Eff the Medical "Practice"

I need to get this out because it is driving me mad. Best way to work out emotions is to write or scream it out and seeing as how I live across the street from an elementary school I think I shall write.

I've been sick for quite some time now. Not the usual vomiting, high fever and night sweats kind of sick. In March last year I was in a car accident on my way to work. Damn old man hit me when he ran a very red light. I thought I was fine, but should have gone to the hospital (fragile things we humans are). Later that day I started feeling bad and it continued for several days. My head and neck ached a constant ache that just would not stop. I could not sleep and I could not work. Finally I got a doctor's appointment with my rather busy doctor and no one would switch their shift with me. My boss told me that I had to suck it up and work, though I could hardly do so without crying at moments. I'm not a really emotional person when it comes to being angry or sad or hurt. I keep those pretty much under control, but when I'm in pain and happen to be frustrated from lack of sleep I'm not the most sensible person. It was likely that I would not see my doctor for a few weeks after this appointment and I can't go without sleep that long (again, curse human frailties). I could not go into work that day, I just couldn't.... so I didn't. I don't know what they did to fill my empty possition and frankly I don't care. They were nice people and I was a damned hard worker. Unfortunately I was the one that everyone called when they needed a day off or someone didn't show up for work. Not cool that no one would do the same for me. So blow number one was the loss of my job, my own fault.

It wasn't like I was in any possition to be working, it turns out. My neck was messed up. x-rays showed that it wasn't broken, but the muscles were so tensed up and enflamed that my neck was perfectly straight. Now in most things being straight is a good thing, but the neck should be curved. I was pinching nerves, blood vessels, and muscles like you wouldn't believe. On came the medications. They didn't want to give me pain meds, don't know why but I think they didn't believe I was in pain. I blame druggies for that, thank you very much. So on came the steriods and other musscle relaxors. Those would have worked fine if I had been able to sleep and was not in pain. How can one get muscles to relax if the rest of the body can't? One medication after the other trying to find out just what muscle relaxor or steriod would work. It was enfuriating and it was making me ill. Finally I talked my doctor into giving me a very non-addictive pain killer that was light (I'm the kind of person that one advil kills the pain of a sprained ankle). It worked. Thank you Tramidol! It also works on RLS, if you didn't know. Anywho, that killed my pain in the neck and I felt good for oh... a month.

In July trouble started again. I had nearly gotten a job (I say nearly because the interview was great and they really liked me... then someone came along with previous experience in the feild and I was pushed aside). My husband and I went to dinner with one of his friends, it was a mexican place that we had never been to before. Things were going on like normal life and then when I got my food I suddenly felt odd. My back and a twinge in it and I winced. Ignoring it, continued to eat my chips while my food cooled enough to eat. One bite of my cheesy, greasy food and I was in hell. Pain like I had never flet before ripped through my abdomine. It was enough to get me crying... in public! I was rushed by car to the ER, where we stayed all freaking night. By the time I was seen there was no more pain, but I felt drained, so drained. They guessed it was a gall bladder attack, seeing as it suddenly started and suddenly stopped all around the time that I was eating greasy foods. I was relieved I wasn't dieing because I really thought I was but it made since. Both my parents have had their gall bladders removed after many problems with gall stones. I am over weight (ok, obese, what ever you want to call it) so it isn't much of a surprise. So they gave me information, set up an appointment for an ultra sound (In freaking December) and sent me on my way.

I changed my diet, no greasy foods, no gassy foods, and nothing that I should have ate. That didn't help. Two attacks later as I'm laying on the floor crying and mumbling incoheirently, my husband decided enough was enough and we were off to the ER again. This time I was given a simple ultra sound and they couldn't even find my gall bladder. They said that was a good thing and that it meant that it wasn't enflamed, infected or full of stones. I got a CT scan of my abdomin to back up what they saw on the tiny ultrasound machine. Apparently I was fine. No gall stones, no cancer, nothing that they could see. So something else was wrong with me. Seeing as how I had been on many many different medications and what kinds they were, they guessed I was impacted (ew, I know). So all I had to do was take lots of fiber pills and some laxitives, one big one to start the process and I'd be fine. They cancled my ultra sound appointment and sent me home yet again.

Now, if you have ever taken a strong laxitive you know what happened, if not... lets just say that you live near a bathroom for a week, in it for two days. I was sick of shit... literally! I never wanted to poo again, but there had been no "blockage" as the doctors in the ER had thought. Thinking I was cured I continued with my other diet because I found I didn't even like the smell of greasy foods. Pain happened again and again. I was done. I wanted to be dead. Several hours on the floor, drooling, dry heaving and screaming in pain is enough to make anyone wish they would just die already.

My husband hasn't just been sitting iddlely by thought all of this. Day and much of the night he spent searching everything medical on the internet and in books at the library. We belived my problem to be a hiatal hernia. Symptoms matched and it made sense. My diet changed again to very small meals that consisted of rice and bits of grilled chicken, just enough to fit into one hand. Things went well for a while. But when the pain got to be too much durring one episode, my husband whisked me away to an emergency clinic. I was seen immediately, so a doctor got to see my pain. Surprisingly enough I had asthma and have all my life, I just thought my problem was I was fat and that gave me the shortness of breath. He stuck me on a nebulizer and poked needles with who knows what kinds of medication for the pain. He said it was a hiatle hernia and that the asthma was causing the attacks to be so bad that I could have died from a stroke. I got a perscription for abuterol and some other stuff and sent home. Things went well enough, few light attacks but the constant feel that one was just around the corner made me ill all the time.

Just a few weeks ago, I had another attack. I went back to the emergency clinic and was seen again. The doctor seemed pissed, absolutely furious (we later found out he was a wack job that used to be on crack and only managed to save part of his licence due to the fact that he informed on his dealer and some owners of a whore house in New Orleans). I was given the same medications and my husband was told that if the pain did not stop in two hours that I needed to go to the ER. They believed that my stomach was caught in a whole in my diaphram (wich is what a hernia is) and if it stayed there too long the blood flow would be killed... killing me. We waited and the pain didn't go away, I wanted to die. So... again to the ER we went. They said it wasn't a hernia, they would have seen that on the CT and said it was gall stones. I was pissed. We were back where we started with no proof of anything! What the hell was all that for if what they thought they ruled out just seems to be it, but they don't want to do anything about it quite yet.

So now I am waiting for an UltraSound appointment in effing April! I feel like I'm never going to feel better, like I'm stuck in this hell of cycle of one good day for every nine miserable ones.