Man that hurt.

[Amarok]

[Gawdzilla Sama]

That took balls.

[arewethereyet]

I have had kidney stones which I have learned to deal with. My first daughter was born without benefit of an epidural because it 'didn't take' after nearly 24 hours in labor. My younger daughter was nearly born in the car so there was no time to give me anything once we reached the hospital...nothing like an episiotomy with not so much as a Tylenol. With all this you would think that I had enough pain cards dealt my way...but...nooooooo.

In October 2009 I had a bilateral mastectomy and the start of reconstruction (the implantation of tissue expanders). As I was coming out of the anesthesia after the surgery I was bleary and asking for my glasses as not being able to see clearly was adding to the nausea. The nurse who was taking care of me in recovery said they were moving me to a room for the night and she handed me a hydrocodone...one pill. Nothing else...nothing in my IV...just one single pain pill. I had expected pain in my chest but there really wasn't much. I think that may be because of all the nerves being cut. But...my shoulder blades felt like someone had hit them with a sledge hammer. The pain was like nothing I had ever felt before. I hoped that my pill would kick in and take the edge off. It got so bad that I was trembling with the pain...I tried Lamaze breathing...anything to get through another few minutes. Finally I was in such pain that my teeth were chattering and I couldn't stop it or control it at all. By then my shoulders were also hurting beyond anything I could even imagine. I asked the nurse when I could have something else for pain and she said it was four hours between pain pills. OMG, how was I going to do this for three more hours and then wait for the pill to work? Another hour went by and I was to the point of sending my son and daughter out to find something on the black market.


I asked the nurse again and she said the oncological surgeon didn't believe in pain meds...WTAF. They had just ripped my chest off and implanted foreign objects in me and, as it turns out, when they positioned me for the procedure they had strained the brachial nerves which would cause pain and weakness in my shoulders, hands, and arms for about 4 years to come. The nurse said the surgeon would not prescribe something more. She had experience with that surgeon and knew that contacting her would not do any good. I told her I had read their mission statement and part of that was pain management - which wasn't happening. I also told her that if she didn't figure something out I would call the plastic surgeon to see what he could do. She asked me not to do that because they would think she wasn't doing her job. I told her she had 30 minutes before I made the call.


A few minutes later my husband stepped outside and as he walked by the nurses' desk she was on the phone telling someone that someone needed morphine. He couldn't be sure who was being discussed.

In very short order she showed up with two pain pills, a syringe filled with morphine, and a sleeping pill. I declined the sleeping pill but with great relief accepted the other. My plastic surgeon had made sure that I was taken care of for the night.


During the next couple months it was the plastic surgeon and my family doctor who made sure I was as comfortable as they could make me. It's nearly ten years and there is still some residual pain but that few hours after that surgery was unbelievable.

When I had the expanders taken out the permanent implants placed they kept me in the hospital anticipating the need for IV pain meds but that wasn't the case. That surgery wasn't fun but after the first one was a cake walk and I was fine with minimal chemical pain management.

I found another oncologist as I didn't really want to spend any more time with the sadist.

[Angrboda]

Most of the major incidents have been forgotten. The thing which does get to me, is that after having my fingers amputated, every time I bump the end of my hand against something, it hurts amazingly intensely. Stepping on a Lego intense. And that kind of thing happens all the time, as I fumble to manage things without fingers, missjudge the distance, or just plain clumsily bump my hand against something. I once had a chat with a fellow who had the tendons in his wrist operated upon without any appreciable deadening of the pain from anesthesia, and he wondered how I managed the pain of the frostbite. There was no pain at all. I was unconscious when it happened, thanks to sleeping pills, and when I woke up later I was on a morphine drip. There was still pain in spite of the drip and whatever else they fed me, but I don't remember it well. The only thing that got to me during that time was a nurse who refused to help me with my pillow because she thought that I shouldn't be "indulged," and instead of helping me get comfortable, ignored me and spent an hour or so bullshitting with a colleague in the doorway. Total bitch.

[Cod]

I'm beginning to think that drilling through my foot wasn't so bad after all.

[The Grand Nudger]

Phantom pain is fascinating, I've never had the misfortune, but resolution produces something very much like it.  Intense ringing in the ears combined with the feeling of a spike, and a sense alot like waking up with a charlie horse but..different, like your muscles are trying to bend in one direction while you will them in another.  You can't breath, your skin is on fire, you vomit, it;s impossible to maintain your balance, and all of this produces a violent panic.

Nothing is actually harming you but no one can convince you as much.

(the general idea is that your brain is fouling the system, the intense discomfort a side effect of being incapable of determining which/what signals are valid - drugs help, lol - I got lucky, there are people whose condition is purely psychological, and that;s much more pernicious than the effects of physical trauma that heals)

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Oh, and having a tracheostomy done on me while I was awake. Intubation without anything to kill the ouch. On the waiting room floor at the ER.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Truer words, etc.

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Most of the major incidents have been forgotten.  The thing which does get to me, is that after having my fingers amputated, every time I bump the end of my hand against something, it hurts amazingly intensely.  Stepping on a Lego intense.  And that kind of thing happens all the time, as I fumble to manage things without fingers, missjudge the distance, or just plain clumsily bump my hand against something.  I once had a chat with a fellow who had the tendons in his wrist operated upon without any appreciable deadening of the pain from anesthesia, and he wondered how I managed the pain of the frostbite.  There was no pain at all.  I was unconscious when it happened, thanks to sleeping pills, and when I woke up later I was on a morphine drip.  There was still pain in spite of the drip and whatever else they fed me, but I don't remember it well.  The only thing that got to me during that time was a nurse who refused to help me with my pillow because she thought that I shouldn't be "indulged," and instead of helping me get comfortable, ignored me and spent an hour or so bullshitting with a colleague in the doorway.  Total bitch.

I had a similar reaction when I got blown up.  The shockwave knocked me out, so there was no pain - just a feeling of intense pressure, then waking up in hospital. By the time they took me off of the Pain-Go-Bye-Bye juices a week later, everything was down to a dull ache, not intense pain.  From there on I was able to manage with paracetamol and low-dose codeine.

Boru