How It Started

On a Wednesday morning in mid March at 5:15 am as I was getting up for work, Tom came into the bedroom and asked me to take him to the hospital after work that day. "What's the matter honey?" He proceeded to tell me that he hadn't slept in a week because he was having a pain that kept him awake and he had to get some sleep.  When I asked him why he didn't just drive himself to the doctor that day he told me he was sure they were going to immediately check him into the hospital and he didn't want to leave his car in the lot. If I drove him that wouldn't be a problem.  He looked at me and started telling me how we had had a great 30 years together, which of course started us both crying.

I agreed to come home early after work and drive him to urgent care instead of the emergency room that he requested.  At Beaverton urgent care that evening he was diagnosed with prostatitis which is an infection in the prostate. They gave him some hydrocodone for pain which mentally made him feel better and we went home relieved.

The pain relief didn't help him at all, and ran out in two days with no renewals.  We went back in to urgent care two days later where he was given some anti anxiety medicine and two days worth of oxycodone. Well the next week was filled with four more visits to urgent care with the goal of getting something that would enable him to sleep. His primary care doctor was going to see him in three more days.  In these two weeks we met the 3 Stooges of doctors, who prescribed him anti depressants  and told him he needed to do relaxation exercises and to stop describing the pain he was feeling because "we need to just focus on one thing at a time, Mr. Gorman" as they patted him on the shoulder.

All this was done with no examination. No doctor did more than listen to his heart, take his blood pressure and listen to his symptoms.  He had pages and pages of information of how to relieve anxiety while he tried to explain that he was anxious because he was in pain and couldn't sleep.

Dr. Sy, his primary doctor, finally examined him on a Tuesday in late March.  He ordered blood work and put in an order for an urgent colonoscopy.  He prescribed more oxycodone (which wasn't helping) and scheduled an appointment to see him in two weeks.  When the gastrointestinal people called they told him he was scheduled for May 15.  We told them the doctor had written "urgent" on the request but were told "they all say that."  After fighting with them for a few days, we got one scheduled for April 21 and were told to call in each day in case there was a cancellation.