Blog : My Testimony Part Twelve

My Testimony Part Twelve

11/23/2006 8:55 pm

Last Read:
11/23/2006 9:04 pm

To read My Testimony from the beginning please go to My Testimony and click on the links there.

Disclaimer:
I want first of all to let everyone know that what I am about to reveal is not because I am living in the past or because I am holding on to it. I am not still wearing my grave clothes, so to speak.

A testimony is simply speaking the truth of what God has done in one's life, personal experience of His love, grace, power, glory. For a biblical example of a testimony please see Acts 26:1-23

As you may recall from my earlier testimony, I started out life with ill health. After that initial medical problem I had little in the way of medical problems growing up with the exception of tonsillitis every time the seasons changed. That is until after the birth of my first child.

When my son was about 3 months old, I had to go into the hospital in Japan because something was causing my white blood cells to multiply tremendously, but they couldn’t find the problem. I ended up having to stop breast feeding him due to this and over the next several years it occurred several times more, with the cause never being found.

After I stopped breast-feeding Matt, he too became sick, and I had him in the doctor’s office or the emergency room every time I turned around for projectile vomiting and loose bowels. This continued for 4 months, with each visit ending in the same manner, put him on pedialite.

When he was 7 months old, I went to get him from his crib one morning and realized that every time he breathed out his little chest would collapse. Scared half out of my wits I made a call to the clinic and made an appointment to bring him in. The old pediatrician had been reassigned and the new one was not yet on duty, so I was given an appointment to see a family physician. As I stood in the waiting room, holding Matt in my arms, a man walked past and stopped when he noticed how Matt was breathing. He talked to me a moment, asked me a few questions and told me that he would be right back. Walking down the hall to the office of the doctor I was waiting to see, he took Matt’s chart out of the holder by the door, knocked, stuck his head in and said, “I’ve got this one.”

When he came back down the hall, he introduced himself to me as Dr. Viscardi, the new pediatrician and asked me to follow him. He made a stop by his office to drop off some things he had been carrying and then proceeded to lead me to the pediatrics’ ward where he started barking orders to the nurse’s concerning my son. Turning to me, he said he would be back in 15 minutes to see how things were going, he told me that my son had what appeared to be double pneumonia and that it seemed that his lungs were collapsing every time he breathed. He was at deaths door and they were going to do everything they could to save him.

When the doctor returned it was to find that the staff has spent the past 15 minutes poking my baby first one place then another trying to get an IV into his little arms are legs. I had been relegated to the hallway to listen in anguish as my baby screamed inside the room. In a fury, the doctor tore inside that room and asked what in the Sam Hill was going on. Upon finding out what they had been putting my baby through, he told them all to leave the room, that he would do it himself. Which he did, on the first try, in Matt’s forehead. He wrapped Matt’s little hands up loosely in gauze and pinned them to his diaper so that he couldn’t reach up and tear the IV out. Picking him up gently, he carried Matt into the room they had set up for him, placed him in the crib and closed the oxygen tent around him.

Turning to me, he told me he had been reviewing Matt’s chart and asked why Matt had been so ill with vomiting and loose bowels. I told him that I would like to know that myself and the fact that I kept bringing Matt to the experts should be proof enough for him. He seemed impressed that this 18-year-old mother didn’t back down from him, despite his being a Colonel. He asked my permission to run some tests and see if he could find those answers for both of us, which I gladly gave him.

When the tests came back, Dr. Viscardi came to me, once more in quite a tizzy. He asked me what kind of inept doctors we had around there. I told him that I, not being a doctor, had no clue. He then proceeded to tell me that Matt had a sugar intolerance, to just about every type of sugar there is. That when I had been forced to give up breast-feeding and put him on formula is when the problem had started. And that each time I brought him in and they put him on pedialite (which was just glucose with added minerals and vitamins) they had only made the problem worse. He said that after the second or third time of this they should have suspected what the problem was and done the tests to check it out, but hadn’t. Now my son had extensive damage to his lungs from the double pneumonia that could have easily been prevented, if the doctors had done their jobs.

Dr. Viscardi had me accompany him down to the office of the medical facility’s commanding officer where he walked right into the commander’s office and demanded that the previous pediatrician be reprimanded for negligence on the part of my son. He also asked that the commander review Matt’s file and further reprimands be made against all those that had seen him and didn’t do due diligence in caring for him. Obviously, he and the commander, another colonel, were already fast friends, for him to get away with this, or something.

Only one other time while we were in Japan did I ever have a problem with my children’s medical. Dr. Viscardi was on TDY for six weeks and another pediatrician was TDY in his position for that time. This pediatrician, it seems, was doing research on how parent’s in the military overuse medical privileges or some such. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, both of the kids got sick and I made an appointment and took them in to see this doctor. After seeing them he told me to take them home, there was nothing wrong with them and he wasn’t going to do anything for them. He then proceeded to tell me that I was to make an appointment with the mental health unit because I was using my children to get attention. That if I didn’t get such an appointment he would see to it that the children and I were sent back to the states and never be allowed to accompany my husband on tour again.

All of this he wrote in my children’s medical files and I went home crying with two sick children. And waited for the two weeks until Dr. Viscardi returned to take them back. Matt ended up back in the hospital with pneumonia again and Charity almost had it, she had a severe case of bronchitis. Dr. Viscardi made another trip to the commander’s office, in a fury, with me trailing behind.

Matt suffered from severe asthma during his childhood and teens due to the damage to his lungs from the bouts of pneumonia. There were many long nights when we sat in the emergency room while he had to have a shot every 15 minutes until his lungs stayed clear, then a last longer lasting shot before going home. I believe the most shots I ever remember counting was 29. Even now, as an adult, certain allergies will cause him to have an asthma attack especially bee or wasp stings or getting into nettle. He is supposed to carry one of those emergency epi pens with him wherever he goes. But despite it all he has always been active, playing all types of sports in school and out. And for the most part, he is as healthy as a horse.

Ephesians 6:13 . . .and having done all, to stand

Corporate | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use
Help / Contact | Report Abuse *Note about Numbers