One of the unfortunate parts about headaches is the fact that people are continuously running out of ideas on how to get you any relief. My pain doctor told me on Wednesday that he couldn't think of anything to help me out with my pain other than continuing on my morphine treatment, even though I keep feeling worse and worse. Finally, on Thursday night, I couldn't take any more pain. My mother and I packed up and headed for the Emergency Room to see if they could think of anything tha tmight give me some sort of relief.
We decided to try the closest hospital to us since they hosted us for my last Emergency Room visit. This particular ER is also the home for our area's Trauma Center so sometimes things can get busy. When we arrived and glanced through the glass walls we soon discovered that we would be waiting for a long time if we went inside. I then made an executive decision to go to another ER.
My mother and I laughed a little as we got in the car. How many people shop around for an Emergency Room? The laughing made my head hurt even worse so I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth as we drove downtown.
Our second choice seemed to be the right one since there were only two other people in the waiting room. I was seen and taken back to a room within a matter of minutes. The longer our visit lasted, the more I was realizing that shopping around had paid off. The ER staff at ten o'clock at night seemed to be made up entirely of good looking male nurses, doctors and technicians.
No matter how terrible I feel on the way to the ER, I feel about ten times worse once I"m actually there. Having to try to get comfortable on the hospital "beds" is a task that takes long enough for me to fall asleep. And then, once I'm finally comfortable, the doctors start coming in.
This trip seemed to be especially crazy as an endless stream of doctors and nurses and administrative staff came in. People were not only coming in one after the other, but also doubling up so that I was answering questions about insurance as a nurse put in my IV. Medications were delivered and the unpleasant sensation of drugs beginning to course through my system began.
For some reason, the three medications I was given are the ones that always make me most uncomfortable. Did you know that Benedryl, when given intro-veinously, stings? That was the first medication I was given. The stinging sensation isn't enough for me to cry out in pain, but it is enough to make me grimace. And that takes a lot these days. Luckily, my nurse administered some saline right after he was done with the Benedryl and the cooling sensation of the fluid relieved the stinging almost immediately. Saline leaves a semi-coppery taste in the mouth when it is given through an IV. I am a huge fan of the saline. The cold feeling I get throughout my veins has always been coupled with relief for me since I went through a long period when I would go into the ER dehydrated from vommiting.
The saline was given after each of the medications that my nurse put into my IV. The other two that I had were Compazine and a drug called DHE (dihydroergotamine - a migraine abortive). I don't remember which order these were given in, but they made my shoulder hurt as if it were filled with fluid and also made my chest feel heavy so that I had to really focus on breathing deeply. These are very common reactions for me and, luckily, they don't scare me anymore. The saline helped a lot to fight these sensations as well.
And then, suddenly, I was left alone. Supposedly they came back to check in on me in 15 minutes, but it felt like an hour. I fell asleep and was uncomfortable and tried my hardest not to move. When the nurse came back in to check on me, I was happy to report that I had recieved a bit of relief. It doesn't seem like a very big deal to take down the pain from a 10 (unbearable pain that has you in tears) to a 7 (uncomfortable pain that is affecting your activities in a negative way) but, for me, that's all I can ask for these days. That change made it possible for me to sleep and that was enough to send me home.
We got home from the ER around midnight. I was so out of it that I walked through the door and straight to my bed to fall asleep.
One of the unfortunate things about this ER visit is that I spent all day Friday with a drug hangover. Not only did I recieve the intense medications in the Emeregency Room, but I had already taken my max amount of morphine just four hours before that. Now that my body has calmed down and my pain has leveled out, I'm still living with pain between an 8 and a 9 on the pain scale, but at least I'm not curled up on the couch in tears.
