Re: This weekend

[Guest guest]

,

What a terrible ordeal, it is amazing how doctors are. I'm so sorry you had to go through all of that. How is your shoulder and rib cage now? I hope now that you are home you can get your pain under control. Take it easy and hang in there.

<hugs> Lori

[Guest guest]

Lori,

Thanks for your concern. My shoulder and rib cage are fine now. The doctor I saw in the morning said that when I came in my white blood cell count was up but wasn't on Saturday, so I am thinking that maybe I had some weird bug or something.

Lin

[Guest guest]

Schlosser wrote:

Hi all,

I know people have heard bits and pieces of what happened so here is the whole comedy of errors. Some of you have heard nothing.....so here goes.

On Friday I had a weird thing that happened I woke up with a bad pain in my left shoulder, I didn't pay too much attention until this pain enveloped my entire rib cage front and back and by now the pain was worse than my RSD pain and that takes some doing, so I call my doctor this is now 3:00 and if I could of found a ride to his office, this whole story would've been a lot shorter.

Anyway I couldn't get to his office in time, so he told me to go ahead to the ER, I am sure he did this with great reluctance.

So Debbie comes and gets me and off the never never land we go. Before Debbie came I very carefully wrote down each medication and what I was taking it for. Including mentioning the 2 medications that my doctor and I had decided I didn't need anymore.

I get checked in and we get put in a room.

Now all the fun(?) starts, in walks in the first of 4 doctors I was to see that night. He starts asking me what is wrong, so on, anyway he asks me what medications I was on so I give him my list, he says wow you are on a lot of medicines, I say yes I have RSD/CRPS, he says oh okay, meaning he had no idea what I was talking about. I did tell him that 2 of the medications I was getting weaned off, for those of you who don't know I am on some powerful medication and if I just stop taking them, some awful things could happen, including death .So he orders an anti-inflammatory to help the rib cage, the nurse comes in with this plastic vial that she was going to give me, she somehow has it slip out of her hands, she goes I will be right back with another one, I didn't get this medication until a few hours later and whenever anyone would come into the room my sister would tell them that I didn't get that medicine. Then in comes the other ER doctor, she examines me, she comments

about the medication, I tell her the same thing, she says oh okay, meaning another one who doesn't know, so she leaves saying that she will get me some medication for the pain.

Dwight gets there and is asking what is going on they said that they were ruling out any heart problems (that came back good) and that they were going to do a cat scan to see what is in my lungs, because when the xray came in I didn't take a deep enough breath.

I still had at this time received either the anti-inflammatory drug, or pain medication.

Dwight in the meantime is talking to the bearded doctor and he is telling him that he thinks that the long acting pain medication was causing this and he was stopping all of of my medication. So I get back into the room, I finally get the drug for my pain in the rib cage and Dwight informs me what they thought and what they are doing, well needless to say I said to Dwight that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of, I have been taking these meds for months. Enter in the bearded one, he tells that the heart enzymes came back okay, so I didn't have a heart attack. So now comes the fun part, he asks me if I was wearing the pain patch that I was going to be off of it anyway on Tuesday. So he takes off the patch, as if he was freeing me from bondage. He then proceeds to tell me the same thing he told Dwight, I tell him to call my doctor he says I am not going to call him at 10:30, because he is going to say the that I shouldn't taking all these pain meds. I then get

rather irritated and say he is the one who gave them to me, and we are in the process of weaning me off Neurotin, but you can't stop it cold turkey! He says oh well I guess we can still give you that one.

I should tell you that my oxygen was at 92% and my blood pressure was rather low and 98/58. Enter in a nurse with a shot for me of dilaudid. She gives me half of the ordered dose looked at my stats and I do not feel comfortable giving you the whole dose because of my stats. I say okay. Then Dwight comes back in, he had called Dr. K and left him a message. A nurse told us that he had called the ER telling them under no circumstances were they to do anything with my medications.

Okay I am starting to feel a little woozy, now comes 2 residents that were "pain doctors", they ask to see the list of medications Dwight gives them it and they say wow you are on a lot of pain medications I once again tell that I have RSD they say oh okay, now things start getting very interesting my oxygen stat went down to 83%, respirations were 18, heart rate was high. So back comes in the bearded one and tells Dwight that they are going to admit and that they may even have to intubate me. So he totally freaks and calls Debbie, , Ronnie and to all come back because I had a reaction to a med that they gave me and that I wasn't doing very well.

