We can set up my 'medical' life in three basic time frames. There was the period from birth until around twenty when I was more or less under my parent's care. If I were in an accident, they'd decide if I needed to just 'buck up', or go to the doctor, or go to a minute-clinic, or go to the emergency room. After that there's the 'no insurance' and 'under insured' times. That's basically until I was 40. Everybody knows getting healthcare is prohibitively expensive, especially when you don't have insurance, so I'd forgo visiting a doctor or minute-clinic and only go to the ER if I were close to death. And then there's the last ten years while I have good insurance. Going to the doctor for maintenance and prevention is the primary healthcare I have.
I had my eyes surgeries as a child. Many surgeries as an infant and toddler, and a few into my school years. But these weren't urgent matters. They were scheduled visits to the hospital from the ophthalmologist. Beyond those, I only had the 'normal' childhood colds and diseases. I think the worst thing I went through was a bad case of chicken pox. And honestly, that had to be far worse on mom as my brothers and I all had it at the same time. We visited the doc for this and that's it. Like most children, I believe I was in general good health and the only healthcare outside of the surgeries and 'pox' like diseases I required was a checkup to determine if I could play sports. That's when it was codified that I have a heart murmur and wasn't allowed to play sports.
The next stage, the under-insured or no-insurance timeframe, wasn't all that bad. I think the first healthcare decision I made on my own was while I was up at Ferris State University. There was a cold going around campus and I got it. It was bad, with bad cough, sore throat, and fever. They sent out notices that we should go to the university clinic to be seen, so I did. I had no idea what it would cost, but I was miserable and was just following along with the instructions given, hoping they'd make me feel better. They didn't as it was a viral cold, but I got a breathing treatment, a doctor's note to stay out of class until my cough ended, and instructions to get my food in the main chow hall but to take it back to my dorm room.
Off the top of my head, I can only think of two other events/conditions that should have been medically checked out, but my fear of costs kept me from seeking it out. While working as a photographer I was helping load up the van for an onsite event. I was carrying our t-shirt press and while it wasn't very heavy, it was unwieldly and huge, basically blocking most of my vision ahead of me. I got it up the stairs and outside, but while walking over the stone covered walkway, my foot sunk ankle deep into a whole with the stones falling around it, locking it into place. I lost my balance and started to spin. I didn't want to drop the press as it was an expensive and valuable piece of equipment so I focused on keeping it safe... and twisted the living hell out of my ankle. I think I spun my whole body weight 180 degrees on my ankle. It hurt a lot at the time, but once I stopped moving and let the swelling come.... yeah, I couldn't bear weight on that ankle for the entire weekend.
It ended up just being a bad sprain and I was better once the swelling went down, fully healed about a month later, but it could have easily been a break. I should have gone to the ER for at least an X-Ray and maybe some crutches. Sadly, I was only earning about $20,000 a year and was having trouble paying for rent, food, and other bills. A multi hundred/thousand dollar bill from visiting the ER was just out of the question.
The other event was the car accident I was in that ended up killing Bellulah. You can read a bit about it on my original car shopping post here, but basically I was rear-ended in my 1983 Chevy Impala (no crumple zones) by a guy in a truck going over 50 miles per hour. The impact was bad enough that it bent Bellulah's frame and whipped me around pretty good. The seatbelt probably saved me from very serious injury (of course there were no airbags in 1983), but I still had a bad case of whiplash. By that evening I couldn't move my neck at ALL. That stiffness and pain lasted several days and only barely started to improve with a lot of Motrin. It took several weeks for it to improve where I didn't notice it most of the time. Like the ankle, it could have been much worse and there's no way I would be able to tell without a doctor checking it out and some imaging. I probably should have had a neck brace as it's almost impossible to NOT use your neck without a medical device holding you steady. It would have healed a lot better and a lot faster.
Beyond those events, I don't think I had need for a medical professional. Sure, I had all the symptoms of diabetes and as nursing student, I knew what that meant. But I didn't see a doc until I had insurance. This was before insurance would cover pre-existing conditions, so if I'd been seen and got diagnosed, I'd have been on the hook for all that medication and care. There were the occasional colds that probably should have been seen, but I stayed away from other people, rested, and got better on my own. And of course there were the migraines. We know they were migraines now, but at the time they were just bad, VERY bad, headaches. Some of these were debilitating, but I knew they'd go away eventually so I just toughed it out and didn't bother going to a doctor or ER.
