Yankin' Her Covers in the ER........

"They're tryin' to make me go to rehab, I say 'No, No, NO!'"

That's the Adult Woman Child on Halloween, portraying Amy Winehouse, a troubled, drug addicted popstar, who sings the hit song, Rehab and Mother Merry Margarita, lecturing her about her wicked ways! While we took this photo in fun....it's all pretty accurate. Sad. Yet accurate.

Just so you don't think I have totally given up all the dirt on my dysfunctional family right here in this new blog in these few entries...please know that I've shared my life's stories and stuggles right along in my journals, and they were routinely read by my entire immediate and extended family for several years.

Perhaps, they think I quit writing since my AOL journal was no longer being updated regularly and maybe they forgot about it. And as such, in this transition, I've not shared info about the move to Blogger in an effort to really examine my own personal struggles of late-with those I dearly love. Even if they DID read what I now write, none of this would come as a shock and it's my perception of what I see going on around me, and again, pretty damn accurate in my humble opinion.

Soooo, now that the disclaimer has been included...here's the story.

People watchers and writers can get an amazing amount of stimulation and fodder for blogs in the Emergency Room of their local county hospital on a Saturday evening. Being both......I hit paydirt. I didn't know so much of the people watching would occur in the hospital bed at my immediate left!

After about 3 days of complaints regarding chest pain, yesterday morning Tam decided she'd really like to go to the emergency room, as the 5mg Vicodin she's been "reduced" to taking 4X daily is "not touching" the pain she's experiencing in this episode of Pericarditis.

In essence, her new doctor...compliments of our county's Medically Indigent Adult program, has recently reduced her previous daily amount of pain-killer in half. This has not made her very happy and she's admittedly resorted to staying very close to those in her circle who can supplement her supply.

For clarification, she has been in rehab several times for abuse of her pain meds of which she was prescribed 180 LORTAB at a time from Dr. Feelgood for many years. After her rehab, that he sent her to for not taking the meds as prescribed, he'd give her another bottle of 180 pills to try again! Not very smart or professional in my book. Additionally, Tam would never stay on the morphine pain patches as prescribed by the pain control specialists, as they simply didn't "do it" for her.

Pericarditis is very serious and it can be extremely painful. It is basically inflammation and fluid in the sac that surrounds the heart, and for some unknown reason, Tam gets it fairly often. For years, she's been treated for joint pain and inflammation throughout her body, which was thought to be Lupus. Now the doctors are discounting that previous diagnosis and hopefully they will ultimately diagnose what's happening. They're working on it and, considering the fact that they are "giving" her this health care until she decides to apply for SSDI, I am pretty damn impressed with the care and tests she's receiving.

So after a day of being wishy-washy about whether or not she's feeling bad enough to take the 45 mile trek down the mountain for medical care, she decides she must go and tells me to give her a 10 minute warning as to when I am actually ready to leave. I put on a little face paint and give her the 10 minute warning she's requested. One minute before I am ready to leave, she asks if we can go "tomorrow" instead. This does NOT make me happy and I force the issue. No, I said..."Enough, we're going!"

Someone has to be the responsible adult.

Geez.

Down the mountain, we discuss the fact that considering her history of pericarditis, they will probably see her right away. Wrong.

After going the gauntlet of a pan-handler, smokers and extremely scary-looking individuals; many on their last legs, at the entrance of the ER...we make our way inside about 5:00 pm. I make a comment about how I can't even go to the damn emergency room without being hustled for change and wonder why that one wasn't working the local Wal Mart parking lot like the rest of them. Probably too much competition. Doesn't she realize people that frequent the County Hospital's ER don't HAVE any "spare change?" They're POOR for God's sake. It's clear she didn't look at Tam close enough, because she's so skinny it looks like we don't have enough money to put food on the table, so how in the world would WE have spare change?

Looks like this is on the way to being a novella. Still with me?

