So in response to a comment from Poppa where i finished off with saying that i would be out of it due to an unplanned surgery i had to remove two stones from my right kidney, though why not pass time while i am home, off work to discuss if anyone else had a disaterous time with dealing with hospitals or dealing with stones or anything like this. So last Tuesday is when i felt the symptoms of kidney pain, in the past i had stones in my left kidney, felt pain in my right and though not too much of it. Until when i went to the bathroom and noticed my urine was dark brown, last time that happened i passed a stone. Went for CT scans and had a stone in my right kidney at 4mm in size. At that size it is expected i pass that naturally. For the rest of the week i felt pain on and off, some heavy, some niggling.
Come Sunday night, started feeling more consistent pain, had some panadeine fort and went to sleep. Woke up around midnight to some really tight pain and thought maybe it might pass, got worse and worse and though yep im passing it right now. Went to Campbelltown Hospital and they went through certain protocol to determine if i was serious or not since my mum being an ex nurse for 20 years said it is common that people, particularly in certain areas, fake it to get pain meds. Even though i had scans 4 days prior it took 2 hours for them to get me into a bed, hook me up to fluids and get me morphine. They did more X-rays to see if the stones have moved, they in fact did. They only gave me 5mg of morphine, it was not enough and refused to give me more pain relief despite screaming in pain until my mum demanded fentanyl to which it was administered and i was able to relax and sleep for 3-4 hours. They got me on a chair and that is where i rested for that time as i slept. Come morning, they asked how my pain was, i said well i feel tightness but not too much at this stage. That led them to say i am good to go and 15mins after leaving and having the fluids and pain meds off me i felt the pain once again. They also, twice, gave me a suppository to move the stone so i can pass it. When i passed two in 2021, i used the same suppository and it got them out in 15mins. I had two to no avail.
Spent all Monday sleeping with Endone. Got in contact with my Urologist who wanted to see me urgently, even sent someone down to the hospital to check on me despite them already sending me home. When i saw him on Tuesday, to say he was not pleased is an understatement. He mentioned the sizes were bigger than reported, the location of the stones were wrong, the treatment of how it was dealt with was wrong where i should have been on heavier medication earlier. The size of the stones and where they were positioned meant i was not passing them naturally but the hospital went along that i could. We brought up numerous times for them to contact my Urologist to let him know i was here for stones and they ignored it even though he is the head of urology at that hospital. Had i stayed at the hospital when he got to see me i would have been moved urgently to the private hospital to prepare for surgery to have them removed. It was a cluster you know what of an experience, but then again got it sorted and my Urologist is great, he is a bit of a confident character that can come across as a salesmen but he did a great job and felt looked after, lowered the fee of his services, got me in urgently despite a 3 month wait and covered pretty much everything else on my private health insurance.
I am wondering if anyone else had a dreadful experience either with a specialist or with hospitals? Last time i went to the same hospital with stones, i had two male nurses look after me and they were amazing. Looked after me extremely well. This time around it was not great. I understand with Hospitals it can get busy and you are competing for attention with others in the hospital at the same time but there were things that were done poorly when they gave me attention. Some nurses were great, the doctor i saw was fine but seemed they did not know how to handle a stone.
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Well any injury deserves complaining. Only injuries i go throught footy or any sports were similar, sprains mainly. Fracture ribs twice and that hurt badly since it hurts when you breathe nonetheless so relaxing and resting with fractured ribs is very difficult to do.
Sorry to hear LB. I have had heaps of surgeries and not had to many problems so have been lucky, but my mum lives on the NSW south coast and every time she goes to Nowra or Wollongong hospital there are problems. She just finished cancer treatment at Nowra and some of her stories are horrific. The nurses and doctors don't have a clue and that continues through to her GP care in Jervis Bay.
Regional healthcare in Australia is very poor and relies on overseas doctors and young recruits looking to cash in on regional pay bonuses and time credited at a higher level to meet thresholds for qualifications or eligibility for unrestricted practice.
Yeah my Urologist and even GP were absolutely livid with the information they received. My GP said those were the results he was given about the size of the stones but not his fault and he was embarrassed they were wrong and was not pleased it was not checked thoroughly.
But my Urologist was absolutley steaming. First thing he said when he called me to his office was "Why did they send you home?" In other words, it was a simple we are packed as it is, you'll be right off you go so we can give a spot to someone else.
It is hard as i used to joke that if i needed urgent care, don't take me to Campbelltown take me to Liverpool and unfortunately that can be worse.
Sorry to hear about your experience's LB, I have heard how painful kidney stones can be.
I have no horror stories but I did have a fully ruptured achillies March 2020 the start of covid.
I was admitted through the private casualty at St Vincents hospital in Brisbane, only about 6 k's from where I live.
The achillies was actually broken in two and it is supposedly one of the most painful injuries you can have, I was operated on the next day after watching the Golden Slipper that saturday afternoon. The Orthpaedic surgeon one of the very best who only worked below the knee was brilliant, the Hospital and nursing staff were fantastic and honestly they gave me these really powerfull pain killers, but I didn't need them, not because I'm tough (far from it) but I just wasn't in much pain. The nursing staff said don't worry it will hit you when the anasetic wears off.... nothing happened.
I had a wonderful stay in hospital 4k private room per day with Al La Carte menu which I could phone in my order any time of the day, all courtesy of the Commonwealth Bank Health Society.
Now I only say all this because my doctor who had a wonderful sense of humour said to me or asked me, why I thought I had no pain.....I said Doc the only thing I can suggest is that I drink and smoke and have been a Parramatta supporter for over a lifetime........... after a while you never feel pain if your a Parra man.
