"Poor Treatment at Edmonton's U of A hospital"

 I attended this ER for abdominal pain . I waited 7 hours to see a doctor . Upon meeting the young ER doctor, he said he had looked at my past history and formed the opinion that there was nothing wrong with me .

 I refused to accept this as he didn't even look at me . He went and got a senior ER doctor and we got into a bit of a heated discussion as to their findings which, I felt,  were outrageous . 

 I was informed they were very busy w/ flu patients and did not have time to argue with me over their decision . I begged them to give me some time of abdominal imaging and they refused and again, wanted me to leave. 

 I refused again and so the senior Dr said he would arrange for me to get a ultra sound the next day to make me happy. 

 I went and got the ultra sound the next day and the findings were that I have mesenteric panniculitis , a mass in my front abdominal wall which is causing the pain. 

 I had to wait another week with the pain to get an appt with my family Dr who said he has never even heard of this  finding and did not know how to handle it so I was referred to a Gastro Dr and to an Oncologist for review. That took months and I still had to live in pain during this entire time .

 They made a CT scan appt and that was over a 1 yr wait . I also was to get a video capsule imaging and that took over a yr and during all this time I suffered with the pain . 

 These Dr's were seemingly stressed , they were short staffed and I feel like I am a product of  Govt underfunding . I asked the video capsule nurse why it too so long . She advised its because they are only allowed to do a very limited amount and they had reached their limit early. 

 Mesenteric Panniculitis in adults is a huge cause for concern because it typically only found in adult patients with cancer and its rare .

 Even now a year later I still suffer with the effects and they are just waiting to see if there are changes and if cancer does show .

 I constantly have to wait long periods to get scans and I've even paid for 2 of my own because the wait was over a year. 

 In my experience, I feel the system failed me completely and no one apologized or told me what was wrong . 

Albertans have been promised that imaging wait times would be reduced but they seemingly went up even longer .... this system is broken and its been a huge disappointment and, in my opinion,  its all because of govt underfunding . I should never have had to wait as long as I did or have to find out what was causing all my issues and to be told there was nothing wrong with me.