Since getting insurance, I've gone to my doctor and several specialists regularly. If something happens, say my foot starts to hurt and I can't bear weight on it, I call my doctor's office and get seen there. IF they feel I need to go to the ER, they can send me but that hasn't happened yet. Three bad colds (including a case of COVID-19) and two cases of cellulitis in my feet are the worst, most immediate, concerns I had.
A lot of my decision making comes down to nursing knowledge. I know when something has the possibility of being an emergency or urgent, or is just something that should be checked out. For example, when I had cellulitis in my foot (either time as it happened once in each foot), I recognized that I had full range of motion and the swelling was soft. It had no indication of being a break or something more severe. The main reason I didn't just tough it out and avoid walking on the foot was fear it might be a bone infection. That can be very bad. But a quick trip to the doctor's office, an X-ray just to confirm there's no break, and a prescription of antibiotics left me fine.
As I write this out, there is one time I went to an 'urgent clinic'. I put it in air quotes because it was work related. I fell down while pushing a patient across an outdoors concred path and bend my body to protect my patient as opposed to saving myself. I wrenched my neck and shoulder pretty bad. I still avoided seeing the doctor even though my boss said I should go and get seen immediately. The next day, just a little under 24 hours after the initial event, I submitted to their pressure and went to see the work clinic. If I hadn't, I couldn't have gotten workman's compensation. And it turns out I needed it as that was several weeks of light duty. But if an accident had happened like that outside of work, I'd have basically followed the same thing, just replacing my doctor's office with the urgent clinic. That was due to work policy and not my nursing or medical knowledge.
Fast forward to June 25th. This past Tuesday. It was a fine day. Day two of NOT having a migraine. I wrote a couple good chapters of "It's a Man's World" and was contemplating writing a third. I recall the timeframe perfectly as I was taking a break from writing and was planning on waiting until after dinner. I turned on an old episode of The West Wing, leaned back in my comfy computer chair and looked at the clock, noting that it was 4:30 in the afternoon. About a half hour before I'd head out and start helping with dinner (Mom was making something easy and didn't need additional help).
At 4:45 I noticed some pain. It was in a line from my back to my abdomen on the lower left side.
To be honest, my first thought was that it was just a side effect of sustained constipation. I'm on a lot of meds that mess with my bowel habits. Some that make it loose, and some that make it hard. I won't go into more detail, but suffice it to say that I've gone through rounds of constipation where I can't "go" for days on end (my normal habit is once a day). If I get into the three day range, I know its going to either take a lot of effort or a laxative. Well, I was on day three. I'd last had a bowel movement on Saturday morning. Nothing Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday. When it had hurt before, it was in that same area. It didn't feel like the same pain as that was dull and throbbing and this was sharp, but as it was the same area I figured my large intestine was getting grumpy and I needed to take care of it.
I went into the bathroom and tried to have a bowel movement. Stupidly I went all herculean in effort to get it going. I did end up having some come out, but not a lot. And the pain continued to grow.
By 4:55, the pain was now truly bad. It was also radiating, down to my testicle and up to my chest.
A quick aside on measuring pain. Pain is whatever the patient says it is. Do people lie about pain? Sure. But it's a factor that cannot be objectively measured. There is no tool that I can use on you to see how much pain you are in. People register pain individually. If you've gone years and years into your life without experiencing a lot of pain, you might consider something fairly 'minor' as being awful pain. On the other hand, if you've experienced terrible pain, you might look at something moderate as something minor. To measure pain consistently, we use a 0 to 10 pain scale. Nurses all describe it a little different, but I always say "0 is no pain at all and 10 is the worst pain you can imagine". That's specifically to stop people from saying their pain is 11. Now there's more to measuring pain, like location, type, time, radiating, and other details, but the 0-10 pain scale is the basic.
When I say all that because you have to understand, my migraines keep me in a near constant state of pain. And not just 'hey I bumped my head' pain. In the past ten days, I've cataloged my migraine pain as anywhere between a low of 4 and a high of 7. Having a pain of 8 or 9 isn't unusual for me. And when I get that kind of pain, it lasts for hours if not days. I don't judge pain lightly and I try to be as honest as I can with myself as it leads to treatments and hopefully one day, preventative measures.
Anyway, my pain at that point, at 4:55 in the afternoon when it was "truly bad" was around a 6. A pain of 6 is enough to prevent me from doing my daily tasks. It's bearable, but just barely. The concerning part for me is that it wasn't positional based. I.e. it didn't change if I sat down, lied down on my left, right, belly, or back. I could walk back and forth and that distracted me a bit, but it didn't really lower the pain. Normally when constipation is causing pain like this, it's because the muscles in the colon are cramping up from trying to bear down and move the stool through, but being unable to. When you move around, the pain changes. This wasn't that.
