ER Trips

This anecdote is an unedited cross post of Valerie Roney’s Mastodon post about making an ER trip less awful. The original post can be found here.

Valerie also runs a website here for those interested in her other works.

K. Meandering thoughts (pffft executive function) on a non-awful ER visit that may be useful for other folks.

I no longer view ER as a safe place that will take care of me when I am in crisis (pausing while you all laugh at my latent hope and innocence).

What I frame now is like going into a Hunger Games arena - and adversity event, where my survival is 100% on me. And survival is as much about cold and hunger and pain, so I went EQUIPPED…

I packed all the snacks, all the comfy clothes, all the meds, all the earplugs, headphones, warm socks, extra PJ’s (I generally take a bug-out bag in case I am admitted anyway) multiple scarves to throw over sore eyes or cuddle or whatever I need. I made sure I had sensory joy.

I spent my time in ER like I was in a motel, I was away from home but gonna do everything I needed to be as comfortable as I can.

And I went with All My Meds. All my immune meds, all my pain and symptom meds, all my cannabis.

SO much cannabis, tbh. If I was going to a wedding, or a mall at xmas, I would know the stimulus hell of that, and Dose The Hell Up to protect my brain. Why did I not think of doing that in a smelly beepy shouty hospital. 🤦‍♀️

The core point being, I am the expert on this illness, it is my job to keep that on the rails while you sort whatever brought me in here.

So mostly I just wanted to share you can do that (I know! I am as surprised as you!)

Take ownership of managing your illness, even in a setting like that (obvs ymmv, lots of different opinions and policies) but unless someone says no, we’ll manage this, don’t surrender your authority if you don’t have to.

And it kinda makes sense, in a busy ER - you’ve got some complex medical stuff you can manage on yer own, we don’t have to deal, and you won’t suddenly get perplexingly worse? Yes pls!

Couple of examples:

I have a dystonic storm that drops me to the floor in an ER waiting area. I am explaining, from the floor, what is happening and why and what meds fix it. Dude says we can’t give you any meds, you haven’t seen a doctor yet. I said that’s cool boo, pass me my bag I’ll get my own.

At bedtime I take all my immune meds. Lay them out on the palm of my hand name them one by one to the nurse, which matches the meds list, so they’re cool with it, and I don’t unravel sans meds.

And my favorite part: talking with the ER doc about immediate issue plus all the complex stuff that is related, but not related. The doc follows up making sure I have what I need for illness stuff including pain, I say I took all my immune meds and I am on medical cannabis and brought all my stuff with me.

Doc writes:

“patient will manage her own medications”

On my chart.

So like, maybe not all the time in all circumstances but loud whispers YOU CAN DO THAT 🤯

So the tl;dr of that meander:

1. approach ER like a Hunger Games Arena - plan for high adversity and protect your comfort and functioning as much as possible.

2. you are the expert in your illness, do not surrender your authority or responsibility in managing that unless someone says, hey, it’s cool we’ve got this.

3. find/bring any kind of sensory joy comfort you can, and up yer adversity meds, ease your background distress.

AS GOD IS MY WITNESS I WILL NEVER GO THROUGH ER STRAIGHT AGAIN.

(Thank you Canada for #mmj it makes so many unbearable things bearable)