The Pain Dance

rag_doll_half_2The macabre run around some doctors give to people who suffer chronic pain. It seems to be about to start again for me.

The 30mg codeine and 500mg paracetamol tablets I take for the considerable pain I deal with ran out yesterday. Because I was having a bad day and suffering confusion and weakness I sent an email to my doctor asking if he would fax the prescription to the pharmacist I use. I have never done that before but a combination of rapidly and widely changing weather fronts had caused me immense pain for over a week and I was not coping and didn’t want to talk to people directly. I went up the street to the pharmacy and was told they had had no such fax. There was no answer in my inbox  so I called the surgery and was told he was on holidays and another doctor would be tasked.

Nobody rang for the entire day. I had planned to sleep for a few hours as I was desperate to get on top of the illness that I was going through. I started calling the pharmacy at about two and got through after more than an hour of calling. The doctor they had asked had told them he felt I should not have used so many and refused to supply the prescription saying I must have some left. My rate of usage at this time was below the rate I would normally have used under the circumstances of the weather and subsequent pain. It was very much the same rate I had been using for the previous few years and was clearly covered in the information on the surgery’s computers. I went up the pharmacy to be sure there were no prescriptions we had missed as the way it was put to me sounded as though I must have had a prescription still available.

See, right here is where it started, The doctor didn’t look in the computer. He didn’t care that I may or may not have had some left. He didn’t know that I always use the same pharmacy and always calculate every pill. He thought he would suggest I might be doctor shopping or just cast doubt on me in general. In the world of pain-killer paranoia that doubt can destroy you! There was no major number that I had overstepped. He just decided to play god while my doctor’s back was turned. The problem is that one doctor can destroy all of the tiny bridge of safety and normalcy these pain-relievers have allowed me to build. The contempt and doubt cast by that one highly respected bastard can leave me unable to get help for pain for the rest of my life. A life which will be significantly shortened and brutalized if he gets his way.

Of the almost thirty people I have known personally who committed suicide almost all of them faced this kind of summary contempt by professionals they should have been able to claim assistance from. As many as half were dancing the doctor’s painkiller dance which has no other reason for being than that some doctors play god while others have policies and politics they will allow you die over rather than compromising.  If you were to read the truth in those suicides and understand that a person may have no way of finding the relief they need without opening themselves to criminals and community animosity you may call their deaths murder. I have always considered that one of the main reasons the professionals and elites in our world would not allow suicide notes and causes to be broadcast is because there were words that blamed them or their peers directly!

I rang my community care group and told them of my problem and asked them if they would provide me with assistance to get to the doctor’s surgery. Aware of my situation and shocked at the sudden crisis they said they would call back. I rang the doctor’s surgery and asked to speak to someone and when the head of staff at the surgery came on the phone I told her I was not putting up with this behaviour and was on my way. After a while I was informed the doctor had written me a limited prescription of 1/18 of my normal prescription outtake and they would fax it. I said DO NOT fax it I was on my way in.

A confused community worker arrived. She had had a call at the last minute and as the day was almost over had made a special trip to pick me up. At the surgery I grabbed their “head of whatever” who kindly put an office aside for us and told her just what I thought of the situation. She did not get it at all. As far as she is concerned doctors can do that. I guess as gods they are entitled to play god. I mentioned to her that I have a severely weakened heart and various organs as well as being in constant pain and not only could I not have done the things I need to cope about the house but I may have been stressed to DEATH had I been forced to undergo a sudden withdrawal with no support and no warning. She didn’t think that was worthy of mention!

The doctor has given me this tiny prescription because he wants to see me in a few days. He knows as do I that there is nothing he can find that is not already well-covered in the computer records. I have been relentless making sure that every tiny thing was covered because this is not the first ripple of prejudice I have been faced with and I am sick of being called a liar by some fat bastard who doesn’t like my Semitic last name, or my long hair or the fact that I am as well-educated as he is without the income. The idea of seeing me may be to ensure that he can actually enshrine his decision in some kind of physical evidence. At the moment he has never seen me so he can really not say anything about me beyond the computer record which is in my favor. If I go see him he may see my side or he more likely he will be able to say that on seeing me was certain of some negative factor that will allow him to cast his decision in stone. My doctor is not up to backing me when it comes to facing down the authority of the medical community or politicians which is what he would be doing if he helped me beyond that point.

I have decided to eke the tiny number of tablets he has given me by using over-the-counter meds until my doctor returns. Then he does not have fight anyone’s final authority to continue the life-stabilizing prescriptions. Checking with staff at the surgery indicated that my doctor will be returning on the 17th October. Almost three weeks. My liver is going to be taking a battering from all the paracetamol I will be ingesting. I must have almost literally called as he went out the door. When he is back I will discuss finding another doctor who can support his diagnosis the next time he is away. The behavior of this other doctor is a piece of unmitigated treachery and callousness.

I was getting on with life as well as I could and now I am unsafe again. The most important pillar in my health has been attacked and if the new doctor has been a proper bastard his ego will make him cause me to be suspected of drug-seeking. One of the great bits of bastardry by modern medicine is the terrible and programmed stigma around the drug-seeking individual who is in genuine pain. Imagine pushing a starving person out of the door because they have become food seeking or pushing a drowning person back under the water because they are air-seeking!

Just in case I forget to mention it, if you read the other recent entries and could see the one’s I should be writing about Fishpond.com.au you would see the last week or so as being really really shit! It seems that the more pain and illness that gathers in the background the more impossible bullshit I have to deal with. Sorry, I mean WE have to deal with and I think of all of us with vulnerable children or health issues because this stuff is not even unusual.

The next day… After almost no consideration or thought I feel that yon doctor and myself should have a wee chat. I have an appointment tomorrow morning (Wed)

Ok, some time later on Tuesday… the doctor’s office has called and the doctor has faxed a prescription through to the pharmacist and asked that I cancel the appointment tomorrow and that I talk to my own doctor in future. I have a raised eyebrow of wonderment. Can you see it? I will go up and see what a prescription designed to carry me to my doctor’s return consists of I guess. Er, thanks.

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