I discovered that the ulcer on my right foot was not doing very well a few days ago, so I started myself on metronidazole (the infamous Flagyl) and went to the foot clinic today.
The good news first: the cast on my left foot was removed and the podiatrist pronounced herself pleased with the results. However, I would need to have another one put on today and removed in two weeks. We shall see how this transpires.
The bad news is that there is a serious infection in my right foot. The podiatrist listened to the blood circulation in that foot and decided to send me up to the vascular clinic for them to take a closer look. I went upstairs and a very cute specialist (radiographer? radiologist? I’m not sure what he is…) told me to take off my jeans. He asked me to lie on a table while he slathered my tummy and my left leg in K-Y jelly and started up his ultrasound machine. He also took the blood pressure in my ankle and my arm. He began by telling me that since the arteries in my legs start in the abdomen, he’d begin there. He wanted to assure himself that I didn’t have an aneurysm. ANEURISM?! I cried? He assured me it was just as a safety precaution. Once he’d finished looking at the arteries in my abdomen (and found no aneurisms), he ran his machine down my thigh and saw a bit of calcification but no blockage. However, when he got down to my ankle he found a significant spot where the blood flow was constricted. By this time I was sitting up and watching his monitor and found it fascinating, in a grim kind of way. He then let me towel off the K-Y, put my jeans back on, and make my way back down to the Foot Clinic. The podiatrist said that I should come for the vascular leg clinic in a week and a half. They would assess whether I needed angioplasty or not. It’s day surgery and no stent will be placed, unlike my heart angioplasty. That is, if they decide I ought to have it. Meanwhile, I need a shot in the bot every day for the next two weeks and oral metronidazole. I went home quite discouraged.
But my discouragement was not to end then. I had put in a prescription refill request for Insulatard (long-lasting insulin) a week ago at my GPs. They had forgotten to include it in the previous refill. When I got home, the prescription was not in my mailbox. So I called the GP, and they scrabbled around for a bit until they found it. “Good!” I said, “I’ll be right down.”
I came down and got the prescription. Now, recall that I got refills of everything around a month ago. I looked at the prescription and discovered, to my horror, that they had filled nearly the entire set of my medications. By this time I was so unsettled that I said, “Well, having extras of everyting won’t be TOO bad…” and went to the pharmacy. They filled the prescription, suggested I should contact the practice manager at my GP’s, and I toddled home with two shopping bags full of medication.
Well.
When I got home I discovered, to even more horror, that they had filled everything but had given me a prescription of 5mg of amlodipine, rather than 10mg (I was upped to 10 mg a while back and that has been fine); had prescribed gliclazide, which I haven’t taken since November when I was hospitalised, and had given me two boxes of Insulatard, rather than three.
Now if I were a little old 98 year old man, I might not have noticed that the amlodipine was 1/2 its usual strength, and only taken one a day. The stroke that would follow would have been quite preventable. I might have decided that they wanted me to start taking the gliclazide again, which might screw up my blood sugar.
I need to think about whether I should write the practice manager and point out the last three prescriptions that were not written correctly. I believe it’s the staff, not the doctors, who are negligent. But it’s making me seriously think of changing GP practices. When I get older and more senile (if I do get much older, that is…) mistakes like this might kill me faster than my ailments are kiling me already.
Now I have to chase up the district nurse, who is meant to be giving me my injection tomorrow and Sunday. Another worry.
Such incompetence!!!
I guess you’ll be checking everything BEFORE you leave the pharmacy from now on!!
I can’t argue with the price, of course (all this was absolutely free to me at the point of supply). I do check everything before I take it. When I was in the hospital recently my next-door neighbour was named “Hassan” and several times they tried to give me his medications and him mine. I know what I’m supposed to take, but if I were a 98-year-old senile old man, I’d probably have taken it.
I am considering writing the practice manager about it.
I think that is a good idea to write a letter!!!
Any bites on those interviews?
does that mean blood is not flowing to ur foot?
Well, not enough. She said that my foot was still getting a lot of blood, but perhaps not as much as it should be getting.
I’ve decided that until my feet are sorted out, no more interviews. There haven’t been any nibbles, bites, or gulps…I am lucky that we can manage on HWMBO’s salary alone.
When you get two SHOPPING BAGS full of medications, it’s also pretty impractical to try to check it there. I have found in the past that when the pharmacy makes a mistake (very rarely; I think it’s happened once) going back to them they will cheerfully fix the problem. I always put it away in the cupboard immediately when I get home. I have a whole shelf devoted to my medications.
How are you doing? Blood sugar still decreasing?? I hope so!
that’s a lot of medicine!!!
I think you should make a big deal about their errors in prescriptions. They need to establish a better method for making sure they are right – with perhaps someone checking up. Make your letter not so much about your case but about the fact that this shouldn’t happen to anyone.
Meanwhile, goodluck on more diagnosis to find out what else should be done.
You absolutely need to write and tell them they messed up the presciptions. Because they are mis-filling them for that 98-year-old man, who will have a stroke… Fight the good fight!