What an incredible view of Crown Bay in St. Thomas. Just hanging out with some of the locals here on the island celebrating Easter. I wish you and yours a very happy holiday season.

So this was an adventurous trip. It was one which left me wanting more, as I stupidly forgot the beach bag in the car. So instead of relaxing and enjoying St. John, we tried to find the shopping so we could schmire around a bit.

Let’s just say that took all of ten mins. So we were on the next ferry off the island until we can return for a proper St. John Adventure!

Since we’re returning to the USVI’s for awhile, we’ll have plenty of time to explore.

So on the way we decided to stop and take a few pictures and shoot a little video so I could update my blog. In this video you’ll note in the distance and only a 45 minute ferry right away are Tortola and Joost Van Dyke.

Check out the natural wonders of the something amazing area of the Virgin Islands… you’ll absolutely love it.

If you’ve never been I recommend you researching about the Virgin Islands at USVI.net.

So we have decided to adjust our lives some so that we can focus on our family as well as begin a new adventure to re-discover ourselves on our own personal Eat, Pray, Love adventure!

So we begin in the islands and we’ll hop around an work from here. So stay tuned for some wonderful pics and videos of our upcoming adventures.

We watched wrongful death happen while begging the nurses to PLEASE call a doctor…any doctor…to no avail.?So you can understand our apprehension in having to bring Brandy to a hospital within 2 weeks of the above issue occurring while we tried to help save her mom. As her mom went into a Code Blue and began to fail…Brandy had already informed all the nurses and the doctors that she wanted to hold her mother in her arms and help her pass from this world. So as the Code was called…and they began CPR and making the attempts to revive her mother…Brandy realized that this was the moment and that her mother was not going to make. So in the moment with a rush of adrenaline, she launched herself over the bed rails…and into the bed with her mother…further injuring an old herniated disk. Her mother did not make it as they called her time of death in the wee hours of the morning at 1:55 a.m. on Jan. 2nd, 2012.

So for the past two weeks, the Sciatica continued to worsen…to the point that on Jan. 11th, 2012 a mere 6 days after burying her mother, the Sciatica became so severe that she was unable to walk anymore…and began trying to crawl to get around. Just getting to the restroom became an impossible task, requiring me to at times, carry her to her destination.

We now have taken Brandy to Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, avoiding the place where the nurses just let her mother die…only to be told that albeit she was in very severe pain…that the ONLY way they would treat her…was if she came in paralyzed. So they gave her a shot for pain (good for 4 hours) and sent her home. Obviously they want to charge us a few thousand dollars for that visit…but turned us away without finding out what the problem is…or ensuring that she received proper treatment.

Which now brings us to my rant right here in Memorial Regional Hospital South where the nurses will yell at you. That’s right, my wife was just yelled at by her nurse (Margaret – 4th Floor) because she felt she had done everything possible to help my wife. This nurse would then proceed to tell her that she would get her pillows to help make her comfortable…and after 25 mins., came back with 1 small pillow decrying they were full when the floor itself has rooms blocked off as being clean and ready for new patients. Couldn’t they borrow a pillow or two from these empty rooms until they need those rooms…and find pillows from them when they actually get real patients.

Then to try and treat her in the ER, they shoot her numerous times with Dilaudid (3X over 6 hours), when that wouldn’t work as she would scream in pain…I asked them to try Morphine instead to see if her body would respond to that pain killer instead. No dice. They said they would give her some flexeril for the spasms in her left leg where the Sciatica was giving her such severe pain. Did they give it to her in the ER…no.
Then when we got to the room, not only did her nurse get brusque with my wife…but she actually barked at her…and even said she’s never done that to a patient before. Now, I don’t know where you’re from…but that’s just wrong to have a nurse do that to you when you are in extreme pain. Yet there’s more…

After giving her the hardest pain killers that a hospital can give, the attending doctor has them give her a Percoset and an Ambien. Now, everyone else at the other hospitals were quite concerned with mixing Ambien with Dilaudid or Morphine as they were fearful of her breathing too shallow due to the narcotics being mixed with a sleeping pill. Yet Memorial Regional Hospital South tee’d her up to try and knock her out so as to try and shut her up…

They told her (as I sat and listened to this), at 3:15 a.m., that she would be due for a dose of Morphine in 30 mins, at 3:45…the nurse (Margaret) showed up 45 mins late knowing full well she was in severe pain.
Ask for some extra pillow to try and use to wedge them around Brandy’s body to help make her comfortable, that took her over an hour and a half to deliver that. I asked for bathroom access to help my wife get to so she could use it for numerous reasons (one being for her monthly visitor to freshen herself up), they never cleared out the space to allow us to do that. So we had to get a wheelchair to wheel my wife 1 hallway over to find a family restroom so she could tend to her business.

