Shingles and addicts
I spent almost seven days in hospital. I have zero confidence in most of Trinity's doctors.
I have gone to the Emergency Department with back pain that wrapped around my torso. It was excruciating. I thought it could be my kidneys. They admitted me. They kept me on Dilauded the rest of the night. I awoke the next day still feeling terrible. That is when the Hospitalist (doctor) swept in to announce my surgeon would be by shortly to assess my lower back.
"It's not my lower back," I showed him the area that hurt, from spine to midline on my right side.
He stooped to listen to my lungs. "I understand that you see Dr Back* in a few weeks."
"Yes, for my lower back. I'm not here for that."
He left to work up consults for my lower back. This is how it went for hours upon hours, and into the next day, and the next. This pompous man refused to listen to what I was saying.
Dr Back's LNP dropped by. By then, I had a wound on my back (which I assumed to be a bed sore).
"That's shingles," she said.
Dr Hospitalist did not want to hear that. By time he returned to examine me, the blisters had curled around my side to take up residency in the quadrant. They began treating me for shingles.
The morning after that started with nurses doing rounds. I could hear them outside my room.
"We found out what was wrong with Mrs Wheeler. It's shingles."
Gasps and a few Oh no!s
"She was right," my overnight nurse said. "The blisters are exactly where the pain is."
Vindication!!!
The price paid for it is horrible. The pain is constant and, at times, overwhelming.
Oh, and they can only prescribe eight oxycodone pills. That is supposed to last me for three days.
Because opioid war.
I was not released unscathed. I bit down on a peanut butter cookie and shattered the cusp on my only lower left quad molar. It cuts my tongue.
And the tape used to cover my port caused blisters.
But all's well that ends well, right?
That was my mentality while in the hospital as well as when I left. I have cycled with the pain, as I am doing my best to only take an oxy if the pain is approaching "ER visit" levels. The Lyrica prescribed to me makes me feel drunk all day; I'm afraid to drive at times. (Note: opioids never caused me to feel stoned or out of control, with the exception of morphine and fentanyl given post-op.
This brings me to an article, "America is Losing the War on Chronic Pain", published by HealthLine a few months back.
“There’s not a lot in the media about chronic pain patients. It’s all about addiction and people abusing their pills. But there are pain patients suffering long term and they can’t get any help from the medical community. No one is willing to listen to them.”
Cindy Steinberg
National Director of Policy and Advocacy U.S. Pain Foundation
Chair of the Policy Council of the Massachusetts Pain Initiative
It feels as though we have been abandoned because people abused drugs. The equivalent is punishing every student in the class because one student pissed in the corner.
"Most overdoses from opioids are from nonmedical drug use. The New England Journal of Medicine reported that in 2014, “a total of 10.3 million persons reported using prescription opioids non-medically (i.e., using medications that were not prescribed for them or were taken only for the experience or feeling that they caused).” - HealthLine
I have digressed too much.
So I am home. My night was painful. I thought I would get rest by napping after breakfast. Nope.
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"Dr Back": I don't name people I come in contact with unless I'm referring people to them, be it a doctor or a landscape company. In the case of Trinity Hospital: it is no secret that their services are less than lacking.
