File Away…

I just realized…I’m of an age…and…no…I’m not talking about hot flashes…although…they might fit in here…I’m talking about medical records…and…no…I’m not talking about a department at the hospital…I’m talking about the file that is ever growing in my closet…

So…what is precipitating this ever expanding file…well…like most things in life…it is a multi-faceted answer…

The Chiari I Malformation started it…when I realized…that I’d had symptoms for years…and…tests…the results of which…were now lost…and…they could have been of value in determining when my brain went south…literally…you see…hospitals don’t keep MRIs forever…they usually keep a report…but…not the films…

It was then…I realized…yes…I’m a nurse…and…yes…I’ve probably told patients this a thousand times…but…it’s different when it’s you…that…I had to be my own advocate…I had to keep up with my own health information…

So…the file began…with a complete written history of my symptoms over the years…it grew fatter…with MRI results…and…then with CDs of all the MRIs…that way I’ll have them forever…you can request these…the facility may charge a small fee…but…worth it…

I know…you might expect…that I would keep those kinds of records…but…what is amusing to me…I’m starting to put things in there…that I used to just remember…like the date of my last Tdap shot…lab results…and…the name of the antibiotic…that I have an anaphylactic allergy to…

Yeah…you’d think I’d remember that name…after my lips swelled until I looked like the Aflac duck…I whelped all over…and my vocal chords swelled until I lost my voice…but…somehow…Levaquin…is a hard name for me to remember…maybe…I should write it down…maybe…I should put it in a file…oh…I just did…

So…all this rambling…is to say…that…even as a nurse…I thought keeping a medical file…was for somebody else…not for me…maybe it was for old folks…or really sick folks…but…not for me…

Now…I know…you are never too young…to be your own advocate…a lesson…I suppose…I learned the hard way…but…Bertha…says…that’s usually how I learn…as…she hits me over the head with the skillet again…do…you think…maybe…just…maybe…that caused the Chiari…she assures me it didn’t…but…I’ll add it to the file…just in case…

Hmmm…this blog certainly didn’t go the direction…that…I thought it would…oh well…they usually don’t…have a great day…be an advocate…yours…

Jane