Now, if you’d like to enjoy some of the bullshit and listen to just one of the conversations regarding care from this nurse at this hospital that is seemingly cutting corners at the expense of the patient while we get stuck with a bill that can’t be argued…well just take a listen to this: Nurse Montgomery’s Excuses

We know her body does NOT react well to the Seroquel…we’ve proven that to her current Doctor.

Now how does any of this have to do with my title???

Well, the day we take Beverly out, she was indeed off the Seroquel, so she had her balance…her equilibrium. Something we all tend to take for granted. We took her to go walking at Gulf stream park to the shops and get some exercise for her while getting her outdoor with some fresh air.

So if was quite a day as we felt somewhat vindicated seeing her improvement after removing her from Seroquel.

We get home from South Beach at a reasonable hour, but I’m not feeling all that well, at all. Now, it takes a lot to really know me down, so I was a tad concerned, and bed time rolls around with me feeling not quite myself.  1 am rolls around with me rolling around in quite a bit of pain. So I got up so I wouldn’t wake Brandy up with my tossing around in the bed in pain.

It was a miserable feeling and experience and as daylight rolled around Brandy came in to find me in pretty severe pain. So we were off to see my family doctor, who is a really good General Practitioner. After getting some blood work underway, an x-ray and physical exam, the doc was pretty convinced that I had something going on with my gall bladder.

After calling in a specialist he uses to come into the office and do an ultrasound, they were able to find a 1 CM Gall Stone lodged in the neck of my Gall Bladder. Not a good thing to have going on. The doc said we didn’t have much choice, except WHICH hospital to take me to. So after 7+ hours in the ER at Broward General Hospital, I was admitted…truth is, Monday’s are quite busy for emergency rooms as I’m told people prefer not to waste their weekend sitting in an E.R., so they wait until Monday morning.

So upon getting a bed, admitted and moved into a room…the admitting Doctor came by to see me and inform me of what was wrong with me…so here goes the short list of big problems:

• 1 CM Gall Stone Lodged in the Neck of my Gall Bladder
• Pancreatitis as exacerbated by a diseased Gall Bladder
• White Blood Cell Count through the roof
• Lipase levels over 11,000 (Normal is 200-300)

Then once inside during surgery:

• Discovered what the doctor described as a very angry Gall Bladder confirming all they had found in per-op tests
• Then they discovered that I was on my way to a hernia as well, so they had to repair that as well

All in all, I have to thank my family doctor for his astute diagnosis and recommendations for handling my emergency.

I would also like to thank Dr. Ronald E. Moore M.D. and his assistant Resident at Broward General Hospital Dr. Sherwood.

I will be writing a very important follow-up piece regarding, in my opinion, patient abuse by an “on call” doctor by the name of Dr. Yvette Levy M.D. From the bed I was lying in, the experience was not only disturbing, verbally abusive by the doctor and before all was said and done with just ahead of my discharge what I would describe as physical abuse as well. Patient abuse is something that’s very serious and you as a patient have rights and need to know how to handle yourself in these situations.

I will be filing formal charges with the medical board, hospital, the state…anywhere and everywhere I have to, to keep anything like this from happening to another patient. Patient Advocacy is something that Broward General Hospital says they are proud to be a part of and that they take this seriously. I will chronicle all of the details of both the patient abuse incident as well as the actions taken by the hospital and ultimately what happens to this abusive doctor.

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This post is written as what happened to me with my illness, and the actions taken against me by Dr. Yvette Levy which in my opinion was physically & verbally abusive.

Anyway, I hadn’t heard from him in awhile, we even came into NYC where he lives and I was calling up every day to try and catch up.  No dice…as you can imagine, my messages got crazier & crazier as they went. Anyway, outta the blue…I get a call from him telling me of his 40 days at Sea.  He had flown to Finland with a crew of people to work on the technology to install SMART Plasmas (300 of them) all over the vessel. So they had just pulled into port here in Fort Lauderdale and had a weeks work let to top of issues with the ship before they begin running revenue passengers.

So we got the phone call that he could day pass us for sure, but have a bag packed standing by because they were about to do the inaugural sailings which would have us overnighting onboard. So at the 11th hour, we get a text telling us we’ve been manifested and need to get to the post as fast as possible. Once we got there, it was an amaizing experience. Period. Everything about this Ship is to be admired.

We had a wonderful time and would go back in a heart beat…and guess what…we did!  That’s right, we were hanging with RCCL management when the idea popped up as we were on the 1st inaugural cruise and being invited to just stay aboard for the 2nd cruise. You gotta love it when everything is comped, its cheaper to go cruise…than stay at home. So cruise we did.

Oasis of the Seas is more cruise ship than you can imagine. But I can tell you, there’s something for everybody on board.

The beauty of it, once our first inaugural was done, management invited us to stay on for the 2nd inaugural cruise as well. So we ended up with a 5 day/ 4 night cruise aboard the worlds largest cruise ship before the rest of the world gets to pile on and ransack that boat! It was magical. You must try it.