine - none of which helped.

Aside from actual medical capability, the place is astoundingly futuristic. The entire process is streamlined. Everything is done within a few days, doctors and lab visits are coordinated and scheduled dynamically and in real time, discussions and investigations are immediately synced with an app, etc. It was…mind blowing to say the least.

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