In the Fucking Hospital

Yesterday was a bad pain day, and those crop up once in a while. I was dealing with them regularly while at home before the hospitalization. They usually coincided with riding. I tried to save my pills for such an event, but that was hard. It seemed like I was always in pain, and the pills only lasted for four hours. I was just deciding when I wanted relief. When I wanted to hurt. Sometimes the pain is so bad, it feels like I hurt, me, my whole being. From my head to my toes. I can't distinguish any feeling except this. Pain. Like it's always been there and will never leave.

Stanford G2P is not the best at managing pain. As I was told yesterday, and have been told in the past, they do not give out additional opioid pain meds, even to people like me who are already taking them (with a prescription from a Stanford pain management doctor).

That being said, I decided to take a chance. I went up to the nurses' station, and asked the charge nurse to contact the doctor for something. I told her I realized he/she would probably say no, but I thought I would ask anyway.

The psychiatric resident ended up stopping by my bed a few minutes later, and I took a chance and told her I was in pain.

"Is it because of your mood?" The psychiatric resident asks me.

I laugh at her bitterly.

"Is that funny?" She says.

"Yes, because the next thing you're going to be telling me is that it's because I'm a woman." Which is true. Most people with fibromyalgia are women.

"Well, it's true. Mood can impact pain." She kept saying, "I really want to help you. I know you're in pain."

But she didn't understand.

She offers me Tylenol and lidocaine patches (both of which don't help). She asked me, "What would you do at home?"

"Suffer," I said truthfully. But I'm not at home. I'm in the fucking hospital.

Eventually, I get so frustrated with her, I ask her to leave.

When she came around the second time, I had to apologize for my rude behavior. I knew it was rude, but I didn't feel it was rude.