“Never argue with a fool. Someone watching may not be able to tell the difference.” - Source unknown.
Back in January of 2000, I was hospitalized overnight for observation in the aftermath of a minor stroke, a "transient ischemic attack" or TIA. It was that hospital's policy to do a chest x-ray on every incoming patient regardless of the reason for admission. Upon viewing my x-ray, they told me I had a hiatal hernia. In reply, I told them no, that I'd had a fundoplication procedure just two years before and that they'd mistaken the one entity for the other.
In retrospect, I was possibly wrong, but without a doubt, I was very, very stupid to have responded to the staff that way. It is just possible that I put my life at grave risk.
Please be warned that the next two paragraphs are quite real, but quite graphic.
Had I been thinking clearly, I would have requested that their x-ray results be forwarded to my own doctor, to my gastroenterologist for examination. It had turned out that my hospitalization in April 2013 was indeed for a hiatal hernia which had allowed my stomach to migrate upward into my chest wall and to get itself partially behind my heart.
This was dangerous for me on a whole bunch of levels because my stomach was forming adhesions to my aorta, to my heart and elsewhere. The end result COULD have been stomach gangrene in which case I would have lost my stomach, or it could possibly have led to cardiac arrest which COULD have ended my life. The surgeon referred to all of this as my having been living with a time bomb in my chest.
The key point is that having heard from that first hospital's staff years ago that they'd found something wrong with me, I should have had that message of alarm immediately communicated back to my own doctor(s) for further evaluation.
Who knows but that my surgery of that April 1st might have been less extreme and perhaps I'm just plain dumb-lucky to still be alive.
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