Five and a half hours and $175 later....

This morning, about an hour after Sweet Hubby went to sleep (he works overnights, not sure if I've mentioned that on my blog before), his doctor called and said that the neurologist they normally refer people to can't get us in for 2-3 weeks, but they have another neurologist that could get us in today if went right then. So I woke SH up, and we all ran around trying to get dressed and out of the house. My MIL came and picked up the kids and we left. The office is about 45 minutes away, and we got there at about 11:30am.

At a little before 2pm, we finally saw the doctor. He was, um, curt to put it lightly. He told SH that he wanted to get an EEG right then, so they ushered us into another room where they start hooking him up. At that point we hadn't eaten lunch and SH had had one hour of sleep since 8:30pm last night. And the nurse informs him that he must lay perfectly still with his eyes closed for AN HOUR WITHOUT falling asleep. Okay. This is a man who will fall asleep if he sits still for 5 minutes an hour after waking up. He was able to pull it off, I think, but only because he was starving.

The test was over at 3pm and a little after 4 we finally saw the doctor again. We had written all of the symptoms and such down when we got there, plus we had given them copies of the results of the tests SH has had so far, but the doctor acted like he hadn't even looked at any of it. He asked us several times when SH was having an MRI, like he couldn't remember it from one sentence to the next. He then tells us he doesn't know what's wrong, but then writes out a list of 3 prescriptions he wants SH to take. (As a side note, we are very skeptical of prescription drugs to begin with.) He doesn't explain what any of them are for and I'm just curious what exactly it is that he's treating since he told us he doesn't know what's wrong (he never mentioned the possibility of neuritis). He also told SH to start wearing wrist splints to help with numbness in his hands because he's probably got pinched nerves in his wrists. Which doesn't at all explain what's going on with the numbness in his feet. The doctor also had SH write out "a story" of how all this has happened and when. When SH gave it to him, the doctor started scratching stuff out. That was frustrating...I want a doctor who will take in to account EVERYTHING we say. Oh, and he never did mention anything about the EEG results.

When we finally were done with him, we went to check out where the nurse gives us the prescriptions for the drugs, the wrist splints, and a cervical collar. Um, isn't that one of those neck brace thingies?? The doctor NEVER mentioned anything about that, let alone the fact that he never discussed any of the prescription drugs with us. We have no idea what the purpose of the neck collar was.

So, after five and a half hours and $175, all we got was frustrated and a big fat headache. I hated that doctor. He was very hard to understand, which I can deal with as long as I feel like the doctor is doing his job and is actually listening. This guy was worse than another doctor that I hated...he was the one that we saw when Zachary was baby. He asked if Zachary had a list of issues and when I answered no to all of them, he said, "So. That's just how he looks?" Grrrr.

We probably should have spoken up more. But neither one of us liked him, and he never really gave us chance. I think we were both waiting for him to actually start listening and asking real questions.

Thanks for the vent. We're calling Sweet Hubby's doctor as soon as they are open to tell them and to hopefully get another neurologist. We have no intention of going back to that guy. And we didn't any of the meds he described OR the neck collar or wrist splints. I didn't trust a word out of his mouth.