Popular Dilbert comic strip creator and pro-Trump podcaster Scott Adams shared a saddening health update today. He also commented on the morass of uncertainty provided him by our overcomplicated, inefficient, and disorganized medical system.
Adams is in a Kaiser hospital in California, his second day there. Besides being partially paralyzed and badly constipated, he is struggling with his restricted ability to communicate with his many specialists or try and find one doctor to focus on managing his case.
Besides the constipation, Adams began, “[I] lost all ability to control my lower body since yesterday. I don’t know if this is permanent or if it is growing. Legs have feeling and reflex but I have no control over them except the slightest toe wiggle. This is mostly from worsened since yesterday, but the leg numbing condition started over a month ago.”
Tragically, Adams has deadly cancer. But even when it comes to the symptoms of that, he is having a hard time getting as straight an answer as he would wish. “I don’t know if the cancer or the constipation has caused the paralysis and I don’t have a doctor in charge as far as I can determine. Kaiser has a rotating group of doctors on call and they only do drive-by doctoring depending what day it is and who is on vacation,” he continued.
“I did MRI and CT scans and blood tests but have heard no diagnosis. Nor do I know when I will hear results or from whom. I only know I need one more MRI because the lower back one revealed no obvious cause,” he added.
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There is one circumstance that gives Adams hope that he could find a way to cut down on his uncertainty. “I am now in a palliative care program, which gives me a single contact nurse to help coordinate this confusion. That looks promising. Will see if that can help today,” he said.
While “I think my general practitioner, oncologist, urologist, dermatologist and a few other doctors are involved,” Adams stated, “they are only reachable by email every day or two. I’m hoping palliative care can shortcut that.” He ended by noting that he had not yet heard when his next MRI was going to be for certain, and reporting, “My pain is well controlled. But I am not allowed to use the bathroom alone, because I might fall, but I am not psychologically capable of doing it while monitored. Strongest laxatives no effect. Enema planned.”
Sadly, Adams’s experience in the disorganized uncertainty matches that of multiple of my family members and friends — and my own experience — with hospitals. That is true whether the person is in the emergency room for a temporary medical emergency or long-term care, whether the person is only moderately unwell or actively dying. It is a problem that is only going to get worse as the federal government becomes ever more entrenched in controlling healthcare, and as doctors become ever more reliant on technology and medication rather than on actual personalized care.
Obamacare, being a type of socialized healthcare, is an ongoing disaster, helping make our medical system bloated, corrupt, and much more accountable to politicians and pharmaceutical companies than to patients.
I pray that Adams receives the answers he needs as quickly as possible and better care going forward. Hopefully, exposing the problem will lead to a solution.
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