A friend of Indigo Family Law spent last Wednesday in an Emergency room

A friend of Indigo Family Law spent last Wednesday in an Emergency room (he’s fine). He had just had a physical a week earlier, everything was good but his doctor adjusted a medication and added a new one.

A few days later he woke up with lightheadedness, vertigo, a raging headache and trouble catching his breath. It came out of nowhere, he ran three miles without a problem the evening before.He called his doctor’s office. He began to explain what was going on, they cut him off and said, bluntly, “Go to the emergency room if you still feel this way tomorrow.” He go through the day, ran again and felt okay, woke up the next morning feeling the same way and promptly headed to the emergency room.

That’s where our story really starts. He waited five minutes to be admitted, the staff was great, he was put in a room, hooked up to a ECG, blood pressure cuff (BP was off the chart) and waited while th e hospital got his medical history from his doctor. He saw a doctor about an hour later, a curt, no-nonsense, ‘I don’t really want to hear from you’ doctor who had one thing in mind and one thing only – our friend had something going on with his heart.

She asked him one question, “Is there a history of heart problems in your family?” “Well,” he answered, “my father died of a heart attack but -”
“Ah, I’ll order tests,” and out she went before he could finish his sentence.

Five hours and a dozen tests later, including a CAT scan with dye pumped through his heart and arteries, another doctor came to give him the results.

She was extraordinarily pleasant, conversational, a runner herself, and pleased to give him the news that his heart was absolutely perfect.
“So, I guess,” she said, “you don’t share that with your father.”
“Didn’t think I did,” he answered.
“Why?”
“Because he was a three pack a day smoker and never ran a mile in his life.”
“Oh . . . well . . . then why,” she stopped, looked through his chart, flipping pages. “What drugs were you just prescribed?” Our friend started to go through it again until the doctor cut him off with, “They gave you that? What were they thinking? Never take it again.” That was about it, he was home in thirty minutes, and back running.

Here’s the thing doctors and attorneys know what questions to ask . . . but not all of them know how to listen. In this day and age, you don’t necessarily have much say in who your doctor is but you certainly do when it comes to your attorney.

We listen . . . to your whole story.