Fact Versus Fiction in Medical Records

As a lot of you know, I have been dealing with a foot wound that keeps getting progressively worse. The most frustrating part of this for me is dealing with doctors and trying to get medical records straightened out. I have started to write a couple times about the things that have happened since I last wrote on March 5th – every time I start to write, I start to cry. I am going to save that stuff for another day!

I sent for my last set of records from the Ohio Valley General Hospital Wound Care Center. Even though they are the ones that changed my appointment in December, they closed my file and started me as a new patient, yet again. The envelope came the other day and I was afraid to open it. I opened it this morning and let’s just say, there is a reason some of us should not own guns! I am apparently “problematic” because I chose to get the mistakes from the October records corrected. I have a five page letter with corrections this time but thought I would share one big thing here.

When I was at the wound center on February 7th, the doctor gave me a script to get a PICC line inserted and start on Vancomycin. With Vancomycin, they measure the levels in your blood weekly and adjust it up or down depending on the levels in your blood.

This was in my records for February 28th:

This was the actual script that I was given on February 7th:

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Hospital Nightmare and Escape!

I ended up in the hospital with an infected foot. Last Friday, I went to get some NPH insulin because I still didn’t have good Levemir. Novo Nordisk replaced the 2nd bad box with the same lot number and that was also bad. They wouldn’t ship it Friday because my area doesn’t have Saturday FedEx deliveries – it was going to be Tuesday until I could get it.

I don’t know if it was the NPH or something else, but I gained 3 pounds between Saturday and Sunday and another 5 pounds between Sunday and Monday – and no, I wasn’t snacking on Christmas cookies! I was really swollen and when I took the bandage off my foot Monday morning, my foot was getting red. I “thought” it was because my bandage being tight when my foot swelled up. I didn’t think it was infected because my blood sugar was doing really good (other than the bad Levemir and testing out NPH). I didn’t feel good but I thought that was from being exhausted – that was day 8 of taking insulin every 2 hours and I was really to drop over.

Tuesday morning when I went to get my shower, I took the dressing off and the red had spread so I knew it was infected. I called my mother to come and take me to the ER. We went to the local ER at Conemaugh Hospital. The doctor agreed it was most likely infected so he did some blood work. My SED rate and white blood cell count were both up and he wanted to admit me. I didn’t want to be admitted there because I go to the wound center at Ohio Valley General Hospital in Pittsburgh and since it was a wound related problem, wanted to go there. They were great in calling Pittsburgh to get me transferred there.