This is our weekly Chatterday! open thread. Use this open thread to talk amongst yourselves: feel free to share a link, have a vent, or spread some joy.
What have you been reading or watching lately (remembering spoiler warnings)? What are you proud of this week? What’s made your teeth itch? What’s going on in your part of the world? Got any questions for your fellow FWD commenters?
A note to commenters: Please, as with other threads, keep the length of your comments down. A usual guideline, in the absence of extenuating circumstances, is to stick to around three pithy paragraphs or so, and to avoid making back-to-back comments.
Today’s chatterday is hosted by a stack of lemurs, from The Daily Squee.
Oh, hey, this seems like a good enough time to ask what folks would think of this:
I’m on many mailing lists that send me links to job postings around the world that are specifically looking for people with disabilities, or who are explicitly open to them. They are often with NGOs and non-profits.
Would people be interested in a once-a-week type post where I round up these listings? Or would this just be Anna Doing Busy Work?
So, last Thursday, my doctor started me on Opana ER – a delayed release pain killer, lasts 12 hours. He gave me 30 7.5 percocet and I see him next Friday.
Well, the damn thing worked like a miracle the first time. No pain, drifty, wow. Important point – it still works, it just doesn’t last 12 hours and isn’t strong enough.
The 30 percocet were for break-through pain. Well, there was nothing for the pain to breakthrough by um Friday night! So… yeah. Back to normal pain. 30 won’t last me 2 weeks, better call on Monday!
For whatever reason, nothing happened until Tuesday, and even then I didn’t go til Wednesday. Dr Ego is out of town this week, see. But Tuesday and Wednesday, I was told (repeatedly) that there would be a prescription for me to see me through to my appointment. I even called my insurance case manager so it could be filled by Tricare. It could.
I picked it up, and we went to the pharmacy. The same chain as always, different store. They had to call the doctor (of course, it hadn’t even been a week!) and for once the phone calls were taken care of in under 24 hours. The nurse told the pharmacist they weren’t supposed to fill this, and that the nurse didn’t even know I’d picked it up! Funny thing, when I went to pick it up, they wanted all my Opana, I can’t have more than one narcotic at a time, which I have a million times.
So. Very calm, I went back there and asked WTF. I read my book on the French Revolution and then the nurse called me back. We went to an empty exam room, she ripped up the prescription and threw it in the trash, and told me I should go to rehab if I needed pain medication that much. More than once.
And Dr Ego has no walk-ins or time available between now and Friday – I should just call daily and hope for a cancellation. Right.
The nurse was unethical, of course. (“It’s in your record.” In my record, it says everytime I said the medication isn’t working, which = go to rehab.)
But the kicker was the prescription – it had his signature on it! “Someone else wrote it” they said at the pharmacy – he prints his other ones!
I also don’t like Dr Ego’s actions – “here, start a new medication and by the way, I’m cutting your pain med by a quarter (10 to 7.5) and the amount by more than two thirds. Take it only if the pain is bad!” (I’ve been on 112 every 2 weeks. It seems to work.)
I have the decency to say, no, I can’t start something this time, something is happening next week. But does he? So I’m stranded. And oy, your patient’s had suicidal ideation – I know, let’s put her in extreme physical pain for like 5 days! Can’t hurt!
I have to tell myself the pain won’t hurt me physically, but what about mentally? And my mom, grr, “how can you sleep?” “I’m tired.” “So the pain doesn’t keep you up.” “Pain is tiring.” God it’s been 4 years of this nonsense.
And there were no witnesses to the “rehab” BS and the script has probably been incinerated with the other medical trash. So the only proof are the messages on my record, painting me as a desperate addict.
I’ll never know why it was written, allowed to be taken out, and then whoops! we changed our minds!
And I have to call on Monday (again) and beg for medication or an appointment sooner and I may have to talk to the same nurse.
“See someone different!”
But Dr Ego – when he’s in town – has never said no. And starting anew can be so hard, after all, pain pill addiction can cause stabbing pain. That’s what the nurse said.
Sorry this is so long but ARGH. And ow.
I’ve had a broken filling the past few months because it’s a pain in the ass to get to a dentist who takes the Medicaid plan I’m on. (My state thinks private insurance is much more awesome than government stuff but no one seems to share their sentiment. There are places that will take Medicaid patients but not anyone over 21 because that’s when these HMO plans kick in.) It’s at some weird clinic where it took me hours to get a hold of anyone and I was so frazzled by that point that I wrote down the appointment time wrong. That was months ago. Gotta love a place that opens up for new patients every month but won’t actually get them in until months later. I was hoping someone would call and give me the right time, but no such luck. I wound up being late. Fortunately, my boyfriend was around to be a bit more assertive and he actually got an appointment to get my filling fixed instead of just an exam (that comes later). I’m not sure why I wasn’t given that option before, though. I was told I had to have an exam first when I called. So…confused. I really hope I can stop just melting down when confronted with crap like that, mostly because I usually go right to beating myself up like it’s gonna help. :/ (Yay for emotionally abusive parents!) It’s hard to get things done like that.
Today I am going to some local food pantries for the first time. Hope they have some good vegetarian options!
Kaitlyn, I’m sorry you hurt. And that they’re being so shitty about getting you some pain relief.
I was wondering what you think of this story from New Zealand, where a woman who lost both legs below the knee as a child has had a working mermaid tail prosthetic made for her by WETA (who did the special effect on Lord of the Rings, among other movies.) Reading it carefully, I just noticed that there are no quotes from the woman herself on what she thought of her new prosthetic, which I hadn’t noticed on the first couple of readings.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/1756623#share
I wonder what it would be like swimming with a mermaid tail? It’s a pretty gorgeous prosthetic, and Ms Vessey seems happy with it from what I can tell from the third paragraph. You’d think the article would focus a bit more on her response to it rather than the manufacturing process, though.
ZZ – don’t you know if you “suffer” from a disability, you can’t talk. (Unless your disability is that, and then the article describes your fluency with sign but never quotes you.)
Today, the pain was very very naughty and had me rocking and crying and gasping and begging my mom to search our house for something. (I could have sworn we had Lortab.)
She brought me motrin because I brilliantly convinced her to by pointing out that unlike the Opana, I can take it again in 4 hours.
If Dr Ego blows me off Monday… I mean I will make it, it’s not killing me (so I’m told) but damn, it’s hard.
There’s video of Nadya Vessey out there where she does talk.
Well, supposedly getting the first part of my tooth repair done tomorrow. We’ll see. :/
Well, I went in, got X-rayed, short appointment. That’s what I expected. Of course, there has to be a catch: I can’t make an appointment to get my filling replaced until July 1st. Since the clinic opens for new patients the first of the month, that would mean another whole day spent calling! I’m pissed off. I might be able to get in if there’s a cancellation, but that means I have to psychically be at the clinic to see if there is one so I’d be checking in every day and waiting for hours. What kind of system is that? Most of the other dentists I have access to are in the same system, so I doubt they’re run any different. I’m so sick of being expected to accept sub-standard health care.
I have the same problem with psychiatrists: most of the ones I have access to are run by the a single group and it’s a pain in the ass to schedule the initial assessment (or whatever they call it) because you can only schedule appointments for the next day. Then they might not even give you an appointment and expect you to just sit around waiting for hours to see if they can “squeeze you in.” No. Just no. Am I just not supposed to have a life?
Quijotesca: I’m sorry to hear that your dentists are being so awkward. I hadn’t thought about looking for videos, a quick Google search reveals this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9jCsbii5rs