Died and Went to Hell part 1.

After suffering for several days in excruciating agony with pain in my neck, shoulder, arm and hand and trying every therapy under the sun to get relief, I reached the point of complete desperation and made the decision to go to the hospital. Anyone who has been through an emergency dept. knows this is not something anyone does unless they absolutely have to. Upon arrival I explained to the triage nurse that I was in extreme pain, that I had fainted from the pain and was desperate for relief. She directed me to sit in the waiting area with all of the other 40 waiting patients. I immediately began to cry because I knew I wasn't going to be able to tolerate the three hour wait that was ahead of me sitting in a chair! I had been lying on my hardwood floor at home and even this provided no relief. Of course as soon as I sat down an older woman sat beside me and began to tell me her problems and then started to cry. Fuck, even when I am crying and in total pain people seek me out to tell their problems. My sister said that the woman had made a bee line for me. Thanks to my sister's advocacy I was able to continue to wait on a stretcher in the hall. I spent another hour there crying and writhing in pain. I now know what writhing in pain is. Finally my sister got the triage nurse who could see I was in a very bad way and decided to send me back to the be assessed. But as she wheeled me there she had to say that she had bumped me in front of ten other people. I don't know what her purpose was in telling me this, was she trying to make me feel grateful or guilty? It was her poor assessment at triage that placed me in the wrong area in the first place. I was in too much pain so I let it go. I arrived in the assessment area and explained my pain to the nurse who told me all they could do was give me a injection. Yes, yes please an injection I said. In came a doctor who evaluated me and said it's a pinched nerve we will give you an injection and then you will be okay. Thank God above I said. I took the two very pain injections of Demerol gladly because they were going to fix me. The nurse then took me back into the what the minor assessment area. Two nurses then had an argument over whether or not I should rest on a bed or a chair while awaiting re evaluation. My nurse won and I was told to lay on a stretcher in a room that opened onto the nurses station. I was just left there as the Demerol kicked in, on my back unable to move but still in massive pain. I was almost delirious and found myself saying please work, please work, please work, over and over again while I cried moaned and sobbed. After an hour another nurse came in and said, "does crying make you feel better?" I replied that yes it does actually because I am in severe pain. She returned with an ativan and said the doctor would come to reasses me. I lay there freezing, flat on this stretcher sobbing, but high on the drugs, catching words of the conversations of the nurses and adding them into my own thoughts. The nurses were talking about shopping and I said out loud in my sobbing voice, "shopping and shoes, but it hurts, hurts, size eight, yeah me too, make it stop, make it stop.". If it didn't hurt so much it would have been really funny. Finally the doctor comes back and says to me , "sorry I have to ask you this, but are you an I.V. drug user?". No I tell him it's that the drugs you are giving me aren't working. He then ordered another shot of Demerol which is followed by a morphine tablet. Now I am really incapacitated and still in pain. In my drugged and pained state I think that maybe I have died and didn't realize it and I am now in hell. Maybe this is what hell is, to be in horrible unrelenting pain, unable to to anything about it, alone and disdained by those supposed to help you. Yes, maybe I was dead and in hell. I continue to sob until I pass out. I am awaken by a Neurologist who does an evaluation tells me it is a nerve root problem stemming from my neck and gives me a new medication, tells me I need to be admitted to the hospital for pain management and an MRI. When then new medication starts to work I want to kiss this doctor but I am too drugged up. I endure five of the most painful x-rays ever, sobbing the whole time, having to hold my head and shoulders in excuriating postions. Finally I get to the ward and pass out.