And then a few minutes later, around 5:00, the nausea came on. I informed mom and R, that I wouldn't be sitting down with them for dinner. The smell of the food cooking made the nausea worse. I should say that I don't get nausea all that often. When I have a bad hangover I get nausea, but it's been years since I drank that much. Just before my GERD was diagnosed, I'd get sudden nausea that led to vomiting, but that came out of the blue, I vomited, and it disappeared. I've gotten nausea a few times with certain colds, but that's always been a low level nausea that more or less just stops me from wanting to eat. I've also gotten nausea from eating bad food but that generally comes on more gradually and I hadn't eaten anything outside of a snack in a couple hours. This nausea wasn't any of those things as it started and progressed quickly.
I hate bothering people and our house doesn't have the best layout. Our bathroom is connected to the dining room. Normally when I'm feeling this much nausea, I'd go hang out near the toilet just to have a good target for the oncoming possible vomit. But did I really want to be vomiting a few feet from R and mom when they're eating dinner? Dick move!
So, as they sat down for dinner I just paced in my room with the lid to my little trashcan open in case of the worst. The pain continued to grow in intensity and was feeling worse the more it radiated downward to my testicle and up to my chest. But understand, this was a sharp pain like a knife in my lower left abdomen and back, and then a dull pain radiating out from there.
Around 5:15 the urges to use the bathroom came on strongly. Both to urinate and to defecate. I was able to pee, but not a lot and nothing came out when I tired to have a bowel movement. But that didn't stop the urge. I honestly felt like I needed to "go" as soon as I finished trying to go. Between 5:00 and 6:00 I probably used the bathroom six or seven times, never getting any more stool out and having reduced amounts of urine on each attempt. The last time I went there were only a few dribbles.
At 5:20 I took my normal 'headache' dose of acetaminophen and ibuprofen. That's 1000mg of acetaminophen and 800mg of ibuprofen. But at 5:25, I vomited. It wasn't severe, but it was an emptying of my stomach, including the medication. There unfortunately wasn't much left in my stomach so it was also a lot of dry heaving. I was really starting to worry, but even above the worrying I realized and noted that the vomiting didn't affect the pain. It didn't make it worse or better. When you vomit, almost all of the muscles of your abdomen are used. If this were muscular pain, even internal muscular pain from my colon, vomiting should make it significantly worse.
The vomiting reduced the nausea, but it was still there and still severe enough that I didn't want to try taking any more pills. Hell, I didn't even want to take sips of water that would help with the vomit flavor stuck in my mouth. I just kept pacing and hoping I'd feel better. And then my nursing mind started to evaluate the situation.
I was experiencing sudden onset left lower back and abdominal pain. Sharp with dull pain radiating down to the testicles and up to the chest. Sudden nausea with vomiting. No positional relief.
I didn't have any nursing diagnoses, but I knew what I'd do if I were working with a patient with these complaints. I'd get them in front of a doctor IMMEDIATLY. There are many minor things this could be, but there were several severe things as well.
Three main things came to mind that were all severe and needed direct medical attention. In order of severity, there's first a bowel obstruction. It could be stretching my colon past the breaking point and might require surgery to fix. And let me tell you, I don't want to experience the worst form of obstruction where the material in the colon and intestines start to back up enough to go the other way. Yes, you begin vomiting poop.
The next two things were about equal in severity. Appendicitis, and testicular torsion. Appendicitis normally affects the right side of the body, but it can refer all it's symptoms to the left. And except for a lack of fever, this hit all the signs of appendicitis. Testicular torsion sounds and IS terrible. It's also a medical emergency. It's when the spermatic cords twist so badly that they cut off the blood supply to the testicle. It requires immediate surgery to save the testicle. Obviously this pain didn't start in the testicle, but the fact that it was hurting that bad there, along with the urgent need to urinate and defecate, and with the nausea and vomiting, it fit the bill to.
Just below those three things were kidney stones. Kidney stones more often than not come on with gradual pain, like over hours, but this still fit in with that.
A glance at the clock confirmed that it was just before 6:00. My doctor's office was closed. They have a clinic there that I could probably get in, but it's also halfway across the county. There were closer minute clinics than that.
