I spent 573892 hours in the E.R. just for them to give me prednisone and send me home. .-.
I told them I thought I was having a flare up, as I woke up in EXTREME pain, and they looked at me like I was an IDIOT. they left me there for like 6 hours & just took my blood.
I woke up at like 1 pm, so stiff that I couldn’t get up for 10 minutes by myself, when i finally did, I screamed until my sister came to help me down the stairs. I believe my knees went on strike- AS THEY WOULDN”T MOVE. I called my boyfriend screaming, and he told me to just lay back down, or try to take a hot bath.
THREE HOURS LATER- my mom calls the doctor to tell them that she’s bringing me in, and they tell her to take me to the hospital, because they can’t give me pain medicine where it’s a pediatric doctor. The nearest hospital had an eight hour weight, so we go to the second closest. We get there, and the triage people think I’m an idiot. I’m SCREAMING, and by this time I have an un-godly rash across my neck, chest and face. They bring me back immediately, and send me to a room.
ONE HOUR AFTER THAT- Another nurse comes in and asks me the exact same things the triage nurse did, and then walks out.
ANOTHER HOUR LATER, she comes back and tells me that they’re going to do blood labs and a urine analysis to make sure that my kidney function & liver enzymes weren’t too low/high.
She comes back half an hour later with a pee cup, i pee into it, and give it back to her. she tells me that they’re going to hook up an i.v. and give me medicine, since my joints were locked and i looked half-crazed.
ANOTHER TWO HOURS LATER- The physician’s assistant comes in, and she’s super nice. (Turns out she has lupus too) and she gets pretty upset that they hadn’t given me pain medicine, or naproxen to help relax my joints. By this time, I’m sitting with my knees to my chest, because that’s the only way they stop hurting for a miniscule amount of time. She talks to me about getting on maintenance medicine, and how they’re going to refer me to a rheum in Cincinatti Children’s Hospital (the one here is a six-twelve month wait) She tells me she’s going to give me pain medicine through an I.V. but gets surprised when she finds out they haven’t given me one. NOW THE BLOOD WORK LADY IS HERE.
So, the lady comes and takes my blood, then just leaves.
It takes like 2 1/2 hours for my blood work to come back, and they tell me with the symptoms i’m having that I might not only have lupus, but also a disease called wegener’s. (Wegener’s granulomatosis is a rare disease which can cause inflammation in a variety of tissues including blood vessels. It primarily affects the upper respiratory tract (sinuses, nose), lungs, and kidneys. Other but less common systems that can be involved include the nervous system, ears, eyes, heart, skin, joints, and muscles.) My doctor told me I needed to get it treated immediately because it’s really aggressive. His exact words were, ‘You don’t wanna be an 80 year old woman in a 17 year old body.” He continued to tell me stories of teenagers who got so advanced so quickly, they couldn’t even open doors by themselves, or even use the bathroom alone. So, they’re sending me for more testing with that. After a total of almost 7 hours, I get to go home.
Today has just not been my day. .-.
