Like I mentioned two weeks ago, fridays here at Hospital Impact will be all about patient stories - both great and gruesome. Feel free to share your story anonymously (or not) - email me at tony [at] hospitalimpact [dot] org. Last week, we had some good stories about hemmorroids, hamburgers, and Harry Potter. Believe it or not, I'm not really trying to do this whole alliteration thing, but this week, it worked out again - it's all about the c's...

Like last week, it's really interesting to note that patients don't necessarily remember the care itself (unless it was bad). They remember the little special touches, the little gifts, the individual caregivers. We can systematize our care all we want, but systems can't treat people like people, only people can do that.

I'm asthmatic, and I had a pretty severe case of the disease in childhood. I don't remember most of my attacks, both because I was young and they were probably traumatic, but I do remember my last full-blown one, when I was about 7. My family was in Florida at my uncle's for Christmas, and it was probably playing on the beach in the cool (if not cold) air with my cousins and brother that set me off. My mother rushed me to the tiny hospital in rural Port St. Joe, and once I was able to breathe again, I was pretty upset about spending Christmas Eve eve and most of Christmas Eve day in the hospital. The nurses, however, were great. They kept me fed with a steady stream of coloring books and crayons, Christmas books and cookies. My mother still has the two tree ornaments they gave us, hand-painted with the name of the hospital and the date. I imagine it's quite a challenge to keep a sick kid happy when they're missing Christmas festivities, but the Port St. Joe nurses were awesome, and I was released late Christmas Eve, happy (and, more importantly, healthy).

Here's a classic one from a former patient, now med student about menstrual cramps... in her case, she definitely remembered the care. Sounds like one tough little girl who's gonna turn out to be a great doc.

Now a med student, also a patient.

At age 13, the day before the Christmas concert in which I was to sing in the choir and play in the band, which I desperately wanted to do after so much practise, I came down with terrible abdominal pain. Couldn't eat. Kept me awake at night. I wasn't much of a
complainer, but my mom unusually let me stay home that day.

The next day, I was still ill. But if I didn't go to school I couldn't be on the Christmas concert. So I gritted my teeth, and went. Fever. Chills. Not able to eat, and oh, the pain.

I did the Christmas concert, but I was as pale as a ghost, and I swayed and nearly fell off the choir stands. But I did it.

The next day, the pain headed south and to the right, and I couldn't move for the pain. My kid sister stayed home with me, but my mom, she had to work, no choice. I felt terrible about doing it, but around 3pm, I couldn't take it anymore and my sis called my mom to take me to the doctor.

We called ahead and nice old gent that he was, he slotted us right in. And he sent us straight to the children's hospital.

So we went to the ED, got looked at pretty quick (actually, bumped into one of my friends who had just broken her arm skiing, and it didn't take X-rays to say this). They asked me when my last period was, and when I said I had gotten my first period three weeks previous, they decided it was MENSTRUAL CRAMPS!!

At which point I asked for a sex change.

For heaven's sake, even I knew by this time I had appendicitis, you would have thought someone with some medical training could have spotted it.

Someone, somewhere, decided it might be something serious, so they admitted me "for observation." They sent my mom home, a 45-minute drive on a sunny day, but that day was a blizzard.

I don't know what they observed, but around 11pm they woke me (hallelujah painkillers) to tell me they were going to take me to surgery. And they asked me if I wanted them to call my mother to come back to the hospital. At 11pm. A single mother, through the snow, and what would she do with my sister? I was disgusted.

"Why? Do you think she will be any help?"