The Attack of Endometriosis

In the evening of April 11, while I was preparing my stuff for our outing the next day, I suddenly felt an excruciating pain in the right lower quadrant of my abdomen radiating to my back and spreading to my right leg and thigh. Pain scale is 11/10. It was intense. I had to rush to our institute's emergency room for medical consultation.

In the emergency room, I felt disappointed of the nurses who were on duty. Due to frustration, I vented out on my iPad while I was in the hospital. I plan to print it out and submit it to our new chief nurse. Here's a part of the letter:

What disappointed me is that, the entire time that I was on the stretcher crying and suffering from excruciating pain, not a single ER nurse dared to ask me what is going on. They just kept on passing by the stretcher where I was. I understand that this is an emergency room and that everything is fast paced but I assume that I am not the kind of patient that could be categorized as the least priority because I was in so much pain. My pain is scale is even more than 10. I was curling up on that stretcher, crying out loud. I even had to ask my father to follow up every now and then.
 It's kind of frustrating in my part because I am a nurse too. I am not a perfect nurse but I make sure that when I see a patient who's suffering from pain, I approach him/her just to calm him/her down. In that way, the patient will feel that he/she is safe and that he/she is being taken care of. I hate to say this but I didn't feel any of that from them while waiting for the doctor's order. In school, we were taught that the immediate and independent nursing care for a person who is in distress is to give a calming and relaxing environment. And yes, therapeutic touch works too.
 I have been in and out of the hospital as a patient for how many years. I have been suffering from endometriosis since 2007, migraine and chest pain since God knows when... I have been rushed to the emergency room for how many times and I hate to admit this but I think that the ER nurses in other hospitals where I was rushed are better than the ER nurses we have here. I felt safer there than here. I can't help but compare. That's the reason why I saw what they have been lacking. I don't want to generalize. I don't want to judge them because I don't know what these nurses are going through and like what I said, I am a nurse too so I know how busy their lives are. What I am trying to point here is the lack of concern when I was there. I don't know... Is it because they know that I am a nurse? Did they put in their minds that I know how to handle myself? I don't think that's the right reason because in that situation, I am a patient suffering from pain not a nurse scrutinizing them.

 One more thing, I had an encounter with a rude medical intern in that same place. For the record, I have undergone too many ECGs (I have a mild heart illness that I haven't followed up for years.) and this is the only time that a MALE medical intern would do the procedure. I requested for a FEMALE intern and this is our conversation:

Me: Pwede po bang babae na lang mag-ECG sa akin....
MIOD (Medical Intern On Duty): Diba employee ka naman dito?
Me: Oo, staff ako ng N5.
MIOD: Oh.. alam mo naman na yun e. Nurse ka naman. Doctor naman ako. Anong problema dun?
Me: Eh doctor (we call them doctor even if they aren't licensed yet), eh nakakahiya naman at lalake ka.
MIOD: E di wag! *walks out*

How rude! Dafuq. If only I wasn't in pain that night, I could have thrown him my phone. Anyway, I got his name and mentioned in the Patient Satisfactory Survey Form about what he did.

Now let me talk about my illness... So everybody knows that I have endometriosis and I was diagnosed in 2007. I have undergone operation for two times, one was elective and the other one was emergency. In 2010 and 2011, I felt okay. Although, I suffer from monthly dysmenorrhea which I think is inevitable in my situation. My fault is that when I started working in the hospital, I failed to follow up. So this is a lesson for everybody with a chronic illness, it is a MUST to follow up.

In my ultrasound, it showed that I have a cyst again on my LEFT ovary. My RIGHT ovary is normal even though I feel the pain at the right side of my abdomen. I was referred to a new OB because my previous OB can not attend to her patients for the mean time because she is on a training right now. My OB told me that I need to go back to my pills. I stopped it in 2010. I told her that I stopped it because of my breast lumps. So she opted me to undergo breast ultrasound for clearance. On that same day, I also underwent ultrasound of the whole abdomen also for surgery clearance... In my breast ultrasound, it showed a LOT of nodules. Ten nodules in both of my breasts. Thank God, they are benign... but I still have to monitor them. We don't know what will happen next. In my whole abdomen ultrasound, it said that I have adenomyosis which is related to my endomtriosis... And that probably caused all these pain I felt.

So for the treatment, my OB said I have to get 3 shots of GnRH which I had a few years back. It costs Php 8,000 every shot back in 2007. I had 4 shots then. Now, I have to get 3 shots every month and then proceed to the contraceptive pills. I don't know how much this GnRH costs now but it definitely costs a fortune for a nurse like me who is not really well paid here in our country.

The other treatment which takes a lot of contemplating is to GET PREGNANT. Since 2007, my first OB told me that this is the best option. I am not ready to get pregnant yet. I mean, to get pregnant is probably exciting but after that, what will happen to the baby? I don't want to bear a child just because I have to. What will I feed her? I am not yet financially stable to have a family of my own. PLUS, I still don't want to give up my singlehood. Hahaha! I still have a lot of dreams to fulfill and goals to achieve. If a baby comes into my life, everything will change. Not that I don't want to be a mother... Of course, I want to be a mom... but at the RIGHT time. But then again, if I plan to get pregnant years from now... I might have a hard time conceiving.

Anyway, it's already 11 am... I need to prepare for work. Yes, I'm back to work. I only had 2 days of rest here at home. I'm not losing hope. I've read in some forums that they still got pregnant when they were 30+. Let's pray for that.

Mau, Andrea and Jinkee (my closest friends in N5) paid a visit after their outing. Yes, I wasn't able to attend our summer outing because of what happened.