Saturday, October 23, 2010

Pain

What a week! While I was away, a couple of my prescriptions got messed up. In short, the pharmacy didn't follow up and wasn't willing to follow instructions ("You should fax it to my doctor and you'll get a faster response"... "No, we called and left a message and they haven't called back; we'll call again"... "Really, please just fax it..." "Okay, I'll call again"... ugh!). So, when I went in on Thursday evening to follow up again in person, it was the same exchange. I asked that they call my doctor while I stood there, since I knew it was the one evening my doctor was in. Pharmacy tech: "They want us to fax the request, so we'll send it over right away, but there's no guarantee they can get to it today". Me: *Trying to avoid banging head on wall* I was asked to call yesterday afternoon if they still hadn't called me (why do I listen?). The pharmacy "hadn't heard back" and it was about 20 min after my doctor had closed (and about 40 min before I thought they closed on Fridays). Oh, and they'd actually sent the fax about 45 min. AFTER I'd been there. I think we have different definitions of "right away".

So, yeah. It still isn't done. STILL. ISN'T. DONE.

The two medications are for my chronic ice pick headache and for an autoimmune problem related to Hashimoto's (which, for most, is just hypothyroidism, but I've always got to be different). Basically, I get itchy and spontaneously start going into anaphylactic shock when I'm tired and/or stressed. So, say, if I have a stabbing headache ALL THE TIME. The allergy meds I can somewhat get around. If I practically mainline Benadryl and try and stay as calm as possible, I'm mostly just hivey and itchy. The headache? Ugh.

I know this will get resolved on Monday, but in the meantime, it's going to be a long weekend. My doctor is in a single-practice, so there's no on-call cover. And, honestly, I don't think the ER would know what to do with me (and would likely cause more stress than good). I do have pain killers I could take, but all they do is make me dopey on top of headachey. Plus, they make me tired, triggering the antibodies in my blood to start attacking and causing more allergic reactions, potentially upping the itchiness.

I couldn't tell you what I'm eating or doing, but I can tell you, it won't be much "doing" of anything. I did get out for a walk this morning around 6:30am or so. I figured I couldn't really sleep much more anyway, so might as well get out for a walk while it was still cool and not too sunny yet.

I will say that biofeedback is great for coping during moments (even if I have no idea what ever happened to my hand thermometer), but it's hard to maintain. As soon as I stop, it loses its effectiveness. Still, I foresee a lot of meditation time in the next couple days.

My monitor is set on low, but I probably shouldn't be spending much more time writing and staring at it. Still, it felt good to vent. I'm honestly beside myself at the moment. I have no idea how I went through 9 months of this while they (mis)diagnosed it prior to my neurologist recommending the headache clinic. It's enough to put a person in the loony bin.

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for your comment!