Faction Night the Third: Art, Knives, and Rock and Roll

I spent the few days before Thursday Night Faction this week, trying to decide whether or not I should even go. You see, last week after faction, the fact that my Remicade had been delayed made itself felt. Strongly.

Strongly enough in fact, that on Friday evening, I finally caved and begged my roommate to take me to the hospital. My pain was too high to manage on my own, and my constant trips to the bathroom made me start to worry that C.Diff might have decided to come back into my life… and guts.

The three days I spent in the ER were ridiculous. Due to a massive influx of flu cases, there were no beds available at the hospital. Despite deciding to admit me that same night, I never actually made it out of the Observation wing.

Because of the pain I was in, I decided to go to the closer hospital, rather than the usual one I was in. The GI staff on call at that time has their primary specialty be the liver, so they really weren’t sure what to do with me. Sadly, it showed. Had I known this at the time, I would have written out for them exactly what to do to get me better enough to send me home, but unfortunately, it wasn’t really till Sunday night, that I realized that I wasn’t really being treated… at all. They were just running tests but not actually taking care of what was going on.

Continue reading “Faction Night the Third: Art, Knives, and Rock and Roll”

Faction Night the Third: Art, Knives, and Rock and Roll
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I almost died last week.

CN: Descriptions of withdrawal, hospital admission, medical symptoms and needles.

It wasn’t an accident, or even a sudden onset of something like appendicitis. No, my brush with death came about as a result of fear. Specifically, other people’s fear. Fear of addiction, fear of being wrong, and fear of being fooled.

You see, the week before I was admitted with Crohn’s. I went to an appointment with my Gastroenterologist and he sent me straight to the ER. I was admitted, and put on high doses of Dilaudid, after the usual adjusting games where they started me on 1mg every 6 hours, before finally conceding that 2 mg every 4 was what was needed. In addition to that, I had Gravol and Benadryl to control the various side effects of the opiate.

I spent the week essentially zonked out after several weeks of increasing pain and nausea, and a trip to the ER every 2 weeks since Christmas. My admission came on the heels of two weeks of being sick with a sore throat, which kept me not just from being able to take my Remicade, but my medical marijuana as well. My throat hurt too much to handle the irritation from the smoke.

My crohn’s had gone into overdrive. I wasn’t digesting, I was in pain, and I needed help.

The reason the doctors agreed to finally treat my pain properly is that I told them, that once I got home I wouldn’t be taking dilaudid anymore.

Not one doctor stopped thinking about their fear of addiction long enough to hear what I was saying and remember their training. Continue reading “I almost died last week.”

I almost died last week.