I waited until R was done with dinner. Done eating, done cleaning up, done washing the dishes. And then I asked him if he could take me to a clinic. I chose the clinic because I'd likely be seen faster, it would cost less, and if they could do an x-ray they could eliminate kidney stones and bowel obstruction. A medical professional could also, through an examination, decide if testicular torsion or appendicitis were likely. Understand, when I say a medical professional, I don't mean anybody working in a medical career as that would include RNs, LPNs, CNAs, and even medical assistants. I mean a primary care provider. A medical doctor (MD), a doctor of osteopathic medicine (DO), a nurse practitioner (NP) or a physicians assistant (PA). These are all professionals that practice medicine above the level of a registered nurse.
By the time we got to the clinic, I couldn't stop moving. Sitting down was bad as I couldn't adjust my position enough. Laying down was worse. My pain was at a 9 as I was barely able to think through it and all of my concentration was on NOT screaming or vocalizing the pain.
The everyday part of me was quite upset that I had to fill out paperwork and give over my health insurance information before I was seen, but the nurse in me knows that if I was able to come to a clinic and not the ER or call an ambulance, then a short wait to get paperwork done isn't only okay, it's appropriate. They got me in back with a nurse in a few minutes. It was a nurse I'd worked with at the prison years earlier. I wish I could have 'caught up' with her for a bit, but I could see that she recognized how much pain I was in. She'd also seen me deal with bad migraines and knew that I have a high tolerance for pain.
She got me in an exam room and promised someone would be in to see me shortly. Two women came in after a minute or so. The first introduced herself as a PA and said she was going to let the NP in training do my exam while she watched. I had absolutely no problem with this as she'd be in the room and could step in if the NP was going in the wrong direction. The NP asked all the right questions and I could see they were working off a kind of 'cheat sheet'. It's honestly how a medical professional works in their head. If you answer yes to question one, you've eliminated causes a, b, and c. If you answer no to question two, you've eliminated conditions d, e, and f. So on and so forth.
The only examination they did was a hit to my back on both my left and right sides. I forget what it is, but there's a condition that a hit like that will cause excruciating pain. I.e., if they hit me and I screamed, it was that. She hit at my back on the right and the left and there was no change in the pain.
According to the PA, this met up with almost every indication of a kidney stone. Unfortunately, they don't x-ray capabilities which could confirm it. So, they referred me to the ER. And now we get to the title of this whole post... my first personal trip to an emergency room. I've been there with friends and many times with mom, but I've never had to go myself.
R drove me over and dropped me off at the entrance. I walked in, went through security, and got to check in. The girl there (I swear, she looked all of 18), checked me in, gave me my 'pager number' and directed me to the triage nurse. The triage nurse asked me the same questions the NP and PA had, and took a set of vitals. Of course, when taking vitals you normally have your patient sit down (it's important when reading blood pressure), but I had to ask if I could stay standing. I knew my BP would be elevated from standing, but it would be useless if I was sitting and couldn't sit still. My vitals were all just above 'normal', but I could see the triage nurses were concerned. They finished up and said I could have a seat and wait for my number to be called.
I went to the waiting area, but ended up pacing between two chairs instead of sitting. I've seen our local ER full before. The waiting area can hold about 75 people, so about 50 patients. At the time I was there, there were only four patients ahead of me. I was actually called in second and it was to a nurse who was setting me up with an IV and taking some blood. I'll say right here and now, that as a nurse, I knew they were taking good care of me at that point. The triage nurse had shared her assessment with an ER doc who ordered bloodwork and an IV. And only a person who was clearly suffering from severe dehydration was taken back before me.
The fact that they were taking it seriously was a huge relief as one of my concerns is that I'd be seen as a drug seeker. It's an honest concern. I'm not there trying to exaggerate my pain by moaning and groaning and guarding the area. At the same time, I can't keep my face calm and can't stop pacing. They were taking my claim of pain at a 9 on the 0-10 scale seriously and were going to get me checked out.
The nurse was again a little taken aback as I said I'd rather stand through the IV process. She was funny though, saying that with as short as she was and as tall as I was, it worked out just fine for her. It's understandable that she'd probably get sick and tired of bending over in her chair to start IV after IV after IV.
While she was setting up the IV, someone called out to her and let her know to take me back to a room once she was finished. That was another relief as our ER can get so busy that they'll sometimes put people in the hallway. I've even been with mom when she was put in the hallway. I'd at least get a room.
