By wendy, on July 14th, 2010%
 Some of the fireworks I missed while in the hospital. I just had the most awful holiday weekend EVER, thanks to my fibromyalgia, not having had insurance in two years, and the prejudice in the medical field against those living with chronic pain.
I got up last Friday(July 2) to start getting ready for work, and started passing huge amounts of fresh, liquid (and very red) blood. Naturally enough, that scared the hell out of me, and when it happened for the fourth time in an hour-and-a-half, I called in sick and headed to the emergency room at our local hospital. Since I wasn’t sure if it was related to one of my pre-existing conditions, and the insurance through my husband’s job doesn’t cover those for another couple of weeks (they have one of those clauses that says they won’t pay claims related to anything that was diagnosed before your coverage started for the first twelve months,) I went to the charity/teaching hospital, just in case it turned out not to be covered.
My first mistake was having the hubby drop me off, rather than calling an ambulance, assuming that even as a walk-in patient I would be seen within a reasonable length of time. (I guessed that it would take three to four hours to see a doctor, since I was bleeding, but it wasn’t VISIBLE. Boy was I ever wrong.) I arrived at the ER at approximately 2 PM Friday afternoon, and was FINALLY moved to a treatment room at 3 AM Saturday morning. That’s THIRTEEN hours of sitting in the waiting room, hoping I wouldn’t bleed to death before they got around to seeing me and watching people who came in after I did get treated and released because they didn’t need a “trauma room.” Continue reading Hospitals, Unfamiliar Doctors, and Fibromyalgia: What’s Your Experience? »
By wendy, on June 28th, 2010%
 - Image by ☃ via Flickr
I’ve been without insurance for two years now, which means I haven’t seen a doctor for my fibromyalgia in quite a while. Without a doctor, I don’t have access to medication, so I’ve had to get rather ummmm, “creative,” to manage my symptoms. Continue reading Fibromyalgia without Insurance: How I Cope »
By wendy, on June 24th, 2010%
Being diagnosed with a chronic illness turns your life upside-down, and it can take you some time to figure out how to deal with it. The sooner you start managing the illness, instead of allowing the illness to manage you; the sooner you’ll start finding ways to live a fulfilling life in spite of it. It can be totally overwhelming at first, but if you take one step at a time, you CAN do it.
The first, and most important, thing you can do is find out everything you possibly can about your illness. Continue reading New to the “Chronic Illness Game”?: How to Survive and Thrive Anyway »
By wendy, on May 20th, 2010%
I think we all hate that question when it’s asked by “normals.” Unless it’s someone you know well, you never know whether to tell the truth (I feel like shit, thanks for asking.) or lie (Fine, how are you?)
Continue reading How are You? How Do You Answer the Hardest Question Ever When You Live with Chronic Illness? »
By wendy, on May 17th, 2010%
My definition
My personal idea of a good day is one where I don’t have to go to work, and I can spend some time just doing things that make me feel better. It does NOT mean that I’m not in pain (I haven’t had a day when the pain levels were below a 4 or 5 on the pain scale in at least 5 years.) It also doesn’t mean I’m not exhausted, or that I can actually remember all the things I need to take care of without lists, notes and reminders from the people around me.
What it does mean is that the pain levels are at a 6 or below, and that I can lay down with the hot pads when I need to, or take a nap. Continue reading What does a "good" day look like to you? »
By wendy, on May 7th, 2010%
In my Sunday post, I promised you complementary/alternative methods you can try for pain and stress control/reduction, so here we go. These methods apply in all of the 4Ps, although they apply in different ways in different stages. Continue reading Learning to Live with Pain – Being Proactive (Part 2) »
By wendy, on May 6th, 2010%
EFT
Does it work? Yes, and no . . . Like anything else, EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) has its benefits, but it is definitely not going to make your fibro go away completely. It does, however, help my symptoms and make my fibro easier to live with, so I’ve added it to the resources I use to help me cope. (Is this purely a placebo effect? I don’t really care. If I feel better, or have less pain, it’s worked for me, and I’m happy with that no matter what the mechanism is.)
I downloaded the free EFT manual from http://www.emofree.com and read the information provided, memorizing the steps needed to perform a treatment. The first symptom I tried it on was a migraine, and it worked pretty well. The first treatment eased the pain, Continue reading EFT and Tapping for Fibromyalgia – Do They Work? »
By wendy, on May 5th, 2010%
Jenni has the Learning to Live With Pain Blog Carnival up . It’s a day late, but definitely NOT a dollar short, offering the perspectives of twenty-two amazing babes (and me) on how to live with chronic pain as a permanent unwelcome guest in your life. Check them out, maybe you’ll learn something that will help you or a loved one cope.
**If you are reading this post anywhere other than wendyburnett.wordpress.com it is because it has been stolen. Please click on the link provided to return to the site of origin.
By wendy, on May 2nd, 2010%
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
Kahlil Gibran
Have you ever watched the Discovery Channel show “Mythbusters”? They do some really interesting stuff on there, and this past Wednesday (April 28th,) they tackled a pair of “myths” about pain:
- Women have a higher pain tolerance than men. and
- Cursing increases pain tolerance
It was pretty interesting. They set up a bowl of ice water that was kept at just above freezing (1 degree Celcius) and attached to a timer. They then tested an equal number of men and women, seeing how long each person could keep their hand submerged. The subjects were not told that the men and women were competing, and for the first test, they were not permitted to curse while their hand was submerged. Continue reading Learning to Live with Pain – Being Proactive »
By wendy, on April 27th, 2010%
ChronicBabe is hosting Grand Rounds this week, and they’ve chosen the topic “ladylike.” This post isn’t going to make the deadline (I worked so many hours last week it was all I could do to keep us fed,) so it won’t be in the carnival, but I found the topic interesting, so I decided to write it anyway.
I guess I should probably start with a confession. . . If you used the word “ladylike” to describe me around my friends, they’d most likely laugh in your face. I was a tomboy growing up, and I never really “got” the whole ladylike thing. Continue reading Blowing Your Nose Is Not Ladylike, and Other Truths of Chronic Illness »
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"The moral test of a society is how that society treats those who are in the dawn of life . . . the children; those who are in the twilight of life . . . the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life . . . the sick, the needy, and the handicapped."
---Hubert Humphrey
Welcome to the new home of Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired. I hope you'll enjoy the changes, and the new resources I'll be adding as I have time to work on the site. Things will look a bit odd while I learn where and how to modify the appearance, so please bear with me.
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