SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Well, it wouldn’t be the SSC family if something didn’t go sideways

The surgery itself went well. He had to do the most extensive procedure, which we had anticipated. But he was very positive about it when he talked to JM.

The first bit of drama came when a doctor called for someone and

It apparently sounded like our name. So JM stood up and the dr escorted him to a small room. Tells him how good “everything” went. Then he said, “I made an incision on the left side of her neck” and JM said, “Uh, you’re joking, right?” 🙄. Lord. So that dr found the right person I guess, and JM went back to waiting.

The second SNAFU (actually FUBAR) was not funny at all. Apparently my doctor is on a non narcotic kick and did not prepare me for this. So as I’m in the wheelchair literally about to roll out the door, the nurse goes over my discharge instructions and I it there absorbing this news. JM called our ds24 and asked him to go get the meds so I would have everything there as soon as I got home. I was supposed to be alternating Tylenol and toradol every three hours.

Well, there was no toradol in the bag. Called the pharmacy and they said the insurance didn’t cover it so they didn’t fill it. They didn’t say a word to ds about it. The nerve block was wearing off and I cried for about an hour straight. So that was really fun.

This morning is much better.

So happy you are better this morning!

The med mess up isn't funny one bit. Maybe if more doctors went through the procedures they do they'd realize that pain relief results in better healing and mental health of the patient.

Hopefully this is the beginning of a journey back to pain free walking. Praying for you hun.

Sweet Jesus, this whole no opioids is nonsense. I hope you are able to tolerate the pain w/ the current combo. I had the same thing w/ not getting meds and the pharmacy not saying anything about it in my pre-procedure meds.
It took no less than 5 trips to Walgreens for them to get it all done. It was complicated, and many meds. But come on. I had to finally get a Pharmacist and talk to her to get it all straight. Pharmacies are ridiculously understaffed and don't care anymore. I deal w/ it often in my job when patients go home and they can't get the meds because the pharmacy doesn't have a pharmacist working on weekends.

Ice elevate, and take care of yourself.

Hope you have a smooth recovery!! Take care of yourself.

aw honey ((((HF))))

I'm sorry you have had to go through all this. And ya, the pendulum on opioids has swung to far the other way....

Take care, have everyone wait on you hand and foot. Sending out strength, love, and healing MOJO!!!!

((((HF))))

Glad it's over for you! I hope the pain goes away.

I'm with Tush -- why do they think we will 'get hooked' on 4-5 pain pills, just to get us through the pain after surgery. I always want to tell them to stick the TYLENOL where the sun don't shine. I have a high tolerance for pain but after the lung surgery, I would have traded my car, my house, all I had -- for a couple of pain pills! And don't get me started on insurance companies who clearly practice medicine without a license! I am recovering from pneumonia and have had pain in my lung (what's left of it!) and I even had to almost BEG for juice to go in my nebulizer machine to BREATHE. I didn't even bother to ask for something for pain.

Hang in there! As my sweet Dad used to say ...'this too shall pass.'

This opiate stuff is crazy. I believe pain makes it harder to heal. Keeping you in my prayers.

The nurse practitioner called me to check on me and she ended up sending oxycodone. So alternating that with Tylenol and toradol gives me something every 2 hours. Pain is much better now.

But my word skills are a bit challenged 😂

I'm so glad that you got more appropriate pain management meds. Hang in there and I hope you will be better soon!!

((((HF))))

I'm so glad the nurse gave you the meds you need. I think nurses should be running the show lol

Glad the pain is under some control. I'm glad the surgery went well. Let's raise a glass of vlean spring water to a quick, complete recovery.

Rant:

Pendulum swings are very human but so incredibly stupid.

I agree that the Pharma industry has caused tremendous damage with opioids, but the solution isn't to scare docs out of prescribing them when appropriate.

I remember after my son had knee surgery and was recovering in hospital, a nurse asked him the 'scale of 1-10' question without any frame of reference except 0 and 10. How was son to know what any number meant? With an active imagination, son said '5'. Nurse reduced his drip. On a holiday, when the surgeon was hard to reach. With the reduced drip, son exhibited the outward signs of 9-10, which we told him to call '10', and they wouldn't increase the drip without the surgeon's say so.