R and I got back to the room where he took a seat and I started my pacing again. R was concerned and a little upset that they hadn't offered me anything for the pain yet. But, I understood that it's premature to treat pain before you even have a guess as to what's causing it. If I'm going to head up to surgery, they'd teat the pain differently than if I'm going to be heading back home.
We waited for probably twenty minutes before a nurse came in and said the blood work had come back fine and had "some pain medication" for me. I didn't press her on what it was a she hooked me up to an IV drip of saline solution and injected it. She injected it quickly so I knew it wasn't anything really potent. When I asked, she said it was Toradol. I was happy with that as Toradol is an NSAID. Kind of like ibuprofen or naproxen, but FAR more effective. It's not an opiate medication, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work. She told me if the pain hadn't reduced in 15 minutes to let her know.
A few minutes later, a tech came to bring me back to get a CT. He wanted to roll me there in the bed, which I hadn't even sat in yet, or a wheel chair, but I asked if I could walk instead. He said that was fine and started heading back to the CT area. I tried to keep up, I really did. But I just couldn't walk fast and actually started to feel bad for the guy. Yeah, it would have been painful for me to be sitting down, but it would have taken him all of two minutes to wheel me back. As is, it took us closer to seven minutes to walk back.
I wish I could have been more present for the CT as it was my first CT scan. But having to lie down on the bench and lift my arms up over my head made my pain skyrocket. I was able to follow the instructions (take a deep breath in and hold it, now breathe out, breathe normally, take a deep breath in and hold it....) but just barely. When it was all said and done and I had to get up off the bench, I actually cried out in pain. It hurst SO bad.
By the time the tech got me back to the room I knew it was going to be hard to measure the pain. I'd dropped down from a 9 at the minute clinic to an 8 in the ER before she gave me any medication. In the minutes between her giving me the Toradol and the tech taking me back, it lowered to 7. But the CT scan, and specifically the positioning for the scan, raised it back up to a 9. The nurse came in a few minutes later and I told her my pain was at an 8. I did explain that it had lowered on the Toradol, but the CT scan made the pain skyrocket and it was only starting to come down again now. Thankfully she didn't bat an eye and said it was still uncontrolled and went to get another medication.
R mentioned how it was different than when he had his surgery. When the medicine didn't work to control his pain, his nurses said they'd have to call the doctor and see what they could do. I explained that he likely had a single order for pain management. If it didn't work, the nurse would have to contact the doctor for a new order. For me, the doc probably put in a two or three step order. Toradol, then if that didn't work, the next medication. It made sense to me as Toradol is good, but it's generally not effective for severe pain. It's great at moderate pain, not severe.
When she came in, we repeated the process with her injecting it without any complaint on my side. Only after she injected it, having taken a good long time to get it in, did I ask what it was.
For pain management, I can only imagine what I had as a child after my surgeries. Pain management is already difficult on children, let alone with the options they had back in the early 80s. For my pain as an adult, I've had dental pain treated with Norco, and my neck/shoulder work injury treated with a muscle relaxant and Norco. Norco is a mixture of acetaminophen and hydrocodone. Acetaminophen is Tylenol while hydrocodone is an opiate medication. Opiates are a big problem in America as they were consistently over prescribed and can very easily lead to addiction. They come in several levels with hydrocodone being the lowest. Next is oxymorphone, followed by morphine, codeine, hydromorphone and fentanyl. I imagined that I'd be given morphine as oxymorphone interacts with a lot of other medications and I'm on a significant amount of medication. If the morphine didn't work then they could still move up to codeine or hydromorphone which most people know as dilaudid. When people are seeking narcotics or opiates in the ER, they're most often after dilaudid. They'd probably want fentanyl but that's rarely used in an ER setting.
So, color me surprised when she said she just gave me a dose of dilaudid. That's the same medication that R had for post surgical pain. Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly appreciative that they were taking my claims of pain seriously, but DAMN!
The nurse came back after twenty minutes to reassess the pain and I told her it had reduced to a 5. More importantly, it had stopped radiating which added almost as much relief as it honestly really bothered me to have my testicle hurt that much. She left and the doc came in about ten minutes later. He said that all of my symptoms pointed to this being a kidney stone. There was a little blood in my urine which matched it, although several medications I'm on can cause blood in the urine. The problem is that there was no stone seen on the CT. His diagnosis was that there WAS a stone but I'd either passed it or it was small enough to have dissolved between the onset of the pain and the CT.
Nursing wise, this made sense to me. The scan came back normal on everything else and could eliminate appendicitis, testicular torsion, or any problem with my intestines or colon (impaction, bowl obstruction, diverticulitis...). He said he was going to send me home with some pain medication and that I could follow up with my own doctor.