So in keeping with my optimistic nature I thought I would tell you about a good hospital stay. LOL
Achilles i have been told is the most painful injury you can do and you are never the same from it. One player i knew did both that and ACL and said they would rather ACL any day of the week.
Well i have an update. I am better now, got stent out last friday and been cartwheeling since.
But not last weekend, the weekend before on the Saturday i started getting kidney pain again similar to a stone. Pissing blood again and my GP was like go to hospital as you should be getting better. So i had a shower with hot water hoping that can maintain the pain until my wife got home to take me to hospital. Didn't work and then got uncomfort and lightning pain in my groin from stent. Had no idea what was going on but i was so uncomfortable and in so much pain i was in tears on the floor.
Mum ended up taking me being an ex nurse she knew how to communicate to nurses what was going on and what i needed. Went straight into A&E, finally got morphine into me, the old fashioned way into the stomach like i was a wounded soldier in Vietnam. It settled and the Urologist on call that day, happened to answer to my Urologist, ordered X-rays to see what was going on. Mum though maybe due to pain killers i was that constipated it has caused issues.
So i settled they got me into a chair and said they are admitting me to see what happens and i will get a bed. Mum rang the Private Hospital, being a private patient, having private insurance and having surgery there 4 days prior. They didn't know if they could give me a bed or not. But then after i was admitted they rang back to say they have a bed on hold for me which was great. Once i got my X-rays, doctor came back to say something is blocking my urethra, it was blurry on the X-ray. So they mentioned there is a chance i could have blood clots. They then said they wanted me to stay there and not go to Private hospital.
So i settled there in the chair with my laptop watching footy and Olympics, signed the form having the public hospital get money looking after a private patient, they said i will get a TV and newspaper so though happy days lol. Got to around 10pm and hadn't eaten all day. So i had my mum get me some food despite going home 2 hours earlier, the hospital said i would get food once settled into a chair.
Come 7am the next morning, still in the chair and was fed painkillers every 4 hours, i started getting stomach pain, tried to go to the bathroom to no avail. They then gave me movocol but my body ached from being in a chair for up to 18 or so hours.
So Mum comes back around 9:30, Wife is at home resting from a tough work week and illness herself. She started to complain that i was in a chair and was not given food, plus had not seen a doctor since 7pm the night before. Come 10am, heading up to close to 20 hours being in that chair, Urologist came and said i am good to go, it was just a swollen kidney and constipation caused it to be swollen and move my stent slightly. They just said i needed to be cleaned out. Mum went to nurse manager and said if we knew it was going to be like this in a chair they would have went to the Private hospital where a bed was waiting for me, the manager replied that she did not know a bed was waiting and would have preferred that so there was an extra spot for other public patients but i was ordered by the doctor to stay where i was and didn't see them again. Plus, was backed up and chance i was from start, kept feeding my pain killers which makes it worse. Nurses were fine they just did what doctors ordered, they didn't know or diagnose me.
Come home to drinking this dreadful stuff, aches and pains in my spine and discomfort. Throwing up, sitting in the shower for comfort with the heat and just fatigued. Spent Sunday in pain with Kidney, stent and spine and body aches. It was awful.
Yet, still waiting for my TV and paper.
LB, I cannot believe the hospital system can be that bad in Sydney.
There are only two hospitals I would go to in Brisbane, That's St Vincents and the Mater.
First thing you learn is always go through private emergency, NEVER PUBLIC.... Private Emergency is about $450 visit but you see a specialist and are served almost immediately. If you need to get admitted then that emergency bill gets laid on the private hospital bill, once you are admitted everything is paid for under my private cover. If I had received your treatment they would all be looking for new arseholes, but in saying that, I have never had a complaint to make.
Last year my wife had 3 major operations at the Mater with hospital bills in excess of $100,000 the only thing I had to pay for was the bloody rip off aneasetices (spell). The rest of the staff were just legendary. All creeds and colours.
I love Sydney, i was born at Ryde Hospital but we moved to Brisbane in 1980, I could not stand going back and going what you went through. Its unimaginable to me that they could be so fcuking hopeless in your case.
PS LB,
The achillies and the way they do them now surprises me in the sense of anyone not having a full recovery. Yes the recovery period is a bastard because you cannot put any weight on it for 6 weeks and then you go into a boot for another 6 weeks, followed by heaps of pyhsio. I was driving after a week (left foot was the damaged one) and then getting around on a "Zimmer Frame" at one stage about the 3 week mark I thought I had fucked it up as I tripped on the tiles in our ensuite and thought fcuk, I have redone it. Back to the specialist and he explained why I could not have redone it. There is a special technique they use where a template is attached to the broken ends of the achilles and it is basically woven together in such a way that its is stronger than it was before, its just waiting for the scar tissue to grow over it that is time consuming, he explaining I probably just tore some of the scar tissue and that was what I felt. I might add the whole operation is done laproscopically (spell) so I have a scar of about a 1/4 of an inch where it was done. keep in mind this was done on a person 70 plus years old, so it is remarkable surgery.
If you are bored shitless one day, you can watch the operation on You Tube and you will be amazed with its efficiency. Why sportsman do not recover fully I do not understand, maybe losing pace if you are a runner or a footballer could be a problem, but otherwise its a piece of piss.
Issue is Private Hospitals here prefer you to go to public to see what the issue is as they might not be able to treat you with their facilities.
Thats what I've been told.
Every private hospital I've been too is top class, all I needed to pay was the doctor's gap.
One of my mates daughters had a tongue infection last week, couldn't eat or swallow due to pain, went to hospital and got turned away as they had no IV to give her as they wanted to prioritize other patients.
Another mate has a sister that is a nurse in ICU, nurses are so short staffed they are doing triple shifts. Nobody wants to do it due to hours and conditions and abuse.
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