Friday, July 23, 2010

Billie Jean Is Not My Doctor

I posted this on my other blog, but it's worth repeating.

I had more injections today. First off, the woman who did my IV gave me a shot to numb my arm first. HA! I was all, "That really isn't necessary." Naturally, it didn't numb my arm, but I'm so used to needles at this point that I'm not phased regardless.

I woke up from the procedure AWAKE - I was wide the hell awake. After I told the nurse that all three of her had nice skin, I then said, "I'm way too cognizant." Also, I didn't slur the word "cognizant" - weird. I asked the doctor about it later, and he said they gave me some fentanyl, but the also gave me propofol, or as he called it, "the Michael Jackson drug." Apparently, this drug is sometimes called "milk of amnesia," which is funny because I usually forget the first hour or so after waking up, but not this.

The last two times I woke up after the procedure without my usual pain until about 6-8 hours later. Not this time. This time I felt it immediately. This freaks me out. They gave me more fentanyl in my IV before I left the hospital, but it didn't work. It's about 100 times stronger than morphine, so this is disturbing. I told them not to bother with morphine because it doesn't work.

So what happens now? The doctor wants to see me again in three weeks. If this doesn't work, they can try different injections or platelet enriched plasma. Oh good. I can't wait to be tortured some more. Oh, and my pain meds are WEAKER than last time. WTF, doctor?! I already have to chew them to get them to work fast enough, and, you know, that's disgusting, but when I'm at work and the pain gets worse, I don't have an hour or so to kill to wait for stuff to kick in, and I sure as hell can't go sit down. EVER.

Side note: I talked to my dad afterward. Laura's daughter is an NP, and she and Laura had been talking and said that at some point they won't be able to put me under anymore. Dr. Wasudev said they used the different drug this time because last time they had to keep giving me so much that if they used it again I could stop breathing, and they don't intubate for this procedure. But I've dealt with this so long that if surgery would actually help me, I'd let them do it even if they couldn't put me under. Which I know is really messed up but I just want this to be over already.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If you don't mind me asking, what kind of pain are you experiencing? I don't understand your illness.