June 12, 2007

• Hopefully, Last Medical Entry and Thanks to All For Being There For Me...

  I feel like I reentered the land of the living yesterday.  I guess the steriods were finally able to do enough of their job to help eliminate some of the stuff that was causing me so much pain.  I would have gotten to that point a whole lot sooner if my doctor did not develop some kind of sticking point about giving me some pain medications that were more appropriate for my pain.  I have spent most of my life being a sole mother so I have gotten used to pushing through pain and illnesses to be able to care for my children.  Since I had been in the military, having family to fall back on was not always an option that was available to me.  I am a very independent woman that hates to have to ask for help for myself.......for my kids though, I will always put my pride in my pocket and ask.  I think it is a Mom thing sometimes.  I will know that I am ill but I do not realize just how ill until I am well again.  Now that I am better, I am outraged at my doctor.  I hardly ever go to the doctors unless it is to get medication like antibotics that I can not get over the counter so I have to go to him.  I thought he was the greatest doctor but this illness has changed my opinion of him.  It is my belief that because when I was in the waiting room that I did not pull a gloom and doom attitude but was talking to the other waiting patients about how the pain had dropped me to the floor and how my girls had tried to help me all told with a sense of comedy.  I even laughed about some of the episodes.....of course, it was the laugh that the Mother on "That Seventies Show" has that does not involve the back or stomache muscles.  It was that kind of HaHa laugh that is done in the throat.  When my turn to see him came and during the examination came, it was brought out about when I laughed that it caused pain.  He looked at me skeptically and I realized that he had heard me laugh without pain in the waiting area.  I quickly explained to him that there is a difference between a HaHa laugh and the laugh that comes when your sense of ridiculous has been triggered and you laugh from deep within your self....some call it a belly laugh.  I think just because I have a sense of humor and resist being ill, it tainted his medical opinion of how ill I was.  He gave me minimum care with no blood work though to be honest, I had left out how painful my neck pain was because I was afraid that he would pull my license and I would have no way home.  Bad part about living in the country is there is not public transportation and no cabs.  My Husband is a truck driver and was in Georgia and all my kids were at work......so being the Mom....I was going to tough it out again.  My doctor gave me a muscle relaxer and an antiinflammitory drug..but nothing for the pain.  I went home and essentuallly just went into a pain induced state of vegetation until my daughter convinced, cadjoled, begged, and demanded that I go to the emergency room.  I was in so much pain but had gotten stubborn about the doctor not giving me something....anything....for the pain that I was appalled that I was being treated like a drug seeker......without any foundation!  I had told him of all the pain everywhere....the only thing I left out was that I had lost the abililty to pain to turn my neck properly.  I could only turn my head from a 10 o'clock position to a 2 0'clock position and by the time I got home......11 o'clock to 1 o'clock.....that is why I did not drive after I got out of my van upon returning home from the doctors.  The emergency room gave me heavy duty drugs for the pain but did not do any blood work on me.  While I wanted the pain to stop and the drugs would do that, for a $100 I should have had blood work done since the pain that I was experiencing was out of proportion to the injury.... way out of line, especially for me since I have a high pain tolerance.  If they had done the blood work, a lot of my suffering would have been dealt with then since the blood work done on the next Monday clearly showed that something was wrong.  If the hospital had let my daughter back with me like I requested, the blood work would have been done since she had already knew something else was going on since she had cared for me the entire time I had gone to complete involuntary bedrest that the pain had reduced me to.  I wanted her with me since I knew that I was not thinking clearly and she had more facts than me since my world had been reduced to just surviving the pain and getting to the bathroom on time.  They did not bring her in until after they were releasing me.  Monday back to the doctor with even more new symptoms and this time I confessed that I had not told him all about the neck and now the swollen left leg and the jaw that hurt to open and felt like it was trying to lock up on me.  He ordered Xrays and my daughter insisted on blood work.  He was not happy but complied but we had to wait two days to get the results.  The results of the blood work resulted in me seeing a rheumitologist that afternoon after she heard what my blood work was.  I am my own worst enemy sometimes.  My daughters were with me but when the rheumitologist asked me about pain pills when she was writing out my drug scripts, I told her that I had some.  No one thought to ask how many I had.......which was two pills.  While I was on pain pills, they just made it where I could be mobile by reducing the pain.  They never completely took away all the pain.  I was OK with that since I knew that the pain pills that emergency had given me were strong pills.  I ran out of the pills and turned in to the biggest crybaby in the world....to my own horror and disbelief.....the pain was horrendous and I felt so dependent on others to even move in my bed.  My daughter call the rheumitologist but she had gone on vacation so we were told that any pain meds had to come from our primary doctor.  I have one daughter that works in a pharmacy so she checked to see if the doctor could call in a script for strong meds so that I did not have to go to the doctor's office to get the script.  Yes, but only 5 days worth.....okay by me since that would give the other meds time to do their job.  My doctor came up with one excuse after another which my daughter had the answers to until finally she got mad.  "Look, we are only asking for enough pain pills for just a few days until the other meds can get a chance to work.  My Mother is suffering and I can not stand to see her in so much pain so what is the problem!"  They sent a script.  For a non narcotic pain med that reduced the pain to barely tolerable limits.  Just enough to keep me from asking for something stronger but I feel like I am being punished.  He could have made me pain free or even a lot more pain free than I was.  I curse him in my brain for being cruel because he was wrong and something else WAS wrong with me and he dropped the ball.  I do not blame him for dropping the ball but I do not forgive him for making me suffer through pain that was not necessary.  I do not trust him anymore.  The Polmyalgia Rheumatica Arteritis picked a perfect injury to sneak into my system and remain undetected until it had a strong foothold into my system.  I resent being treated like a DRUG SEEKER  especially since there has never been indication that I could be and especially after I was diagnosed with a pain inducing illness.  So, now as I am getting better, I have the chore of finding another doctor and finding out what restrictions my insurance policy puts on me about location and doctors available.  I guess I am just confused.  I do not understand why anyone would even think that I might be a drug seeker.......or do they just treat everybody that way if they have any complaint of pain in the back or spine? 

  • 2:42 pm
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