Medical Frustration

Early in the week, Fio's cardiologist prepared her for eye surgery by having her hold her coumadin pills and inject herself with lovenox instead. Fio called him on Friday, the day after surgery, and asked if she could discontinue the lovenox because the shots were unexpectedly painful, so Dr. H worked out a new regimen that would take her off lovenox by Monday, although she would have to go to the ER of her local hospital on Sunday to be sure her INR was 2.0 or above.

Fio followed directions, giving herself what she hoped would be a final shot of lovenox Sunday morning, then driving off to St. D's Hospital for the INR check. However, no one knew what to do with her because Dr. H hadn't given them any "orders." The nurses finally got another doctor to write the "orders" and, about an hour later, Fio was ushered into a room where a phlebotomist took a vial of her blood. Fio protested, saying that the procedure should be a simple finger-prick, but the phlebotomist said she'd never heard of INR and that that Fio could get the results from Dr. H on Monday. Fio explained that she was supposed to get the results immediately so she would know whether or not to use lovenox in the evening, so the phlebotomist said the lab would report to Dr. H within an hour and he himself would call Fio.

Five hours later, Fiorella got hold of Dr. H on her own. Bad news--her INR is too low to discontinue the lovenox so she'll have to shoot herself up for three more days.

Fiorella is not happy on several accounts.