There I was, playing my second round of golf for the week at Drumm Farm in Independence...It was only April and I had lowered my handicap by about 3 strokes already.

I had a little headache, so I took an aspirin and kept on playing

A night later, while sleeping, my throat shut down, I couldn't swallow, I had trouble talking and breathing along with an equilibrium problem...

The next day, I called a friend of mine to help me to get to medical assistance...we went to Shawnee Mission Urgent Care at Oak Park....then the adventure began!!

Without even looking at my problem, they sent me to Overland Park Regional Hospital's(an HCA Hospital) emergency room. As I am self insured, and prefer to stay that way, I signed my papers and saw a doctor. From the beginning, I described my problem as an Infection or possibly that I had inadvertantly poisoned myself on the golf course(my lymph glands in my neck were about the size of golf balls).

During my stay in the emergency room, I was given(a figure of speech) CT Scan, EKGs, Sonigrams of the arteries in my neck, ...I repeatedly asked how much the tests were costing, but I was only told not to worry because they had the best financing and terms...when they wanted to do an MRI, I declined...when they wanted to admit me and mechanically expand my throat without a real diagnosis, I declined, signed the papers and was driven home by my friend.

The next day I was worse. I couldn't stand without holding on to a wall.

I called Overland Park Regional and told them that I thought that I did need to be admitted because my condition was deteriorating so quickly...If I tried to swallow water, I would have to spit it out and then I would not be able to breathe...I thought this was a life threatening situation....I was told that I would, once again, have to go to the emergency room.

The new doctor gave me most of the same tests I was given the day before...I had several episodes where I was unable to breathe and could feel myself trying to suck the soft palate into my windpipe...I mentioned that my equilibrium was extremely bad ...the doctor asked me if I knew what equilibrium meant..

The doctor started a monologue about how privat pay patients were "Charity Cases."

I mentioned that my voice was important to me....he seemed to scoff at that comment.

After keeping me sitting in the room for a while he said "I'm not going to admit you because you would probably not stick around for us to treat you ,anyway."

HE SENT ME HOME TO DIE!!

This is only the beginning...come back to read the next installment of this article.