Graciously reprinted with permission:
We Are Not Seekers
Posted by: endochick, who has a blog called Endometriosis: the silent life sentence.
June 1, 2009Dear Doctors, Nurses, Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants, and other Medical Personnel:
We are not seekers… or druggies… or addicts – we are in pain.
You cannot hear us because your ears are deaf to our cries; your eyes blinded to our tear-stained faces. Your hands feel our cyst-filled ovaries, yet they glide so smoothly over the knots of turmoil that seethe in our stomachs and keep us up all night. Your laparscope camera view witness to the implants, bleeding, oozing, growing – our bodies playing hostess to a disease that is internally draining the life from us. It sees the webs and bands of adhesion’s formed and wrapped like cellophane and Christmas wrapping on our uterus, our ovaries, our fallopian tubes, our pelvic cavities, our intestines, our bladders – binding everything and pulling them into a tight band until everything is forcing to snap from the tension.
We ask for relief – you give us “the pill,†“the shot,†“the ring.†Whatever the mask it’s wearing it’s hormones you bring. This plagues us with migraines, and moodiness, achy joints, weight gain, cravings. Slowly, we feel ourselves slipping; we are no longer ourselves. We’ve become bitchy blobs. Some of us are still in great pain; bleeding and writhing in monthly nauseating waves. It never ceases, even though we plead for it to as we cling to our bed sheets as we wait for the heating pad to heat up or the ibuprofen to work.
But when push comes to shove, and we just can’t take it any more, we slide back into your offices and beg for something to numb the hell. Just something, we ask, for those 2-7 days. Just something, we ask; just something for the pain. Yet, we keep getting turned away. Your ears remain deaf. Your eyes remain blind. Your fingers reach for your pads and write out that script for a lesser drug. You might say, “I would love to give you something stronger but I’m only an NP.†But we know this is a lie. If you wanted, you could get the doctor’s permission. You’ve done it before. You’ve…done…it…before…
So remember…Doctors…Nurses…Nurse Practitioners….Physician’s Assistants…and other Medical Personnel…
We are not seekers… or druggies… or addicts – we are in pain.
Doctors, you take an oath to do no harm – yet, when you send us away under-medicated and in pain you are doing harm. Please, stop under-medicating your chronically ill patients in fear that they are addicts. Instead, take the time and get to know your patients. By doing so you will know if they are addicts or truly in pain.
Chronic illness sucks – doesn’t matter what kind. If you’re in pain and not being properly treated, you’re life can be rough. But sometimes dealing with the doctors who treat you like an addict when all you’re trying to do is get someone to listen to your pain is down right frustrating. And that is so sad.
