While I was working, I tried to treat every patient as if they were my own family members. To be honest, I left bedside care because I couldn’t stand by and watch patients be treated like they were part of some ones job. The typical Emergency Room mantra is “treat ’em and street ’em. That was understandable to me while I worked in the ER. We couldn’t “fix” long term problems but we needed to get people stable enough to get to an area where they could be followed consistently and effectively.

Today, I feel like every visit with the majority of my healthcare visits I am treated as if I were in the Emergency Room.

If you are immediately thinking.. “maybe you go to the doctor so often they don’t know what to do for you anymore”.. That is exactly why I do not go to the doctor. Maybe I’ve waited too long to go to the doctor each time and when I finally do there is just too much for them to handle?

Admittedly I don’t call and ask questions or seek help in between visits.. I only go when it’s finally so bad I can’t take it. I have seen and heard so much of “Man, this lady who came in today wore sunglasses in the office…we immediately knew she was going to be a handful” or “They work in healthcare so they have a dangerous amount of some knowledge”. I don’t trust the system as a whole to take exceptional care of anyone but I do expect the system to take very good care of everyone.

I’ve only had these symptoms for three years which is nothing compared to many of you. I had my tests, got my blood patches and went home and took the best care of myself that I could. My symptoms began to return.. I waited until I felt I could not live a quality in my life and went back for a patch. Sometimes for 4 weeks others for 6 months.

Even though it’s travel, pain and a lot of expense.. I’ve been lucky that the physicians in Texas just bring you right back and give you a patch as symptoms reach a bad point. I just don’t want to live patch to patch but I also don’t want to feel like I’m not being cared for to the best of the systems ability. I don’t want to feel like “You have the same cold as everyone else right now.” I don’t have the sniffles. I feel like I am bleeding out.

I understand I could go to the Emergency Room but my emergency room shames headaches and pushes narcotics. Narcotics don’t fix this stuff. Narcotics only make you sleepy and forget you have pain long enough to wake up at home and have the same pain.

In May it started again. By the end of June it was finally too much. By the end of July I literally begged to be seen. I was in my physicians hospital. I was eight hours from home, staying in a hotel with my husband missing work. I was there…. physically, one floor away from his office. I was being tested for something he would only order over the phone. I begged to be seen. “He can’t get you in for another 6 weeks, but seek out the emergency room if the pain is unbearable.” The pain has BEEN unbearable. I had already waited 5 weeks for the testing I just had. I don’t even cry when it hurts this bad. I know it will make it only that much worse.

I don’t want to jump the line. I’m no more important than others but HEAR ME when I say this is too much for me now. Help me.