Tylenol does not cure everything

CREDIT: STAT

 Yesterday, I leaned over the BBQ to get the last bits of ice to form a snowball for Hershey. Off-balance, I slid in the muck and landed on my hip. It was throbbing by time I went to my port flush appointment; the nurse there recommended I go to the ED. She called down and left my port accessed.

The had only one room - unless I wanted to wait an hour - and it had only a chair in it. I called Better Half to tell him the bay number, and then spent a good amount of time trying to get into any position that would alleviate the pressure on my nerves.

I'm usually not at the ED this early in the morning. I didn't recognize any of the staff. They have a new doctor and she didn't believe I was in pain. 

That floored me.

She put in an order for an xray of my hip, and then left me to whimper. It took Better Half pushing the call button and insisting I was in pain before any medication was given. 

To be clear, I do have preexisting and extensive damage to my L4, L5, S1 and the compromises my spinal cord. I live at a 7 on the pain scale. I can't have surgery until COVID calms down.

My xray came back; my hip wasn't broken. Well, duh. I wasn't complaining of any pain that would be associated with a broken hip. However, because my spinal cord wasn't the focus, no mention of the damage was made. They gave me a shot of morphine and refused to give me any opioids. "Tylenol will work!"

Fucking Tylenol?! Bite me.

I woke up this morning and wished I hadn't. Moving was agony. I fell in the bathroom because I can only feel searing prickles in my left leg; pee'd myself while trying to get up. So I had to clean up the pee and rinse out the panties, all while pushing back the urge to scream. 

But, hey, I'm obviously an opioid addict and Tylenol will alleviate the pain!

If there is any group of people that I have zero fucks to give about, it's opioid addicts.  Sure, I feel pity for their families because drugs ruined their loved ones' lives. But their drug abuse ruined mine. They could die from an overdose. I could die from a self-inflicted round to my head. 

I don't have the luxury of checking out early, though. I have my husband, my mom, and my dogs. We're looking to refinance the house so I can be on the mortgage in case my mom dies. We have plans for painting and making a little office area for my mom so she can write again. These are the things I live for, and the people I love. They make the pain tolerable. They matter more to me than my pain.

 

Oh! OOOOHHH! I just found this article from the ncbi.nlm.nih.gov! I have "expired" stuff going back almost ten years.