So now I am in the ICU unit and starting to come out of the fog and my stats are steady and looking good. So Dwight comes in the room and asks if my daughters, sister and brother-in-law, and one son-in-law. My other son-in-law was up in Seattle watching the Mariners, lucky bum. calls him just to let him know, so he says oh my gosh I'll come home now, tells him that, I am fine, and that I was just sleeping peacefully with all my stats being nice and stable.

Okay now comes 4am. I wake up in level nine pain, not my rib cage my legs. I call the nurse and ask for some pain medication for my legs I am then informed that I have nothing for pain. I immediately start thinking of a way to get the blue bag that had all my medication in. I found out I could of asked for a family member to come in they were all sleeping in the visitor lounge. She tells me I do have Valium ordered do I want a dose of that I say no. She leaves comes back in and says I can give you Tylenol. I tell her that this is like spitting on a forest fire. She calls a doctor and in walks one of the residents I saw down stairs. She tells me that they are worried about my stats and she doesn't want to suppress my breathing. I tell her in probably a not so nice voice that I am in level 9 pain in my legs and if she knew ANYTHING at all about the disease she would know the number 1 symptom of this disease is burning pain. She then gives me a dose of my breakthrough

medication. I took it and it did ease it some, but I am still stewing over all of this.

The morning breaks and Debbie and Dwight are in the room talking to me. A doctor walks in and introduces himself, he said he was a hospitalist and had actually talked to my doctor and that I was to get all of my medication. Dwight gets my pill minder out and says can she take these. I couldn't take a couple because they gave me 1/2 of the dosage of a couple and they of course are capsules. So I said I will get them straightened out tomorrow it was my long acting pain medication that I was the most worried about, which I immediately took. He said I could go home right then, but Dwight was worried because I hadn't tried breathing without the oxygen, so he takes it off me and says I think in a couple of hours you can go home.

I am now going to stop here and and say I finally got home at 3:30 yeah!!!!

Sorry for the novel, but it just goes to show you how little this disease is known in this state and maybe some good will come out of it in that the 3 residents I saw that night will look into my disease more and learn how to diagnosis it and treat it.

Well I hope everyone had a better weekend and that I didn't bore you too much.

in Oregon

WHEW!! LINDA!YOOU HAD A REAL INTERESTING WEEKEND. THAT WAS BETTER THAN ER THE TV SHOW!! GIRL, I AM SO GLAD YOU SURVIVED THAT ORDEAL.THIS SHOWS YOU TOO THAT EVERYONE NEEDS A LOVED ONE WITH WHEN THEY GO INTO THE HOSPITAL. ALOT OF CRAZY THINGS CAN HAPPEN....FEEL BETTER,LESS PAIN..TANYA

[Guest guest]

WHEW!! LINDA!YOOU HAD A REAL INTERESTING WEEKEND. THAT WAS BETTER THAN ER THE TV SHOW!! GIRL, I AM SO GLAD YOU SURVIVED THAT ORDEAL.THIS SHOWS YOU TOO THAT EVERYONE NEEDS A LOVED ONE WITH WHEN THEY GO INTO THE HOSPITAL. ALOT OF CRAZY THINGS CAN HAPPEN....FEEL BETTER,LESS PAIN..TANYA

Good Idea maybe I should send it in.

Lin

[Guest guest]

Lin,

I don't think I replied to your "horror story", but I wish I could say it surprised me. It is amazing to me how ignorant some Drs, nurses, etc. are about RSD and it's treatment.

Then, not to obey your Drs. orders for meds, etc... Yeesh.

I hope you write to the hospital administrator, and anyone else you can think of, including the treating Drs. to let them know how you feel. They should also be advised that they are negligent due to their lack of knowledge. Maybe you can enclose some info about RSD to get them started!

Glad you are home, at least, and feeling somewhat better!

Hugs,

Jo

[Guest guest]

Atrocious, . Can't type but hope you and Dwght BOTH write a letter of complaint to everone. This stuff is ridiculous. Good grief, Ihope you're doing better. Barbara

[Guest guest]

Barbara,

Thanks for your support. Dwight and I both sat down and wrote everything down that happened to us. He is going to call the administer of the hospital, because there was no way I should have been in the hospital let alone in the ICU.

Lin

[Guest guest]

hope you write to the hospital administrator, and anyone else you can think of, including the treating Drs. to let them know how you feel. They should also be advised that they are negligent due to their lack of knowledge. Maybe you can enclose some info about RSD to get them started!

Jo

What a great idea! We have already decided that we are going to speak to the administer about what happened to me, but I didn't think about sending him any info.

Thanks for the idea!

Lin