Day #61 - Hour #57

Dear Agony,

Just let go of me(her)

Suffer Slowly

Is this the way it's got to be?

Don't bury me

Faceless enemy

- Dear Agony, Breaking Benjamin

This is Liz's anthem. Let me define powerless to you. I thought at one point I knew what it was. I thought that watching my job fade, taking a pay cut or two, etc was what it felt like to be powerless. I had no idea. Powerless is watching your spouse roll on the floor screaming. Begging for mercy. Praying for relief. Pounding the floor, changing positions every 45 seconds. Watching, and not being able to do a dang thing.

She's been in pain for about two months now, manageable pain. Thursday the pain went thru the roof. Screaming, cursing, begging, pleading, crying. It was horrible. It went on for 18 hours. at about 5:30am on Friday we decided to go to the ER. We called my mom, she drove up and met us at the ER to pick Juliet up. We got admitted, where they started giving Liz morphine immediatly. Of course, since she is pregnant, the good narcotics are big no-no's. So, every two hours she was getting a shot of morphine. That was good and all, but it is definitly not sustainable. So shes out of pain for two hours, but what are we going to do at home? I can't give her a shot of morphine. Eventually they kept us overnight, for observation. We saw 8 different pain specialists in about 8 hours. I've had more intelligent farts than what they were willing to offer us. My favorite part is how each of them feels the need to grab Liz's leg and yank it around, poke her back, ask where it hurts. It's like "hey retard, this has been done about 17 times the last two months. The results haven't changed. Read that big red chart in your hand deuchebag." It took some begging, and a little complaining, but eventually we got a PA who actually listened, and helped us decide on a course of action. She got a different pain management specialist in, who actually listened. Listened, sympathized, and cared for Liz. We loved him. I almost hugged him when he said he would do anything he could to help us, write whatever prescriptions he could, etc. It was awesome. So raise your glass to Dr. Sean M. Conroy, I'll have a drink on you, pal!

Here's where we are now:

They tried MS Conton for 24 hours. That was a joke.

They are trying Methadone now. It's already a joke.

These are 12 hour pills, so about 4 hours in, Liz is rolling around in her gurney, and we always end up paging the nurse begging for something. So, they are keeping us tonight as well. They have her now on some other pain med, with an oral steroid, and an oral morphine. What's scary, and what sucks, is all these med's are FDA 'C'. That means they have either never been tested on humans, or in lab rat tests have shown adverse effects on fetus's, but the OB, the Pain guy, and the nurse all feel confident that since we are in the second trimester, it's safe to take them. Our little guy has developed everything, and the ultrasound a week ago looked great. Now he's just growing.

I mean, what do you do? Tell liz to bite a stick for four months? That's unrealistic. Finally we got the OB & Dr. Conroy together today, and thet decided that after they do the Epideral tomorrow AM, if there is no change, we will start seriously considering surgery. Which both of us are hoping for. There are risks, but we need to get this figured out for poor Liz.

Where do we go? Epideral tomorrow. Hopefully get discharged afterwards. Otherwise it could be more time in Hotel Troy. We just don't have any answers yet...