What with Dr. I’mnotlooking’s decision to give me no pain killers that I couldn’t just go out and get on my own without the office visit and dealing with the leftover lube they toss all around my lower extremities, I’ve been crying pretty much non stop since I left his office.
Not because he hurt my feelings beyond repair. We unfortunately live in an area rife with drug abusers and the training he has on what to watch out for sounds exactly like a real person in real pain. That’s why addicts are known to be such good manipulators and liars. I still say that you should not let your fear of abuse prevent you from treating your patients, but hey, what do I know about what his bosses are harping down on him about?
Mainly I’ve been sobbing my fool head off because I am freaked the freak right the freak out that I’ve going to have to experience every moment of every painful twinge and cramp and ache and just suffer with no relief in sight. And the amount of pain that is staring me in the face? IS TERRIFYING.
I imagine this is how expectant mothers feel about their impending labor. They’ve been pumped full of birth horror stories since they started ovulating, they don’t know when it’s going to start, but they know that it will start and that when it does the pain will be great enough to turn a beautiful loving mother into an irrational snarling she-beast bent upon revenge and destruction.
I just also have the added privilege of knowing precisely how bad this pain could get. Considering that I have vomited from the pain when I have been fully medicated, considering that while on drugs too strong for a doctor to feel comfortable dispensing to a highly coherent patient in obvious pain I had pain so great I literally, LITERALLY as in “in the literal sense”, could not breath and my heart started fluttering, considering that while on Vicodin I’ve sweated and snarled and crawled and grabbed and writhed with the best of them….
Well, there just aren’t words to describe the joyous sense of anticipation that fills my days.
I’ve been on the phone all day and night calling for medical records, calling former doctors and asking them to intervene, crying to family and friends in the medical field and asking their advice, and I think we’ve worked out a pretty good battle plan. I’m going to fill that damn Naproxyn prescription (although the pharmacist will probably just point me to Aisle 8, 2nd shelf from the top), I’m going to take it and the second I start to feel pain, I’m calling his office. If that doesn’t work I’ll go to urgent care and make him look bad in front of the emergency room doctors who will sure as hell know what Ultram is, and if that doesn’t fix it I’ll go to my family practice doctor with my medical records and demand some damn pain treatment.
Today my greatest battle is just staying calm. As any stupid person can tell you, the first thing you’re supposed to do in situations like this is….say it with me if you know the words….”JUST RELAX.” But that’s kind of impossible to do knowing what I know. It’s like trying to take nice deep breaths while you see a grizzly bear barreling towards you. But more stress is the absolute last thing I need to get through this. Besides an uncaring doctor, but that’s implied, right?