He prescribed me Norco which I was fine with as I've had that at home before. When I checked in they asked where I'd like my prescriptions sent if they had any, and I told them a local pharmacy. I normally want my mail order pharmacy, but I figured if I was getting something for pain I'd need it soon. It was 9:00 in the evening when we left. R drove me right over to the pharmacy.... which was closed. Not only was it closed, it would have been closed when they received the order. Meaning it wouldn't be ready to pick up when they opened at 9:00 the next morning.
I thought about it for a few minutes and said it was okay, that I'd be fine at home. That was for a couple reasons. One, my pain was well managed at that point. Sure, a 5 isn't exactly great on the 0-10 pain scale but mentally I was more relieved that the problem wasn't something more severe or immediate. A stone had damaged my kidney and it would hurt for a few days. Easy Peasy. Two, R had some old Norco from a previous injury. Taking old narcotics isn't exactly a good idea as they lose potency over time, but they don't diminish down to nothing.
When we got home, R gave me his Norco bottle and I saw that it was 7.5 mg of hydrocodone and 325 mg of acetaminophen. The prescription I received from the hospital was for 5/325. I'd previously taken up to 10/500. The only problem with 7.5, is allowing for the reduced potency. If it was 5, I could just take 2. That way, if it was still at full strength, I wouldn't be taking more than I had in the past. But at 7.5, doubling it would take me up to 15. With their age it would probably be more like 10 or even 7.5, but I wouldn't want to risk it.
It took me forever to clean up the vomit as I'd pretty extensively missed the trashcan. Thankfully Ziggy, our old Shih Tzu, had peed so often in the house that R bought a carpet steam cleaner and I was able to clean up my room with that.
I was able to fall asleep and slept the dreamless sleep of the honestly tired.
When I woke up in the morning, the pain was back up to a 7. It was difficult to manage even as I got out of bed, was radiating down to my testicle and up to my chest, and I was feeling a little nausea. I didn't wait to see if it would get better and immediately took one of R's Norco tablets. That reduced the pain down to a 5 and stopped the radiating pain. The pharmacy called at 9:30 and said my meds were ready to pick up so I drove over to get them. I honestly shouldn't have driven as I had narcotics in my system. While I felt fine, they do affect your judgement and hand eye coordination. But I didn't want to wait for R to get up and certainly didn't want mom to try and drive over. Plus I'd have to go anyway as it was picking up a narcotic pain killer and they'd need to see my ID.
Now, when I've had narcotics before, they were 5mg norco tablets. The prescription was written "Take one or two tablets every 4 to 6 hours as needed for pain." But that was just as the whole change in medical practices against over prescription and use of narcotics became a thing. This prescription is written as "Take one every 6 hours IF needed for pain." Obviously, quite different.
I followed the instructions though, knowing that I could exceed them if it wasn't effective. Six hours after I took R's tablet, the pain was returning and I took a single Norco. Six hours later, the pain was coming back just a bit, and I took another.
While I'm happy that it is managing the pain, I really don't like taking Norco as it makes my mind fuzzy. Not as bad as my migraine's brain fogs, but it still makes thinking less than ideal.
I ended up going to sleep last night just before the six hour mark. I didn't want to 'waste' a pill by taking one just before I slept so I slipped under the covers and went to sleep before the pain came back. That was not a good idea in retrospect. I slept longer last night than I had the previous night and norco doesn't last in your system as long as dilaudid does. So, when I woke up this morning my pain was at 8 on the 0-10 scale and I had a lot of nausea. Enough that I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to take a tablet without vomiting. Thankfully I was able to get one down. That reduced the pain and the nausea, but only took the pain down to a 7. I took another a couple hours later and I'm finally sitting back at a 5. Hopefully I'll be on the same path I was yesterday and will only need one every six hours.
My plan going forward is to continue to manage the pain and wait it out. If I get to tomorrow morning and the pain isn't more fully managed on the Norco, or more ideally completely gone, I'll call my doc and set up a follow up appointment. I don't want to get into the weekend and need pain management.
Anwho, that's my ER story. B went to the ER after he broke his ankle. R went to the ER when his gallbladder was about to explode. Mom's gone to the ER many times over. I'm a little embarrassed that I went because I was in pain and didn't get anything other than some blood work, a CT scan, and a prescription for pain meds. But I'm very happy that it wasn't something far more severe.
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