Out With The Trash, Out With The Trash, Out With The Trash!

That was no typo; my title was written correctly. After an injury occurs and a doctor treats you, it is critical to have appropriate discharge planning that fits your personal needs. Having one follow up appointment is necessary to ensure that the injury, which may have been emergent at the time, is later reevaluated from a different perspective to prevent future problems. But too often follow up appointments are swept under the rug because it is perceived as a nuisance to provide aftercare. Not having that opportunity in multiple situations left me with a lifetime of irreversible damage. If only one mistake had been made, I might be more likely to brush it off; but somehow the medical community has blacklisted me.

Although being naïve contributed to my first horrific experience with the health care system, it was no excuse for how I was treated. I was a passenger in a car accident when we were rear-ended by a truck. Sitting behind the driver's seat, the headrest was dislodged and rammed into my stomach. While under the knife, surgeons removed car parts from my stomach and made executive decisions without waking me up to make any informed decisions. When they were "done," I was left with a feeding tube in my stomach and a treatment team that consisted of a surgeon, an internist, gastroenterologist, physical and occupational therapist (P.T. and O.T.), and a nutritionist.

During my month long stay, most of my time was spent in bed. And when I began to walk small distances, they felt it was a qualification to be discharged and gave me a 24-hour notice that I had to leave. In my mind, I thought that further physical and nutritional counseling was necessary to provide me with an adequate stability to go home. I tried to explain that the eating disorder (ED) I had for years combined with the feeding tube seemed insurmountable to me. Unfortunately, what type of support I had after leaving there, was not any of their concern.

I used the feeding tube as an excuse not to eat. Skipping and splitting doses was not unusual for me. Ironically, I fainted in a grocery store less than a month later. The manager happened to see my nutritional "hip pack" with the feeding tube supplies and helped me into their break room to allow me to rest, as I refused a call to 911. I took an extra injection of calories and finished my shopping with some help. As soon as I got out of the store I received a horrible message. A hospital representative called me in to have the feeding tube removed. I was floored. I was at the end of the "recommended" amount of time to transition from liquid to solid foods. I was anything but prepared to safely manage my nutritional needs. When I got into the hospital for my pre-op testing, it was noted that I was barely stable enough to go through with the procedure, but the tube was removed anyways; against both my wishes and the nutritionist's. The reality was I was being put "out with the trash!"

I tried to continue to live my life, but I lost my therapist, transferred colleges, and got hit by another medical emergency. That emergency was about ten years later, when I collapsed while getting off a bus after a college final. I do not remember an ambulance coming or the questions being asked of me about my scars but only waking up in immense pain. I had severe bleeding ulcers and a stomach blockage, thus requiring emergency surgery again. This was not like my horizontal cut; it was vertical and I was stapled and stitched from the top of my ribs down my trunk. I could barely move more than my head. I did not understand why I was in so much more pain, nor why I was being cared for on a cardiac wing. My previous experience motivated me to ask questions when I could stay awake long enough to do...