A Versatile Strategy

I've been sorting through books lately, in an effort to cull and control my ever-burgeoning collection, and of course I have to browse through each book to decide if I want to keep it. It's a slow, but rewarding process. This evening I was wandering through Migraine: The Complete Guide, when I happened across this delightful anecdote from a fellow migraineur:

Many migraine patients feel that emergency departments treat them with disrespect and with disregard for the seriousness of their condition. Emergency-room personnel, they say, do not consider severe migraine a true emergency. Instead, they bombard hapless migraineurs with demeaning questions and imply that they are drug abusers seeking a narcotic fix.

"I have a foolproof method for dealing with insensitive emergency-department doctors and nurses," said one woman who has had severe migraine for twenty years. "I throw up on their shoes."

Oh, you go girl!

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Why yes. I do want a narcotic fix if I had to come to an ER for a migraine. Why do you think I left my dark, quiet home to come to a loud, bright, noisy, disease ridden hospital? Most likely because the pain made me want to put a gun in my mouth and I couldn't stop vomiting. So yeah. I want something - anything - and I want it now.

That being said, the doctor who gave me compazine (only IV works like this, he said) rather than demerol is my new hero.

By lost academic (not verified) on 22 Jul 2008 #permalink