Migraines, shots in the ass, and jackhole nurses.

I had to leave work again on Friday.  I came down with a migraine last Saturday, and it just never went away.  Friday it got the best of me.  I had my mom take me to the urgent care place, since my doctor wasn't in and no one else in his practice could see me.  We waited at the urgent care for about an hour and a half.  When they finally called me back, they asked me what the problem was.  I told them what was going on.  They asked what my doctor usually does in this situation.  I said this had only happened once before, and he had given me a shot of nubaine and a shot of phenergan.  The nurse said, "Okay.  Well, we don't have nubaine," but continued with the evaluation.  She took me back to a room, and we waited another 15 minutes until a nurse practitioner came in.  She asked what was wrong.  I told her the same thing.  She asked me if I was "sure it was a migraine.  Could it be a tension headache?  Sometimes it's hard to differentiate."

 

Um, you tell me, lady.  I'm not a doctor or a nurse, I'm a court reporter.  That's why you work here and I don't.  If you have a question about punctuating verbatim transcripts, I'm your girl.  But if you want me to differentiate between a migraine and a tension headache, when I have no idea what the difference would be, you're outta luck.   Sorry.

 

She said the only thing they could give me was toradol, which is an NSAID.  I told her normally I can't take NSAIDs because I get ulcers, but, "since it's a shot, that probably won't matter, right?"  She said it could still affect my stomach.  I decided I didn't want a migraine AND an upset stomach, so we went to the ER.  Almost threw up in the car on the way there, and by the time they got me into triage my BP had gone way up.  Had to tell yet another person what was wrong.  The triage nurse said she'd send us back to the "Fast Track" area so I'd get treated sooner. 

 

We walked down there, got in a room.  Had to tell the nurse there what was wrong.  Then waited some more.  About 45 minutes went by before the nurse practitioner came in and asked what was wrong.  I told her, but internally I was thinking about how if one more fucking person asked me what was wrong I was going to kick them in the head and then just say, "See that?  That's how I feel."  Short and to the point, really.

 

She asked me what my doctor usually does for this, and I told her, again, this has only happened one other time, and he gave me a shot of nubaine and a shot of phenergan.

 

Nurse:  Why didn't you call your doctor before today?

 

Me:  I don't know.  I thought it would go away.

 

Nurse:  But it wasn't going away.

 

Me:  (No shit) Yeah, but I thought it would. I have a baby and a job, and I was just trying to get through my life.

 

Nurse: Well, you should've called on Monday.  Now I can't call and talk to Dr. Hull because he's not there.  If he was and said he gives you nubaine sometimes, it would be fine.

 

Me;  Um...okay.

 

Nurse:  I guess this one time I can give you the nubaine and phenergan, but we don't usually do that.  It's not our usual protocol.

 

*launches into a long speech about how the neurologists ask them not to do that, etc.*

 

Me:  What do you usually do?

 

Nurse:  We usually give a cocktail of benadryl and torodol and bladeeblah, something else.

 

So here's where I started thinking, "Have I asked for nubaine and phenergan?  Even once?  I'm pretty sure all I've done is answer the question of what my doctor has done to get me through this in the past."

 

She walked out of the room and I looked at my mom and said, "Have I asked any of these people for nubaine and phenergan?"  She said no, I'd just answered their questions.  I asked her if I sounded like I was just trying to get nubaine and phenergan, and, again, she said no. 

Because, really, at that point, having had a migraine for six damn days, I don't really give a rat's ass what you do to me.  If your normal protocol is benadryl and toradol and whatever that other thing was, then do that.  If your normal protocol is to club me over the head with a giant mallet and just knock me out, then do that.  If your normal protocol is to chop off my head, put it in one of those paint can shakers, and then reattach it in the hopes that the mirgraine will just be scared away, then do that.  JUST GET RID OF THIS HEADACHE.  And stop treating me like a I'm in here just for narcotics, because, really I DON'T CARE JUST MAKE IT GO AWAY.

 

So they gave me the shots, and the nicer nurse who administered them told me she gets migraines, too, and she takes three benadryl because migraines are your body fighting something and benadryl helps with that.  This would have been helpful information when I got the first migraine that lasted a week.  It would have been helpful when I started getting migraines when I was 13.  It's still helpful now, because I'm sure I'll get more migraines, but why didn't anyone bother to tell me this over the last 16 years or so? 

 

She also told me her doctor put her on Amitryptoline (sp?), which is an antidepressant, but it's helped with her migraines and she's only had three in the last six months.  I'm going to ask my doctor about that at my appointment in two weeks.

 

So now that my migraine is gone, I have to worry about my boss just up and firing me on Monday, since I have this Friday off to go to my friend's rehersal dinner in Des Moines, and I took the entire following week off because I had vacation time coming and it's the week of Ellie's birthday.  It's just been one thing after another with me lately, and he's sick of it, I can tell.  So cross your fingers for me, because I really love my job.