So, you may have deduced, if you were sitting here waiting for me to actually “BRB,” that in fact it took a little longer than I anticipated. I called for dilaudid, and received it, and then needed vitals, and then blood drawn (which they always do here at 3:00 or 4:00 a.m.) and then it was time for oxycodone (they’re not percs any more because there’s no tylenol, so as to not overtax my liver, so now it’s just straight oxycodone q3h. And then I had to pee, which requires me to call a nurse or aide in here because I’m not allowed to move because standing crashes my sats and makes my heart rate soar, simultaneously. And then it was time for another round of dilaudid, which I received. And then I finally had that feeling of hunger that usually accompanies my mega-doses of steroids, but for some reason this time has not yet. So I got a few graham crackers, and ate my leftover biscuit from my KFC dinner/lunch/breakfast of yesterday. And now I’m ready to finish my bitch fest about the ER doc at the other place.
As I said earlier, the local ER is typically pretty good to me. They generally start me on the same protocol – solumedrol, rocephin, dilaudid, chest xray, and a phone call to BUD. This guy, however, seemed to have a God Complex or something, and kept kicking my suggestions to the curb. Not like living with and managing this disease for nearly 6 years now has taught me a thing about it, oh no, I’m sure his one month of general interstitial lung disease education in med school was quite sufficient and superior to anything I might have gathered from my extensive time dedicated to the subject. I needn’t worry. First, let me say I arrived there in a very sorry state. My pulse was 155-160 just sitting, and if I dared to try to move at all it jumped up to 175 or 180. They were worried about a heart attack more than anything, and I don’t fault anyone for that. It seems like a logical conclusion, and will likely actually be the case one of these times. Working so hard all the time is not really good for one’s heart it seems.
At any rate, for some reason this doc did not like the idea of prescribing pain meds, at all. He started the rocephin, and he started the solumedrol, but he refused me pain meds for many hours (four, maybe?) until finally I was crying enough that my nurse came to check on me, and I threatened (no, promised) that I was going to dig in my bag and take one of my own percs very soon because that? What they had me going through (for no good reason as far as I or any of the nurses could tell) was just cruel and unkind. But it took pitching a big ole hissy fit to get ONE FIVE MG PERCOCET from the dude. Despite the fact that I take 10-20mg every 4-6 hours at home. I’d been there four or five hours, and he was giving up one five mg perc. Better than nothing, but when I’m in an exacerbation I need more, not less, and my previous records (or a call to BUD) would confirm. But he was too good for that, for a while. It took him running all his tests and not finding anything he could easily identify, combined with many hours of needing my room and being way backed up in their ER… that *finally* got me transferred, and another crying meltdown over pain got me one more 5 mg perc for the ambulance ride to BUD.
Since arriving here at the University Hospital, I’ve been in good hands. There have been a few adjustments to the pain meds to make sure I wasn’t getting too much tylenol, but mostly I have nothing to complain about here. I have a few complaints about Jerkface, as always, who came to pick up the boys and take them back to Chicago until xmas. That will be good for me though, give me a few weeks to shop and wrap things without them being with me every second of every day, and hopefully I’ll soon be able to do that from the comfort of my Living Room. *He* is truly an idiot, and I do not know how I did not notice that as the very first thing.
Oh well, it’s time now for another round of percs and that means it’s nearly 6 a.m. and I’ve spent another sleepless night here. Oh joy. I slept one night in between though, so I don’t feel as bad as I did the other morning. And there’s always the possibility of a nap… in between pokes, prods, doctors, nurses, pain meds and management, food, and today’s echocardiogram… so yeah, probably not napping, but I can tell myself otherwise! For now I’m going to get some oxycodone and sleep til someone wakes me!
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