Four days after my knee locks up, how are Matt and I spending this gorgeous Autumn day? First, he made me a mug of hot chocolate by melting down pieces of chocolate. Second, he\’s making omelette\’s. Third, on recommendation from the E.R., we\’re heading back to the E.R.! Because my injection site has gone entirely numb, the numbness is spreading, and I spent yesterday with chills, hot flashes, horrible pain, and terrible waves of nausea.
Hospital fun! Yay!
edit/update 11:15pm EST USA: The funny part about this visit to the E.R. was the lady in a private room down the hall, screaming for a doctor, and the C.N. (nurse) in the exam hall I was in on the phone to triage saying that I she didn\’t want to go back into the room with the lady because she was \”crazy,\” and that they needed to send \”ten men and an M.I. or a plastic bag\” in to control her.\” I think that was nurse-speak for administering a fast acting anti-psychotic and sedative cocktail by injection, or putting her in a straight jacket, but I don\’t really know. Several times, the woman came out of her private room, wandered down the hallway and fell on the floor, all the while yelling for a doctor to help her. Security kept coming and putting her back in the room. There was nothing visibly wrong with her, and I heard the nurses saying \”there [was] nothing wrong with her at all,\” they wanted to just discharge her and send her home. Too much, too much.
Anyway, we had a relatively fast in and out experience this time. Despite the nurses having told me to come in, once there, the nurses said I was feeling like shit because I\’m \”on too many medications,\” and that I should not listen to my doctors and not take some of my medications — use my own discretion — because it\’s all my medications that are giving me chills and nausea.
As for the spreading numbness around Tuesday night\’s synthetic morphine injection, the doctor said that he doesn\’t think the numbness has anything to do with the injection directly and instead is connected to the knee-locking and sciatica flare that began on Tuesday. He recommended using a heating pad on the numbness for the next few days, but \”to otherwise continue as normal.\” He then turned me back over to a nurse to get me discharged; my discharge papers say I am having a sciatica flare up and should try to not sit down or walk around much for the next 2-3 weeks, and to follow up with my regular doctors next week. When I asked the discharging nurse why my discharge papers say to lay off the activity and the doctor said to continue on as normal, she said she didn\’t know, but to follow the discharge directions instead.
God bless our wonderful healthcare system.
Now I\’m not working until Thanksgiving, I guess. Tonight would have been my other big money night, a Taint night (one of less than a dozen nights when I get tips).
No money, no problems, right?
Am I right?
