Four Days 'till ER
Version Rewritten
4:05pm
Called Kari. She left her house to come get me. I had to decide what I was going to do. ER or wait? I really didn't want to go because I knew it meant going on prednisone. But by this point I knew I had few options, if any, other options. So I waited and avoided making decisions knowing full well I would have to make them when Kari showed up. Wishing however I had someone to make them for me. I found this oximorinical because the whole time I have been saying I want to make my own decisions; I want independence. And that is not untrue. Complete confusion. That's all there was. Well, that and pain. Mostly the pain of knowing what was to come.
5:00pm - 6:00pm
Kari arrives and after gathering my life up which seemed to take a long time - was I stalling or just moving slow? - it's hard to say really and getting into her car I decided. ER. Yep. That's that. We'll go get dinner and then go to the ER. The Zantac had already started to wear off and I was in more pain than I was admitting even to myself. On the way from Aurora back to Elgin Dr. Steve called. He confirmed my shaky decision and also my fear about the steroids. Great. Well, at least I now had a medical professional agreeing with my experience and advising me to get to the emergency room. Somewhere between that phone call and dinner, I called my dad. Parents both know now and they will meet us at the hospital. Not what I wanted, but the price I had to pay for doing things the way I did. Oh well. I didn't have the strength to fight them or my pain.
6:20pm
I signed in at the desk in the ER. Just my name and birth date. How many times have I done this? I don't remember. We wait. Triage is a nightmare. Computer problems. The nurse takes my information and the thing freezes up. Have I mentioned how much I dislike computers? At that moment, I even had distain for them. All I wanted was to talk to my doctor and I had to come to an ER to do it. We had to go wait again. This was not the optimal situation. I just wanted a bed, someplace to lay down, a doctor to look at me and tell me I wasn't going completely insane. There were several moments I actually thought that might be my problem. Waiting again didn't aide that feeling.
7:15pm - 8:30pm
Triaged again. I guess they fixed the computer only long enough to get me in the room again. They entered my information and it all deleted. Poof! Great. So, I got a bed and some random person from admitting asking me questions I don't remember. The nurse came in. She was fun; can she be my best friend? Later we named her "Butcher Woman" for what she did to my veins with her dumb blood drawing incompetence. She looked at me like I was insane. Totally not what I needed; she put me in a very defensive mood. I explained, as best as I knew how, what was going on to the doctor. I maintained a rather positive attitude. I think Kari was right. I was too cheerful, too positive; I hide my pain too well. He, the doctor, said he'd call my doctor and talk to her. He did I guess because all too soon the nurse was back. to draw my blood. It was then she got the above-mentioned name. I need to remember that her job is hard and I need to be nice - but shouldn't she have listened to me when I said I was in pain? Guess she doesn't know I'm not just being a baby and that what she did hurt really badly. Someone should tell her I wasn't trying to be mean.
9:00ish
Parents come back to the area I am curtained off in. These people call this a room. I'm not sure I agree. Anyway, the first thing my mother does is yell at Kari. And then she yelled at me. Not what I needed. I tired to ignore the yelling. Did it work? I don't remember.
10:00pm
I had to give in and take the steroids. Not my idea of how the day should end, but I knew it would all along. A course of prednisone and who knows what next. That's the way it always goes. By 11:00 that night, four days after I first noticed the small patch of hives on my right hand, I was home in bed, emotionally tucked in by a trusted friend and my boyfriend, waiting for the rest of this episode to flare into existence.
DÃjà vu anyone??
Try these links to clear your head:
Am I really Bionic Woman?
What is Lupus?
A headache for 6 years?
It seems an odd order I've listed these in. Lupus in the middle of my headache. But my neurologist told me something ttoday I have suspected and not had a doctor confirm for years. The occipital nerualgia is not independet of everything else that goes on with my health. Somehow, someway, in some fashion that no doctor can yet pinpoint or connect, all of this is connceted. My head, the lupus and who knows what else. A common thread one should note on the above sites is the lack of definte answers. So, now I go through more tests. A spinal tap is likely. I'll find out tomorrow when that is. This has been challenging. But God is drawing me nearer to Him and I'm learning, in new ways every day, to depend on and trust in Him and His ever faithful and perfect plan. It's been a long day and I don't think a word was ever invented for the amount of tiredness I embody at this moment. Goodnight.