So, Tam fills out the papers for Triage and within an hour, she's in the Triage room. Swell, things are moving right along. We're sent back to the waiting room to sit among the walking wounded. There's the woman with a possible broken leg, the crying feverish babies, the man with an incredibly abscessed tooth as evidenced by his grotesquely swollen face; that later requires surgery, victims of car accidents, assorted lacerations, and painful hernias and the two very affectionate gay guys, who tell Tam that they have both have AIDS but one is having severe complications.

The guy with the hernia went out to smoke with Tam and told her he was so tired of waiting that he was going home to call an ambulance. Trying to work the system, like many.....but I doubt it worked well there. Ask Tam!

A couple of hours later, we're called in to the back. I got excited thinking we were actually going into the ER, however, it was just the registration. As Tam is being registered, she proceeds to tell the young clerk how much pain she's in and how it's her "heart" and the lady tells her that maybe she should return to Triage and suggest they give her an EKG. Which Tam does immediately, and it does not make the Triage people happy that the admitting clerk is making medical recommendations. However, they appease Tam by giving her an EKG and because it shows ABNORMAL they calm down a bit, but they return her to the waiting room for punishment anyway.

So, about 3 hours after our arrival they call us into the back and put us in a room in the "Tot's and TWATS" section! I am not kidding. The nurse, a "Traveling nurse from Louisiana" tells us that the entire section of private rooms we're in is called the "Tot's and Twats" section due to the quiet rooms with special beds for female exams and the obvious need for more than just a semi-sheer curtain separating you from the convict and his guard in the next bed in the 'other' part of the ER. That makes Tam feel pretty special. And...the nurse goes on to tell us all kinds of personal stuff about her life, such as she's a smoker too, to which Tam relates and Tam decides she's going to be this nurse's NEW BFF!!

After Tam gives her extensive medical history to the nurse (and I mention the part Tam hates.."ummmm BTW, she's addicted to her vicodin"), and an IV is established, and blood is drawn, the resident Doctor arrives.

She stood nearly 6' tall and looked like she was maybe 22 years old and she appeared to be about 7 months pregnant. I thought to my self.....OMG how could you get pregnant during your residency? and I later say..."I bet being pregnant during residency is tough!!" To which she replies, "Yes, it wasn't planned!" with a half-smile!

I then thought, what kind of doctor has an 'unplanned' pregnancy? But, Tam and I later speculated.... as she wasn't wearing a wedding ring, that it was probably one-night stand of incredible, passionate sex with a really hot, fellow med-student in one of the hospital's dark unused closets.

Once again, Tam provides her medical history to the Doctor and obviously omits the part about being addicted to vicodin. I dutifully provide that info to the good doctor much to the indignation of my daughter, who tells me to "Shut-Up Mom!" And..then she goes on to try to justify her addiction and she sweetly asks for "something for the pain!"

The doctor agrees, and says she's going to give her "morphine" and "toredol" (sp?) and Tam gratefully waits in anticipation. However, when Tam found out that they only gave her 6 mg of Morphine in her IV....she clearly states that "it's not going to do shit" and voices her displeasure to anyone who'll listen. She then graduates to "It's NOT doing shit!" But, has relaxed and does not appear to be in any obvious distress. I sit there quietly, and listen to my iPod, thankful for modern technology.

The Doctor returns with the ultrasound machine and takes a cursory look at Tam's heart and sees "a small amount of fluid" in the pericardium, but nothing alarming. While the test is taking place, Tam continues to make her discomfort known and I try to keep her mind off it by telling a story I just heard about one of Tam's high school girlfriends who is now making 60 bucks an hour as an ultrasound tech, "specializing in scrotums." To which Tam replies..."It figures...that WHORE!" as the doctor quietly chuckled!

The doctor leaves to get her "attending" to come check out Tam's heart for good measure. In the meantime the x-ray tech arrives and Tam tells her how much pain she's in and they head off for a quick chest x-ray. Tam obviously made friends with the x-ray tech as well because she then was off to tell the nurse about Tam's pain and returned with a warm blanket and the suitable amount of sympathy.

