Another update on my father

My father will be undergoing surgery tomorrow to remove a “narrowing” of his intestinal tract. It is uncertain what the origin of this narrowing was, but it coincided with the reaction of his pancreas to muscle relaxer medication he was taking to relieve pain from a misdiagnosed strained muscle, in reality pain from a blood clot.

So, even though he had this pain for well over a month, the medical professionals did not choose to take any data to confirm or refute the diagnosis of a strained muscle.

So, even though he was hospitalized due to a gastro-intestinal disorder, the medical professionals waited a week to take any data on the original complaint that prompted prescribing the medication that caused the disorder of the pancreas.

So, my father (and my family, and I all are) is fortunate that the blood clot did not break loose and kill him.

I am not happy with the medical profession at the moment.

Data… you need it to make any technical or scientific judgment, and medicine is indeed technical and scientific.

Please send any good thoughts you might have towards my father, who will be in surgery tomorrow evening. Thank you.

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Beware of the ‘Black Swan’ fallacy. Deductive logic is tautological; there is no way to get a new truth out of it, and it manipulates false statements as readily as true ones. If you fail to remember this, it can trip you - with perfect logic. The designers of the earliest computers called this the ‘Gigo Law,’ i.e., ‘Garbage in, garbage out.’

Inductive logic is much more difficult - but can produce new truths.

—Lazarus Long

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Doctors. That’s why I avoid them at all costs, unless I’m convinced I’m dying.

Best wishes for your Dad, Jack.

All best wishes to your father and to you and your family. I can understand your feelings toward the medical profession at this point. But don’t damn them all (I’ll do it for you). jae grenier

God Bless, Jack, God Bless you all.

Consider channeling your anger into finding a doctor who concentrates in total care with close attention to all the medications your father is taking. I still do not know if there is a name for this speciality, but I know they exist.

I hope you are okay, too.

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Philosophical disputes quite aside, best wishes, and prayers, for your father and the rest of your family. Hopefully, the MD who misdiagnosed your father’s condition will NOT be the one performing the surgery. My own father’s last bout with a surgeon left him with a bypass artery to the heart so constricted that it was impossible to insert the stent afterwards. I realize the doctors are only human… but then so too are the patients, including both your father and mine. Best Wishes to all.

Sadly, it’s the kind of thing that happens with more frequency than you would think. I’m glad they at least found the clot before it killed or disabled him completely. I would certainly advocate looking for a new doctor… difficult to do - but sounds like it’s necessary.

I had an aunt who was a nun(she has since passed away - at about 90 yrs old)… for 3 years she was on heavy pain meds - they couldn’t seem to find the reason… until the hernia she had finally stangulated and they had to rush her into surgery! THREE YEARS… But she was an old woman - no one took her seriously I think. It was one of those “it’s in her mind” things. But drugs for pain were more liberally dispensed back then. And no one thought to find another doctor to get another opinion… *sigh*

my thoughts are with you and yours. We’ll be doing this ourselves in a couple of weeks.

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