neurologist who?????

How could I forget this part. It was another strange side note in the rehab stay. On the day of the discharge we had another visitor, besides the discharge nurse. A man came into Marie's room, and introduced himself, as her neurologist. I told him he must be mistaken because we had a neurologist. No, he said, he was her neurologist. He was assigned to Marie by the rehab center, and he had been seeing her for a little while now. Marie didn't seem to know him, but you couldn't trust her memory. The reason for his visit was to give us a prescription for her anti seizure medication and to give us her follow up appointment time.

To me, he was an odd fellow. The way he talked and his mannerism. As I found out since then, it's not unusual for a hospital to assign their own doctors, instead of contacting yours. I believe it was business decision. Keep the money in the "family", so to speak. I questioned him on the prescription. It didn't say phenobarbital. It was for zonisamide. He said this new medication wouldn't affect her the saame way as the phenobarbital. I asked the discharge nurse about this man, and she confirmed, that he was Marie's neurologist.

This was just another example of the medicals making a decision without our knowledge or consent. In this case something good happened. Marie was off the phenobarbital.

We never did see that neurologist again. I checked with our family doctor who was appalled by the change. He wanted us to keep seeing the neurologist that he referred us to. And we did. But Marie stayed on this new medication. Over time it proved to be a good choice. Although, the cognizant issues remained, she came out of the stupor.