Thank you for the comments. My experience 17 years ago at Washington Hospital Center (WHC) in DC (where I went through the 3 step process) and what happened a few weeks ago at CC couldn't be more different. The former was the gold standard of aftercare including my surgeon popping in multiple times a week to make sure I was okay. I sent a letter thanking all of the nurses for taking incredible care of me.
Dr Ashburn advised that I find a gastro local to me. Well, I do have one in L.A. but I am out of town and far away from home and the ones I have found online in the area are not available for a few weeks. In the meantime, I am going back and forth with CC for a final pain med refill while I wait to see a gastro here. I cannot think of any other alternative. Pain management clinic? ER? I don't know what to do. Tylenol can only do so much. The pain meds allow me to move around and feel somewhat human. My home care nurse said I need about six weeks worth of pain meds. And, as I said before, I went into surgery thinking I was having laparoscopic w/ possible stoma and awoke with a long deep incision and stoma. This unexpected development threw off my entire holiday schedule and plans for travel. I understand that laparoscopic was not possible due to major scar tissue but my bf and I do not remember this possible outcome being presented at the consult or the morning of surgery.
Needless to say, I am really depressed about the whole situation. I walk around shell shocked and cry on and off. Never have I felt so violated by a group of health care professionals. I honestly believed I was going to die at the Cleveland Clinic. My bf equated it to the movie "Hostel." As for staying on a floor with other gastro patients, there were a few on the private floor (one poor guy had five failed pouch surgeries!). Upon chatting with them, my bf learned they too had to fight for meds. There was also a patient who was in a small engine plane crash in which he was the only survivor and he'd been there for a long time (I think months). His father went back and forth with them and they gave him a hard time about providing meds to his son, too.
I know that Ohio has an addiction epidemic. But to punish the patients because it looks good on paper is simply cruel. This is my 22nd surgery and I have never had a pain med addiction nor have I ever been treated this way by a medical facility and their staff. Now I leave this clinic with a "heart condition" and beta blockers and was told I might have to have a hysterectomy to boot because my uterus is the size of a grapefruit. While this is no fault of the surgeon's, the way the news was delivered by another member of the surgical team was a little too glib for my taste, especially when you are lying in bed writhing from agony.
Sidenote: The day before surgery---when I was making the rounds with multiple pre op appointments---my chart was mixed up with someone else's and the nurse asked about my "heart condition." I informed him that he was mistaken and that he must have had someone else's chart. I can't help but think of it as a foreshadowing...
Last, I want to make it clear that my posts do not reflect what I think of Dr Ashburn as a surgeon. She has a pleasant bedside manner and did a beautiful job on revising old scar tissue and stitching me up. I wish she worked elsewhere because I do not know what to do about being reconnected nor do I want to step foot in that facility again.