Lou Jackson

One week prior to my 4/17/13 visit at an urgent care clinic, Shawnee, Oklahoma, I was being treated for bronchitis by my family physician. I was not improving and I was unable to get an appointment with my family physician. My second choice for urgent health care was an urgent care clinic very close to my home.

On 4/17/13, I finished my workday and I knew I had to get medical care because my illness was progressing. I had a new job and was covering my position and another employee’s position. That’s why I could not call in sick to my new job and why I arrived at the clinic at 5:15 pm on 4/17/13. The 5:15pm arrival is significant I later learned, because the lab and x-ray services for this Urgent Care Clinic close at 5pm even though the clinic stays open until 7 pm.

I signed in, listed my symptoms, and signed a release to treat. I was escorted to an examination room. A woman in pink scrubs took my blood pressure, pulse oximetry, pulse and temperature and wrote down this information on the same document that I listed my symptoms on when I signed in for care. This was the same document that I signed and dated giving permission to treat.

The woman in pink scrubs left the room and next, the nurse practitioner appeared in the door of the examination room where I was located. The nurse practitioner did not enter the examination room. The nurse practitioner said to me, “if you will go and get lab and x-ray and bring it back here, I will treat you.” I was shocked. I was very sick and I was in no position to do what he requested. I needed a physical examination, a professional practitioner’s help and a treatment plan. I did not even know where to get lab and x-ray. I did not know what type of lab or x-ray to get. I have NO medical training.

I was too ill to discuss or debate the nurse practitioner’s demands and I did not know what to do, so I left the examination room. The nurse practitioner smiled and said, “No charge,” as I left.

I called my husband before I got in my car and told him that the urgent care clinic refused to treat me.

I went home, continued to take my antibiotics and also used my inhaler. I did not sleep at all and the next morning, 4/18/13, I had a new symptom, chest pain. I knew that I was in serious trouble. My husband drove me to the hospital where I was admitted and remained for eight days.

I received my “lifesaving” inpatient care from the Chickasaw Nation Indian Healthcare System. Our hospital is in Ada, Oklahoma, which is about 90 miles from my home in Newalla, Oklahoma. If the urgent care clinic nurse practitioner, located in Shawnee, Oklahoma, about five miles from my home, would have examined me and told me to go to the Emergency Department, I would have gone to the Shawnee Hospital Emergency Department, about six miles from my home, the evening of 4/17/13.

When I arrived at the Chickasaw Nation Indian Healthcare System Hospital, I told the RN during the Emergency Department triage process, that I had chest pain and he quickly took me to an examination room, started an I.V., and administered oxygen. Later I understood that the urgency was because they were ruling out a myocardial infarction (MI). I did not have an MI. My white blood count (WBC) was over 22,000 though and the second lab draw which occurred about twelve hours later identified WBCs over 33,000!!!!!

During my inpatient admission, the hospitalist (he was an MD) kept commenting about my admission WBC of over 33,000. He kept telling me, “Your white count was over 30,000!!! I did not know what a WBC of over 33,000 meant. I was so ill and I was in sinus tachycardia, needed continual oxygen to breath comfortably, had elevated blood sugars during the entire inpatient stay (I have never had elevated blood sugars) and was so extremely weak that I required assistance to walk. During the end of my inpatient stay I finally asked the hospitalist what a WBC of over 33,000 meant and he told me that I had pneumonia and that I was also septic!!!! I have since learned from my sister who is a registered nurse, exactly what sepsis is and I cannot believe that I could not even get the nurse practitioner at the urgent care clinic to listen to my complaints, listen to my lungs (my RN sister told me that I had no lower lobe lung sounds bilaterally when I was admitted to the Chickasaw Nation Hospital), touch my very warm skin, or guide me in any way to the emergent care that I needed on 4/17/13. When I was discharged from the hospital I tried to secure a copy of my 4/17/13 urgent care clinic medical record but the clinic told me that my record had been “lost.”

I have recovered completely from my physical illness, but the abandonment that I felt from the nurse practitioner lingers. I could have died and thanks to my family I didn’t die but the urgent care clinic failed me and destroyed the evidence of their neglect when they destroyed my medical record.

I hope telling this story is helpful to the good work of the Sepsis Alliance!!