I'm one month out from my bypass. Last night, I had intense leg pain in my right calf. Pain has to be off-the-charts for me to even notice.

When you take as much morphine as I do (for an unrelated chronic condition), the pain has to be really bad. This was at least an 8 out of 10.

This afternoon, after suffering all night and all day today, I finally mentioned what was going on. My daughter dropped by for a visit and

she could see right away that I was trying to hide my pain from her. I could have lied, told her it was post-surgery discomfort, but I don't like

being dishonest with my kids.

Anyway, it wasn't my idea to go to the ER. My daughter insisted. I figured it was a muscle pull or a cramp. I didn't seem to have the

the typical symptoms for a clot, so I thought I'd just sweat it out.

The ER took my leg pain complaint seriously. They did an ultrasound, took an X-ray, and did a lot of blood work. Everything was normal.

I was actually more interested in my blood work. After weeks of lousy Protein and Fluid intake, I figured I'd have abnormal readings.

Not so. My protein was within normal limits, my electrolytes were fine.. so was everything else.

Do I feel silly for going to the ER? Yes and no. Would I have gone if my daughter hadn't stopped by? Probably not. Would I suggest that

someone else with the same leg pain go to the ER to rule out a clot? Probably.

It's amazing how we often won't take symptoms we experience concerning our own body seriously, but when it comes to others, we tend to take things

very seriously...

The thing I really dislike about ERs is being treated like I'm an attention-seeking, drug-seeking hypochondriac.

Oh me too!! I know a few different pain meds don't work at all for me including morphine, codeine, and tramadol. And now of course, I can't take NSAIDs either. Me telling any nurse or doctor this makes me sound like a drug - seeker. So I am always under-prescribed. This drives me me crazy because how can I explain that I made ten Oxycodone leftover from a surgery, last literally years in my medicine tub. I still have the last one that I *nearly* used for my recent kidney stone pain but decided not to as I have a pretty high pain threshold. So, it drives me mental, I mean yesterday I got prescribed buscopan and panadol for renal colic from a kidney stone. I didn't ask for anything stronger because I didn't need it, but I'm sure they would have looked at me sideways in the emergency department if I had!


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