One of the most frustrating things about Crohn‘s (especially if you have blockages and adhesions) is that you can unexpectedly end up in hospital all over the place. I had a period of a few years where every holiday was doomed to end up with me in hospital somewhere – eventually the problem was found. It turned out that there was a grapefruit sized abscess wrapped around my bowel which led to exciting impromptu re-enactments of ‘that scene’ from the exorcist.
I now have an outline of my medical history to give to medical staff on my ‘travels’. The aim of the outline is to help me remember key dates and events, which can be forgotten in the begging for morphine confusion of admission.
I have attached a draft version of the outline here to share with readers: Summary of medical history (Draft 2) in order to get some comments from you about it.
- Is there anything I have missed?
- Is there about the right amount of space or do you want more?
Medical staff often ask you to repeat your medical history as a way of:
- building rapport
- checking you are compos mentis (composed mind)
- checking that you are not suffering any ill effects of medication
- checking for delirium that comes with fever
So having an outline to hand won’t necessarily reduce the number of times you are questioned but it will make a difference when it matters.
It is also useful to have to hand so that a carer, friend or relative can give all the important details to medical staff if you are not able to coherently communicate. This can happen if you have a fever or are in considerable pain.
So do let me know what you think about the second draft version, here it is:Summary of medical history (Draft 2))
and then I will upload a final version for you to write your own outline.