Text 19874, 72 rader
Skriven 2011-06-10 14:12:13 av Roy Witt (1:387/22)
  Kommentar till text 19840 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: End the war on drugs!
=============================
08 Jun 11 09:49, Robert Bashe wrote to Roy Witt:

 RB>>> That, incidentally, also applies to the attitudes of the general
 RB>>> public, where opiates are often rejected even when indicated
 RB>>> because "they'll addict me". That's all the more surprising in
 RB>>> elderly persons with a limited life expectancy suffering severe
 RB>>> pain, but does exist.

 RW>> This happened to my FIL back in 1980. He was dying of bone cancer
 RW>> and the prescription drug they gave him for the pain wasn't working
 RW>> at the dose he was given. Nancy took care of him while he was
 RW>> hospitalized, attending him nearly 24/7. When she was told that he
 RW>> was already at the maximum dose and they didn't want him to get
 RW>> addicted, she said; "But he's dying, what difference will it make?"
 RW>> they had no answer and still refused to relieve his pain. He was
 RW>> fortunate to not to live much longer than he did.

 RB> Poor man - it's amazing how heartless people can sometimes be in such
 RB> cases.

Speaking of heartless; Nancy's mother signed him into the hospital and
then boarded a flight to England and traveled the middle-east while he lay
there dying.

 RB> I even experienced a mild situation of this kind of thinking myself,
 RB> when I broke my wrist falling down stairs a few years ago. The wrist
 RB> had to be operated on, and a metal plate screwed onto the bone (which
 RB> naturally is still there). When the general anaesthetic wore off, I
 RB> had considerable pain - and was given something only slightly more
 RB> effective than aspirin (paracetamol) for relief.

 RB> Now, I occasionally have to take time-release morphine pills for the
 RB> severe pain I sometimes still have, resulting from my lung operation
 RB> years ago - it feels like someone is kicking me in the back below the
 RB> right shoulder blade with steel-toed boots, very hard and repeatedly.
 RB> Doesn't happen often nowadays, but when it does, the pain is
 RB> unbearable.

Can you imagine what it is like to have your sturnum split in two for
heart surgery? I've had surgery and sometimes I feel like you do with a
lower rib that was eithr spred apart or clamped out of the surgeon's way.
My favorite side to sleep on too.

 RB> At any rate, I knew what would help and asked for what I normally
 RB> take for such severe pain. "Naturally", all this was during the
 RB> night.

I had what they call a epidural catheter after my surgery. That helped a
great deal in taking care of the pain.

 RB> I literally had to fight the nurse _and_ the doctor before they
 RB> finally were willing to give me one dose about a third of what I
 RB> normally take, and that didn't help much - I didn't sleep that night,
 RB> and the pain only subsided after the drain was removed the following
 RB> day.

 RB> I was quite angry about this and made no secret of my feelings, but
 RB> the surgeon appeared to think I should have simply grit my teeth and
 RB> bore the pain - after an operation, in the middle of the night. What
 RB> an attitude ;-(

They should have given you something to sleep along with that pain
medicine, so the pain wouldn't bother you.

                R\%/itt


 ..."We will not tire, we will not falter, we will not fail." - GWB


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