So pleased to hear your news, Betsy. So good for your husband and Will.

It's Lev Grossman's The Magician King for me. I re-read it just a couple months ago and my heart was so full of Bronzers, Buffistas, and Bronzistas that it just about wrecked me. That amazing feeling of belonging and rightness, the miracle of meeting these friends in person finally.

Me too, Kiba! In fact, I'm re-reading it right now.

My thought today about: ita's Odyssey of Pain Management was to collect all of her posts that she made before during and after ER visits that chronicled the shitty nurses and the great ones, the asshole doctors and kind ones. How desperate and scared she was. How arduous and stressful it was. Just collect it as a first person journal, and then put her picture on the front, put a little intro on it, and send it to the Emergency Rooms that she attended in Southern California. So they knew what it was like for her. It's a perfect, horrible account of the failure of the medical system. In her own words.

Anyway, that was my thought. If I was the head of the ER and I got a book like that, I'd have to think about procedures a bit. How the irregularity of application, the refusal to look into a pain management file, the racist presumptions, the valuation of limiting drug use over providing pain relief are cruel and so frequently unnecessary.

If I was the head of the ER and I got a book like that, I'd have to think about procedures a bit.

I don't mean to be a dick, but no, you wouldn't. (Or, let me back up here; if you had that kind of attitude, you wouldn't have become the head of the ER.) Their baseline assumption is that everyone is drug-seeking, and even if they read ita's story, they would say, "Well, so she was different, but we can't assume anyone else is."

I know I'm cynical, but no ER director will give a shit about one person's story. If they care on a personal level, it won't change a single thing about pain management in the ER. It won't. That is not how they think and not how they view patients.

Ugh, let me clarify, because I don't want this to go pear-shaped:

David, my comment isn't about you; I only wish that this fucking healthcare system had people in it who considered the humanity of the patients in the way you're suggesting. I definitely did NOT mean "You wouldn't change things because you're evil." I meant "The system has become fucked, and being a part of it means fuck-all will continue to happen."

My comment is about the healthcare system, which increasingly doesn't give a shit about the people shuffled through it. I know I'm cynical and grieving, but it's broken as hell, and the people who run it do not give a shit.

Unfortunately, Tep's right. Sending it to a hospital ombudsman, though, might help a little. To a consumer advocacy or health care reporter might also help, especially if you could find one who either is a migraineur/euse or knows and loves one would also help. ED chairs, it'll make fuck-all difference.

I think no one who's a patient advocate would ever make it as high as head of ER. It's all about cost-effectiveness and covering the department and hospital's ass from any hint of lawsuit. You get a bean-counter who has no frame of human suffering for reference.

That pretty much applies in every field these days, I think.

I know ER doctors, one of whom is actually the director of an ER. And he would not give a shit about one patient's story. He's incredibly callous, he does think all patients who ask for pain meds are drug-seeking, and has a pretty dim view of the fellow humans he's supposed to heal.

I understand David's impulse. I want one of those people to really see ita and know what they did to her.

In honor of ita, the blood test I just got took three sticks.

I understand David's impulse.

Oh, I understand it, too. It just feels so futile. And, again, I know I'm being cynical and grief-y and tired.

I can probably stop railing about the healthcare system. For now.

So much this. My mother's brain tumors were not caught because her doctor wrote off her increased pain as drug seeking and cut back her migraine meds.

Oh god, this is terrible. Honestly, that's got to be malpractice.

It's a whole mindset that's got to change. Not only about how much drugs to give and when, but to whom, and who "deserves" pain relief and who's probably lying.

I remember Melisa saying, what difference does it make if I get addicted to the drugs? I'm going to have to be taking them for the rest of my life, which is probably going to be short anyway; why does it even matter if I'm addicted to them? I thought it was a reasonable point.

(Not in bed yet, I know)

A friend of mine is doing something amazing right now. While the healthcare system is Israel is better, privatization and not enough budgets made it go from OK to shabby in the past few years (for example: number of doctors and nurses positions in hospitals didn't change appropriately since 1972, while the population has doubled).

After going through a lot of troubles over a back surgery, she started collecting letters from people who have had the rough end of the stick of the healthcare system. She's sending them, 2-3 times a week, to the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Health, and to the Prime Minister's office. Solely but surely, she got press attention, and the Minsters' attention. It's really an amazing project.