I begin saying the Serenity Prayer quietly.

The attending doctor arrives and does another cursory ultrasound and Tam again stresses how much pain she's in, but she does not apparently show the physical distress necessary for additional medication as it's only been two or so hours since the morphine was administered. The doctor makes the same conclusion as her resident doctor and says they are now just waiting on her "labs."

We wait, and wait. And wait some more! Tam becomes increasing agitated as staff seem to make themselves scarce. She wants a cigarette. She wants more pain medication. She asks to go to her car...and is denied exit. She demands to see her nurse. She walks the hallway complaining to anyone who has an ear. SHE HAS TO HAVE A CIGARETTE AND DAMN IT THIS IS A HOSPITAL NOT A PRISON. I sit and repeat the Serenity Prayer a few more times before getting a little more specific and saying "Help ME God!" over and over.

Finally the nurse who Tam considers her new BFF comes and drags her out for a cigarette and friendly chat and they return with a calmer patient, for awhile.

We wait some more. Tam has counted the time since her last pain medication and she's going on 4 hours and starts to squawk some more. She roams the hallway looking for her nurse who is NO longer her best friend as she's disappeared. She puts out an ALL POINTS BULLETIN with the ER staff for the nurse as she MUST have some pain meds. NOW. Of course, this has the opposite effect.

A new doctor, the 3rd one of the night, arrives to talk to Tam and he asks what she wants for discharge. She explains she wants PAIN MEDS now and for her discharge, and explains that they "normally give her an anti-inflammatory, something for PAIN, and prednisone."

Quite a bit of time goes by and no one is in the immediate area and they are obviously not bringing Tam any pain medication! So she resorts to walking the hallway again, searching for staff. She finds the 3rd doctor who said.."No one's given you anymore pain medication?" as if he's ordered it and they just haven't got to it. Tam is still indignant at their "incomptence" but continues to remain somewhat in control of her emotions.

As do I. Well, except for when I verbally expressed my shock at her flipping off the doctor behind his back.

About 45 minutes later, her nurse; the former BFF arrives and is clearly irritated, most likely hearing how Tam's been behaving in her absence the last few hours. She announces how busy she's been and how the Doctor said she absolutely could NOT have anymore pain medication. However, Tam's got ammo for her since that Dr. recently acted surprised she hadn't received it yet. Former BFF nurse stomps off to research it and claims the doctor put his order for the medication in the wrong place, so it wasn't her fault! She then administers Tam "toredol" instead of the morphine she was expecting and provides Tam with her discharge paperwork including a prescription for 800 mg. Ibuprofen!!!

It went downhill from there.

I quietly said the Serenity Prayer AGAIN, while Tam carried on to an EX BFF Nurse, who said that she was displaying "DRUG SEEKING BEHAVIOR" and that the Doctor was doing the right thing. Tam demanded to see the doctor and he also said she was displaying "DRUG SEEKING BEHAVIOR" and the EX BFF Nurse chimed in and said, "Anyone who admits to me that they managed to get ahold of morphine yesterday to self-medicate is obviously someone who's in trouble with drugs!" Apparently Tam shared that juicy tidbit with her BFF nurse when they went out to smoke, never thinking it would be used AGAINST HER! TRAITOR!

The doctor then went on to say that he was concerned about her becoming one of the junkies he's treating in the other side of the ER and that while he's reluctantly going to give her 20 LORTAB for this specific episode of pain, he's going to dictate in her chart that she's a DRUG SEEKER, so it doesn't happen again.

After she got her prescription, she was still irate with the doctor for not seeing things her way and I decided to head out the ER door when the getting was good. About 15 minutes later, someone finally let her out and she was still expressing her outrage and how she'd never set foot in that hospital again.

It was a quiet ride home this MORNING and we arrived about 3:30 am before setting the clocks back. I am hoping during that quiet time she was reflecting on her behavior. I certainly was.

But, in addition I was reflecting on mine, with amazement and gratitude. I love Al-Anon!