That was 30 years ago at Chicago's Rush hospital, supposedly a great hospital.

It's not nurses vs. docs here. I don't know how to describe what we need - competence, sensitivity? - but some people have it, and some don't. Some managements make reasonable rules; some don't. And some recipients of services are reasonable; some aren't.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:58 PM, Wednesday, November 9th]

Glad you got a nurse who knew what needed to happen, and made it happen.

We can’t post links here, but Google the publication Wired, and the article headline,’The Pain Was Unbearable. So Why Did Doctors Turn Her Away’.

It’s a very complicated situation that’s fueled by the opioid overdose epidemic, but women are being denied pain killers more than men, although 2/3 of opioid addicts are men. And if you have a history of PTSD (and who here hasn’t?), you’re more at risk of being denied pain meds. One company, Appriss, has the monopoly on a sweeping drug addiction risk algorithm, which is interfering with health care providers making decisions with their patients.

Read the article; you will be floored, especially if you’re female.

Read the article; you will be floored, especially if you’re female.

Sorry for a bit of a rant but this is nothing new.

How many gyno procedures are there that are painful as fuck and yet we are told to take some Tylenol beforehand and given nothing during or after while a man gets an office vasectomy and is given a boat load of pain relief???

I had a uterine suspension and yet given no after surgery pain relief. I expressed concerns about extreme pain and incontinence afterwards and wad told its just in my head. 20 years later and i still double over in pain when i gotta pee!!!. I had 3 c sections and minimal pain meds...even after the last one where they had to cut me open right across as if cutting me in half!

I've seen videos of woman crying because no doctor will take their pain seriously and by the time they find one that will listen they have stage 4 cancer and are fucked!

There are thousands upon thousands of horror stories of woman not getting their pain taken seriously.

Ok rant over.

So much to comment on.

First of all, I am doing much better than I anticipated. Waking up is the worst because I’m actually sleeping better than I have in a very long time. And honestly my sleep is more important to me than the pain if that makes any sense. I’m sitting up now waiting for the stuff I took to take effect, and it’s not very much worse than how I felt at the end of a day. That’s very encouraging to me.

Second… I’m already bored out of my mind, lol.

Third… yeah, the whole pain management and OPIOID EPIDEMIC!!!!!!!!!11!!!!!!!1 thing has just gotten beyond ridiculous. I got 15 Tylenol #3 pills and it came with a side of Narcan.

Nobody is overdosing on Tylenol 3. You know why? Because they’ll die of acetaminophen poisoning and liver failure before they come close to a toxic amount of codeine. But the docs are required to order it with every single opioid prescription. We have to do that in the nursing home too. Like, dude, we have licensed nurses administering this medication from a locked drawer inside a locked cart. WTF do you think goes on here?

I read that article and it makes some things make sense. A couple of years ago JM had a kidney stone episode and we went to urgent care. The staff were very kind and accommodating when we first got there. His CT scan supposedly didn’t show anything at all. That’s what we were verbally informed. And after that, he was treated like a skid row bum trying to get some MD20/20. They told him he had muscular pain and to take some Motrin or naproxen. What they didn’t know is that I have access to the EHR and I looked up his actual scan and report. The radiologist stated it was not an optimal scan due to his size and movement. And there was a small stone present as well as inflammation of the ureter. JM passed a stone the next morning.

So it does happen to men too. But clearly not as often as for women. My situation is really the worst because I do have the addiction history. And I am always open and honest about that. Which seems like.. if I’m being honest and up front rather than hoping they don’t find out, that should be a good thing. But 9 times out of 10 it’s not. I also have chronic pain due to arthritis everywhere. I had a huge back surgery in 2015 which fixed some of the problem but I still have 3 herniated or ruptured discs and degenerative discs in my neck. Plus I have 2 rods and 8 screws in my back. And this with my foot has been an issue for so long I can’t even remember. I had plantar fasciitis and tarsal tunnel repair surgery in 2007. And had wonderful results. Sometime around 2012 or 2013 I started with pain in the middle of my foot on the dorsal surface. (Like directly under my shoelaces). Since then I have been told there was nothing visible on X-ray so it must be nerve pain. I have bought $200 shoes, different orthotics, had every PT modality under the sun including dry needling. I’ve had injections directly into the joints on my foot. Injections behind my knee into the larger nerve in hopes of getting the pain to stop. I’d been going to the podiatrist who did my surgery until I saw him look at X-rays that he told me weren’t all that bad and he prescribed some $800 orthotics; a couple of months later I saw him look at the exact same X-rays and tell me it was severe arthritis and I’d need surgery beyond his level of expertise. That’s when I decided to get an ortho opinion. And here we are now.

