PoolQ wrote:"Question: Couldn't apnea have caused a new emergency? Stopping breathing can stop your heart from beating, right?"
Well in theory yes, BUT SA is not a fast thing and caused damage over the long run. Technically you can't experience SA unless you are asleep. From what I have heard it's not so much the stopping breathing that impacts the heart, but after you start breathing again the heart will race to move the O2 around the system and that adds stress to the heart. Something to be avoided, but it's not like having a blockage in the blood flow.
"Is it 'standard procedure' for them to monitor my O2?" here it sure is, it's just a rubber cup they put on one of your fingers and they leave it there, not like blood pressure where they wrap you up and take readings every hour. If you don't already know what this is then the chance of you paying any attention to it are slim indeed. It's typically just one more thing they do.
"if apnea is a real medical diagnosis affecting millions, why is there not a standard protocol for ER's & hospitals?" It is indeed real PERIOD, but so are many things and it is not what you are in there for and it's not really going to effect what they do for you. If your O2 drops for any reason, they will address that.
My issue is that they should have addressed your concerns and treated you like a human bean and not a lab rat. You also need to understand that while everything you have posted sounds very reasonable, there are many patients that go to the hospital that are very unreasonable. The hospital will not vary from procedure no matter what anyone says. When they talk with you they are following procedure and looking for very specific things and not really just having a conversation.
People that work in hospitals have learned a lot of very specific language, both in school and much that is used only between staff. We as patients know little to none of this language and most of the time we don't need to.
Learning some key phrases can help, but they have to be the right ones at the right time.
This last week I had an appointment with my sleep Doc and started off by saying " I tend to underreport" and his reaction was totally different. He sat still and upright, looked directly at me and listened. I started saying what I thought was important and that he had been missing, when I got to "I have problems breathing when I lay down, before I go to sleep" he turned to the computer and said he was referring me to a pulmonologist "right now" as this was no longer just sleep apnea.
When I was told by the DME that it would take 10 days to 2 weeks to get my machine, I called my insurance company and started the conversation with "I just had bypass surgery last December" and told them of the delay. I got my machine the same day, after hours.
It is difficult to know what is important and how to phrase things because we just don't talk their language or just don't know. When you say something to them AND it triggers one of their warning flags they WILL take action, if not they will just continue with their procedure.
Hey PoolQ- yes, I know what the O2 monitor is- the finger clip thing they put on your index finger usually. I'll assume it was on, and will look for the readings from it when I get all of my medical records from both admissions on Monday. Yet obviously, they didn't do anything for my likely de-sats. This is again, likely a matter of what they consider the 'standard' for the "danger zone;" as many of us have read on this forum, there are docs who don't flinch when patients de-sat below 90.
You are SO right about medical professionals having their own language and key phrases! And also, the ER focusing solely on what they think is right in front of them, almost to the exclusion of missing other things that could be related. When I was headed back to the ER for the second go around, I was thinking 'if this doctor is as cocky as the one on the first admit, I'm going to tell him to leave his credentials at the door, because I have 3 masters degrees and I don't care how many letters are behind his name. I just want him to sit down on the bed and talk to me like a human being.' Fortunately, he was a humane doctor
I hope you are doing well and continuing to recover from your bypass surgery. Thank you for all of your help!
