Up Early to 80s & Another Bad Doctor & Pain

I was going to stay in my room and dance around to MTV this morning but instead I'm online with coffee.

I am hearing a bunch of British 80s stuff. Hmm, and celtic/Irish stuff ("stone age"). I like a lot of it and haven't heard most of it.

I was too wiped out to do anything last night. I really did want to go out last night with these people, but it's good I didn't bc I crashed.

I had to go to the ER over my hurt back from the Nigerian woman's friend, yesterday, again. The doctor was a total asshole and I'm not going to say the nurse's name, but I could tell even she thought so. And I recognized him! I thought, why does he look familiar? and then found out he rotates at another hospital I've been to which is connected. I knew it!

This doctor was something else. Just wait 'til I tell what he said to me.

My back has been killing me, even at night, since I was assaulted. I wake up in the middle of the night, with pain even. I think it's getting a little bit better, but it still really hurts. So I went into one place and they didn't find fractures which I was thankful about, but what was confusing to me was that they, well, they took 2 views (different hospital) and maybe it just didn't catch the old fracture of my lower lumbar spine?

Because it was the second time I was told there was "nothing there". So whatever happened to the major broken vertebrae I had that Dr. Freed in Wenatchee found on X-ray which EVERYONE saw? I mean, it was supposedly "degenerative" and now it's "gone"?

So I got some help so I was able to work because it would have been impossible without assistance from a doctor and for ONCE, thank god, I got a very good resident doctor AND regular doctor. I actually think I'm going to try to find out what their normal hours are and see if they can recommend someone. I need a GOOD doctor, not just any old doctor. I need one I click with, and people like Dr. Gaba, or Dr. Collins (with OBGYN at GW) and this other ER doctor were people who treated me with respect for my intelligence and believed me and were just professional without weird personal shit going on that interferred with their ability to take care of patients. I haven't forgotten Russ either, but alas, he's a tech or resident or nurse or something. ;)

So anyway, I was diagnosed with an injury from the assault, but then it still wasn't better so I went someplace more local and disaster again. I got the prescription, but you see, it's not that I'm complaining because I did NOT get help, it was that I was totally trashed by this doctor and I wondered what his issue with me was.

This was a doctor who wanted info on me. He checked my prescription stuff more than once, and kept asking question after question and then tells me painkillers are pointless and addictive. I corrected him on that and said if he was so informed and educated about painkillers, he would know there is no risk of "addiction" when there is actual pain but only if there is NOT pain and painkillers are continued when there is no need. So he stopped talking. But instead, he just sat there and insulted me.

After he wrote me a very small prescription, he came in when I wanted to ask him if I could get a cortisone shot. I was told it is rare and used for older people usually because it breaks down tissue. But I have to work and waitress, and I am in a lot of pain, and I do not HAVE to have a narcotic prescription if my pain is treated in other ways and I haven't tried cortisone. I figured it would give me time to recover. But he said no and then said he "saw me" reach into my purse without any problem. I thought, what an asshole. Yeah, he saw me "reach into my purse" after I had just told him I'd had to take the last TWO pills I had.

AND, what concerns me, is that when he examined me, he didn't just check normal areas of my back like other doctors. This guy, what does he do? He took a couple of fingers and centered them right into a particular lower vertebrae and PUSHED IN and I shouted out in pain. It wasn't muscular. He pressed on a bone and it was excruciating and I suddenly thought, of all the places for him to touch, he pushes in one this one spot that I didn't even know was a major problem? I think it is the same vertebrae that I fractured from childbirth that's supposedly not showing up on X-ray anymore. So now I'm wondering if someone isn't taking an X-ray from the right angle to catch this, because it HURT like HELL.

He did nothing about it. But it was sort of weird, because other docs just press everywhere and this guy just zeroed in on a spot and THEN he claims I don't have that bad of pain.

So when I asked for the cortisone shot, he came in and went OFF about how HE had back pain AND "sciatica" and HE worked with the pain anyway. I nodded when he said different people have different pain tolerances and I said this was true. But then he looks at me and TOLD me that since HE "worked out at a gym" I should start working out at a gym if I wanted to help my pain.

My pain isn't from fucking lax abdominal muscles and he knew it. He pushed on my spine, on a bone, and it hurt like hell, and that was aside from the spine/muscle pain. It isn't even recommended that I do any stretching or lifting right now while this is healing, but he's telling me to go to the gym and totally minimizing my pain.

The guy was an asshole and I recognized him and found out he rotates at Fairfax INOVA. I know I've seen him there. His name is Dr. Todd Muller.

There was a nurse who overheard how he treated me and she signed and rolled her eyes and shook her head out of his view. I asked if he's switch my prescription to something that I was already taking that worked and he refused.

At any rate, I was not on any prescriptions when I was talking to Ms. Erickson last night. I didn't go to the pharmacy in time to get the prescription filled. My "calm" demeanor was no different than it always is and I am no different now than I've ever been. I thought it was interesting she tried to make a point of it though, because she kept trying to pry and asking if I was "taking something". At a different place, which first saw me for the assault they gave me some Valium along with painkillers, but I didn't take them except a couple times at night, so it had no bearing on my state of mind. This doctor, Muller, also saw how many pills I had left from Valium so it was obvious I wasn't taking it.

I cannot take Valium and work as a waitress at the same time. He said how could I "work" with painkillers, taking Percocet. I looked at him like he was nuts. If I don't have them right now, I told him, I cannot stand or walk long enough to do my JOB, and, I told him, I thought they worked just FINE for me when I made over $100 on only 2 tables over a very short night, in tips.

He quit talking when I told him how much I'd made in tips on a couple of tables, in my new job I'd just started.

If he wants to fuck with my ability to work, when I have proven I can do a good job when I'm not fighting with pain, I'll just file formal complaints all over again.

When people are in PAIN, they cannot work effectively and any normal doctor knows this. If the pain is legitimate, getting the right kind of pain control and management helps someone to fucking KEEP their job. I could not have done what I did without it and I'm very grateful to the doctors that helped me out that night. It saved me.

Yay! Cyndi Lauper's "Girl's Just Wanna Have Fun" came on.

At any rate, I'm not drug seeking. If I were, I wouldn't be asking someone to give me a fucking cortisone shot after being told it harms the body in the long run. I may look young, but no one can say how many years I have left. I could die young, and I'm not going to live my life fighting the entire time for pain control. I am willing to have my tissues break down in order to get relief, because no one can say how long I'm going around.

It's stupid to say we're not going to help you until you're 80 and there's no hope anymore. I've broken a ton of bones in my body and I'm still here. I evaded death too, once again, with this last ovarian pregnancy. Because some great doctor discovered what was wrong? NO.

Because I FUCKING TAKE CARE OF myself and fight for what I need and because I know when something is not right with my body. I am in tune with my body and I owe it to MYSELF and no doctor, for saving my own fucking life I don't know how many times.