Anyway, our society is doing the exact same thing it always does in a crisis. Trying hard to stay away from politics here. But systemic response to any sort of crisis is to either completely under-react until the situation is damn near unrecoverable or to completely overreact. Idk what the answer to the OPIOID EPIDEMIC!!!!!! !!!!11!1!1!! is, but it sure isn’t this.

I’m actually sleeping better than I have in a very long time. And honestly my sleep is more important to me than the pain if that makes any sense. ...it’s not very much worse than how I felt at the end of a day. That’s very encouraging to me.

That is good news.

After my surgeries, my gauge for healing was how I slept and felt in the AM. If I slept longer and woke up with less pain than the previous day, I knew I was getting to the point where I could go longer without a pain killer.

Boredom is awful. ADD helps me there, since I keep getting distracted from wherever my head is at. Of course, if you're not AD(H)D.... I'll suggest some streaming stuff. Amazon still offers 'The Amazing Judge Di Renjie' as part of Prime. That might cure you of boredom. Also the MHz streaming service has European TV that is better than the run of the mill US TV. Britbox and Acorn have British TV. All of them have 7 day trials. All 3 offer real drama, IMO, instead of just pandering to the lowest common denominator of the supposed audience - much less soft-core porn, gratuitous violence, etc. than US TV, IMO.

Yeah!!! Pain is tolerable, and you are sleeping, that is awesome!!! That's when healing happens.
Make sure you are getting your protein, and Juven to help w/ healing.

Begin t/j
Don't get me started on the opioids...... I did have a pt today that went home after having a leg removed, and they gave him 6 of the lowest dose opioid pain med. Then we wonder why people are overdosing on street fentanyl. Suicide rates from chronic pain being mismanaged have also jumped since this nonsense started.
End t/j

Keep up the good work!!!!

@HFSSC - thank you for sharing your experience with your addiction issues, and how you have to navigate your need for narcotics after surgeries. I would imagine it s a very delicate dance to dance. I’m sure you’d prefer not to need the narcotics, but are grateful you can use them at a time like this. I’ve heard stories of people who have addictions, that refuse to take any kind of narcotic when they truly need it. I can’t imagine suffering from that kind of pain and refusing something that could help.

That's great that you feel a notch improved, and can S.L.E.E.P. better! Like Sisoon said, it helps to gauge your progress while you wait and wait to get better.

Timely discussion here for me; we just learned one of my brothers is in ICU after he went to the local hospital with alcohol withdrawal symptoms, got dosed with Ativan which backfired horribly, became aggressive to the point the staff had to restrain him, which apparently led to cardiac arrhythmia and breathing issues. So he is on a ventilator or some kind of oxygen supplementation, and I am told cannot be moved without becoming agitated. I just pray he hasn't suffered irreparable damage from his out-of-control drinking and the the prescription med reaction. (I wonder if he was honest about the extent he was drinking; it has been a lifetime problem for him and he just told his GF he needs to go into rehab.)

I believe he had a "paradoxical reaction" to the sedative, which happens to a few people, can be genetically linked, but most likely caused by years of alcohol abuse. There is so much they don't know about how pain medications will react with people's biochemistry. My former PCP got his license restricted 10 years ago for being a tad too generous with someone's post-op pain medications. He decided to sell his practice to the hospital system, what a loss.

Anyway, keep up the healing!

[This message edited by Superesse at 4:49 AM, Saturday, November 12th]

Thinking of you! Hope your feeling better.