Dr. Timmerman wanted me to see Dr. Kantamneni, the vascular surgeon I had worked with earlier. However, I never wanted to see Kantamneni again; he was the primary vascular doctor responsible for the past results that had set me up for the unnecessary back surgeries in 2000 and 2002. Dr. Timmerman was conscious of my concerns and reassured me: “You’re not going for surgery, so don’t be afraid. What we want is a Doppler with the treadmill test to be done.” I made the appointment with Dr. Kantamneni, but I was afraid that Kantamneni would not honor my wishes to have the Doppler test done with the treadmill – especially since I had not been listened to at any time up to this point. Fortunately, he did order the Doppler with treadmill testing; unfortunately, that did not mean that the test would be done.
When I went to St. Mary's Hospital for the Doppler with treadmill, they once again refused the treadmill test. Of course this meant that I would go through the same round of motions that I had gone through before. After the Doppler test (without the treadmill), I returned to Dr. Timmerman to report that I was denied the treadmill test, again, and again, the Doppler tests were stable. Dr. Timmerman was frustrated, and told me, “Colleen, if you want a treadmill test you need to be more assertive!” Since the tests were not of any use without the treadmill test, Dr. Timmerman sent me back to Dr. Kantamneni to have another round of tests scheduled. Dr. Timmerman had given me the confidence I needed and because I knew I had his support, I now had the guts to stand up for myself. Thinking of Dr. Timmerman's insistence that I be more assertive, when I met with Dr. Kantamneni, I insisted on having the treadmill test included in the new round of tests. When I told him that the treadmill had not been included in the test, Dr. Kantamneni seemed genuinely surprised. Knowing that he had ordered the Doppler with the treadmill test, Dr. Kantamneni grew noticeably upset and left the room in search of his nurse. I could hear him in the hallway, scolding his nurse, “I did order that test! I thought it had been done!” When the nurse came back in the room SHE seemed puzzled and frustrated. She said to me, “But you heard me order that test, right?” I replied, “Yes, I know, but Saint Mary’s won’t do them.” I found the exchange between the two very alarming, and thinking back over the years to test results that seemed very similar to the stable results in this round of reports, I wondered how many times the doctor's orders had been ignored, how many times the Doppler with treadmill HAD been ordered but had been disregarded in the lab. The nurse assured me that I would get the test done as ordered this time.
Well, she was right. For the first time since 1992, the hospital administered the Doppler test with treadmill – and the test results were very different this time! The resting Doppler test that showed stable results within limits read 1.14R/0.84L, but the Doppler with treadmill showed a vastly different picture: 0.76R/0.25L (.50 is regarded as “Severely Low”). I should note that even this reading is somewhat misleading. For the treadmill to be most accurate, the readings have to be done as soon as possible after the exercise. Because she was working alone, the nurse took longer than should be the case to turn the machine off, get me back on the table, and get the cuffs on to do the reading. It seemed that the nurse was not accustomed to doing the test. The delay allowed the blood to resume a more stable flow in my leg, which skews the readings in the same way that the resting Doppler test does. Although this was still more indicative of my condition than the resting Doppler, it is likely that the tests results would have been even worse without the delay. With this new reading, I felt torn in several ways: between joy that the test finally pointed to a clear problem; a sense of gratefulness that Dr. Timmerman had encouraged me to stand my ground; and a sense of rising fury that this test had not been done years earlier – whether it had been the doctor's fault or the hospital's protocol. This would have saved me from several surgeries, the disorienting subjection of several doctors, and the degradation of my emotional and physical lifestyle, not to mention the financial cost to me and to the insurance companies. The past decade could have been vastly different.
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