Medical Mulligan indeed . Now, I�m not a golfer, but �some of my best friends are� so I feel justified in evoking this concept of a �do-over shot� . That is exactly what happened to me today, April 2, 2009 It�s a good thing it wasn�t yesterday because it would have seemed to good to be true, just an elaborate April Fool�s prank in the Ashton Kutchner �punked� style. What the heck am I talking about: NEW PEG TUBE RIGHT SIZE
Plus the entire operation experience was done over the right way in the very same place just with different players including Bev.

As you know from prior bitter email postings: The 12 FR PEG tube had been vexing me because of the operation terrible treatment and side effects of being too small. After clogging several times, or sporadically seizing up, the damn thing LEAKS at the compression/screw , spewing forth a dark stain on my white insulated undershirt and shirt. I relented and Bev fought thru voice mail and staff to get me a 7am appointment on Thursday morning at the scene of the crime: Georgetown Interventional Radiology (IR) . It looks like it will be nightmare again as I go to the reception desk and get scolded that I need to step back to this imaginary line for �patient confidentiality� where I can hear everything crystal clear anyway. Oh boy, here we go again, but NO. Both the receptionist and I are glad I need to Go across the hallway to a nicer waiting room. Here IR has filled my chart out for me, culling it from computer records, and take us into the examining room at 7:15 and then go to see what doctor will treat me. Showing uncommon good sense, the clown Karun Sharum who botched this back on March 6 is there but makes it a point to be invisible and avoid me entirely. The staff is humoring me by letting me refuse to take off my clothes and get into a gown. I unbutton the two shirts so there is clear access to the PEG, damn if I am going to be pushed around anymore. Even better, they fill out a red allergy warning tag for me with �Bullshit� on it. (But ask I not wear it there � I will save it for my PETSCAN . ) Contrast that with me being left for three hours alone and ignored in the hallway on a stretcher my first visit to IR.

We�re not done yet reliving the nightmare but this time as a dream. Who comes in to treat me but the sincere earnest stereotype of a young upper class Doctor, -the same as Dr. Carter, Noah Wylies� character on ER which by synchronicity is having its Series Finale ending the show after 15 years and he�s doing a guest shot.. He had me at �Hi, I�m Jeff, your doctor and here are copies of your barium flourscope to keep that show the before and after of your March 6 surgery Yes the amazing Doctor who spends a full hour, answering all my questions, exploring options, and treating me like a person and listening to me. Turns out he is indeed the TV version in real life. When I mentioned that I worked at IRS, he admits his taxes are complicated especially with Grandfather�s Trust Fund which is administered by a secretive bank under instructions from the will not to disclose the full principal of the Trust until he is 40 It gets better and more unreal: he was leaving Georgetown Hospital because after transferring to IR from General Surgery, He had wanted exciting work but he had only gotten �scut work�.Tthen he had a rare brain hemotoma and serious complications and the IR basically saved his life. So he�s staying and trying to be the doctor he wanted as a patient. He tells how he modifies procedures to account for the lack of followup care that Medicare won�t pay for with their elderly patients. And being assigned the cases where nobody is going to get paid, because the patient is uninsured, because they need the help. He diagnoses the problem a defective Tube. Which needs to be replaced, so why not with the bigger 14 FR I wanted.? He agrees and we then discuss the super big 20 FR, but while he prefers it and it is the best, it�s a bitch to put in right in my case with a healed 12 FR hole without more cutting. So back to the 14 FR and I take off my shirts and put on the gown, leaving on my pants, underpants, socks and Keen sneakers. They even agree to that! Wheeled into surgery immediately, right past the exact same spot where I lay for those three hours.!
Plenty of Fenatyl this time, so no real pain. Before I know it, the operation is over, and the surgeon and Super Doc Jeff are scrubbing out. Then to top it off, before I am wheeled out of surgery, the door opens and the Patient Advocate of the entire hospital whom I have been emailing constant complaints comes in and asks if I want anything.
I ask her to get Bev and bring in my blue bag that I had with the feeding bag and y extender tube to make sure everything fits. She does and Doc Jeff returns to actually put it together and take it apart for me to show how much easier this set up is than before.
I get whished to the ICU recovery where I am the most alert patient, Oh, I almost forgot, Bev got a new prescription for pain and took it to the pharmacy at the hospital but Blue Cross Blue Shield wouldn�t approve it until tomorrow since I just had one filled.
So they give us a new different one for a different pain pill so I can fill that instead.
Full service. I get some immediate morpheine and pain drip in ICU where I get completely dressed in street clothes and the released to general recovery . There everybody is still in gowns and stuck for the �mandatory two hour watch�, I�m out of there in 20 minutes after getting IV removed and discharge paperwork filled out. No need for transport or wheelchair, I get up and walk out the door with Bev over to the garage and to our car. HOME and the tube works perfectly at dinner, much faster. I should reclaim a full HOUR a day (ten minutes a can) or 20 minutes each at breakfast. Lunch and dinner. Plus big finale, I went back to the gym yesterday and lifted weights again � felt Great. Okay, time to get ready for ER finale.
The best revenge is living well or else getting a medical mulligan.
Peace and Love