-t and Maria, I am hugging you both. It's a shitty, cruel hand to be dealt, no matter what you do.

I was talking with one of my bosses about the ER thing, and he said that it's impossible not to get burned out and bitter -- he did a bunch of ER rotations as a student and resident, and saw an endless stream of people who were there because they had nowhere else to go, and his guess was that 95% of those asking for pain meds were drug-seekers. And plenty of them had stacks of paper and cards with what they told the on-call folks were their doctors' phone numbers and pager numbers. He said that, essentially, there couldn't have been a worse place for ita to be sent or a place where she'd be more certain to be treated badly and disregarded.

I said, "But if that's the only thing keeping them functional, wouldn't it be less harmful just to *let* people have their physical addictions and just try to make their circumstances as safe and non-shameful and non-criminal as possible?" And he shrugged and said, sure, he agreed 100%, but that's not up to him or to anyone not in Sacramento or Washington or any other capital; the ER docs have more power than the drug-seekers and the genuinely sick, but not by much.

It was not a cheery conversation.

Happy birthday, msbelle!

EDIT:Sorry, my post sounds off-tone. It wasn't meant that way. I am having a hard time keeping up with the conversation.

That's true. When DH died I didn't think I could deal with telling his mother and I let the police do it. They did not do it well and I have regretted that ever since.

And you did what you thought was best, -t. There is no way you could have known they would do it so badly. You were ALSO making the loving choice. Were you "screw her, whatever"? or was it more along the lines of "I'm barely coherent and just can't fucking do this." ?

My money is on the latter.

Thank the gods the most important people to tell about Hubby were in the room when he died. I'm very lucky we had warning.

Having a hard time keeping up, but I want to read every post.

Happy, or at least peaceful, birthday, msbelle!

Allyson, we know you're not just attention-seeking. But you did an incredibly brave and difficult thing and you're carrying a huge burden, You actually deserve some loving attention. Let yourself have it, okay?

his guess was that 95% of those asking for pain meds were drug-seekers.

Yeah, my ER doc friend (I use the term "friend" loosely) said that, basically, if anyone comes in and *asks* for pain meds, they're labelled a drug-seeker, even if they have a legit injury. He said that the staff is trained to pretty much not believe anything a patient says.

It's not limited to ER staff, though; when I had my first root canal, the endodontist wasn't going to prescribe pain meds, and I straight up told him that he just spent 90 minutes digging around in my jaw, after I had had months of pain in that same jaw, and I'd rather have pain meds and not need to use them than need them but not have them (also, it was a Friday, so if I suddenly needed pain meds after the novocaine wore off, I'd be screwed until Monday).

He did wander away and then come back with an Rx for Tylenol 3. At a follow-up visit, the dentist (not the endodontist) said, "He gave you pain meds? What did you say to him to get him to do that?" But not in a surprised way; more in a "What lie did you tell to get narcotics?" way.

And I stopped going to that practice because of how badly they treated me, including suspecting me of being a drug-seeker for wanting painkillers after a painful procedure. Asses.

Burrell you sounded fine, love. We all need to give ourselves a break. This is home and safe. Everything is ok here.

Thank you all for the birthday wishes.

If you were right with God, you wouldn't need pain drugs. Despite surgery or broken bones or gaping holes. Unbelieving heathen, you can just suffer.

Or something medically justified. They say.

I don't blame the ER doc's as much as her primary doctors who made going to the ER a necessity. Surely some sort of outpatient hospital visit once a week that was not the ER would have been reasonable. Similar to getting chemo or iron infusions.

I was sitting here feeling annoyed that some rando was IMing me, and it turned out she was doing me a favor and being nice. And then another coworker started torturing me with Ant-Man because he has been subjected to my "Ant-Man objectively is the worst" screed. And just a moment ago I discovered that a door I've never seen open before is a closet. Two closets. How have I been sitting here for over a year without knowing those were closets? I want to buy a Narnia poster and hang it in there to see who laughs when they open the closet door.