CLEVELAND, Ohio — For nearly two weeks, Ramon lived with escalating abdominal pain that left him exhausted, frightened and searching for answers.
The 68-year-old Bratenahl resident first sought medical help earlier this year, but his condition kept worsening while he struggled to find answers. The hospital he initially went to told him it could take up to six weeks before a doctor would be available to meet with him, which is when he pivoted to Cleveland Clinic.
Ramon’s story is part of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer’s Health Care Stories series, which highlights reader-submitted experiences across Northeast Ohio — stories that, taken together, reflect the compassion, skill and heroism of the region’s health care community. To protect privacy, contributors are identified by a first-name pseudonym, along with their age and city…