One of the more mind boggling instances of the HiQ totally blowing me off is what I refer to as the Valium story. After the initial surgery I did not have surgical drains. Drains allow for serous fluid to leave the body so that it doesn’t build up and cause complications in the tissues.
Serous fluid is the yellow sticky stuff that beads up when you scrape your knee. It’s the stuff that allows a scab to form. It also occurs when there has been damage to the capillaries. Basically your body is trying to heal itself. Mine produces a metric shit ton of the stuff. Unfortunately I didn’t know that THEN.
In the evening some time early during the first two weeks after the initial surgery I began feeling pressure in my chest. It felt like a baby elephant standing on my breasts. The pressure made it difficult for me to breathe.
So I had Ken call the HiQ’s answering service. I took off the surgical bra and laid down on my back because I thought the compression from the bra may be causing problems. I felt better and it became a little easier to breathe but I still felt pressure in my chest.
When the HiQ returned the call about 15 minutes later it was still kind of difficult to breathe. The first thing he told me to do was that I needed to calm down. I explained about the pressure on my chest and he said that I needed to put the surgical bra back on. He implied that not having the surgical bra on would make the pressure worse.
So I handed the phone over to Ken and did that. While I was occupied, the HiQ suggested that Ken should get me a Valium and that there was nothing wrong.
As I have said before, when the HiQ took the implants out he also found about 300 ccs of serous fluid in each of the pockets. That is probably what caused the pressure.
A couple weeks after that incident at a checkup one of the nurses noticed a bubble on the outside of my left breast about the size of a jumbo egg cut length wise.
Perhaps a little of it might have been anxiety. After all things WERE starting to go wrong. I’m still REALLY angry about being blown off like that though.
I also have a vague memory of him telling me that even if he had known about the fluid in the pocket there was nothing he could have done about it.
Dr. Elliott and Dr. Guy excised over 500 ccs of fluid from my back between the two of them. So how is it that someone with supposedly 15 years experience couldn’t do the same thing? It still just pisses me off to no end.
Boobcast 