This nation has a serious problem with drugs, especially opioids. According to the CDC, around 250 people a day die of drug overdoses and around 75% of those deaths involved at least one opioid such as fentanyl. I saw it first hand when I was teaching, although thankfully none of my kids died of an overdose. I had one of my kids overdose when I worked for another district, and seeing her suddenly collapse was one of the scariest moments of my career. The drug problem in this country is very real and very scary. I will not deny that.
As is typical with politicians, this crisis has set off a knee-jerk reaction that has extended to essentially punish the chronically ill and disabled. Before I start this, though, I want to be very clear. Although I acknowledge that those addicted to drugs had the choice to take the first hit and didn’t have to make that really bad decision, I view drug addiction as a disease to be cured and firmly believe we need to be very careful when judging them. Addiction, after all, doesn’t just come in the form of drugs. It can be anything. I mean, just look at the obesity issues we have in America. If I can’t lose weight and stop eating the fatty foods, I don’t think I get to judge anyone for any type of addiction. I’ve also learned in my time of teaching teenagers that addictions frequently correspond with either self-medicating for mental health issues, or provides an escape from a terrible home life. Compassion is needed here, not judgement.
I know it’s common for drug addicts to tie up hospital emergency rooms seeking pain meds. When you see this constantly, I can understand the tendency to become jaded and and wary of anyone coming in with a pain issue. However, what I CANNOT understand is when the doctor becomes jaded and makes assumptions, potentially endangering the lives of their patients. Matter of fact, I won’t even try to understand that. I’m not a doctor, of course. In this case, I don’t think it matters. Making assumptions about your patients and endangering their lives is absolutely inexcusable and makes you a terrible doctor and a terrible person in general. That’s a hill I’m willing to die on.
My dad has been fighting abdominal pain for nearly two years that they couldn’t find the cause of. He has been in various emergency rooms averaging once a month. Along the way, they found that a kidney was atrophied and that he had an aneurysm. He had stents put in, and we thought that was going to fix everything. Dad spent 16 days in the hospital, and began the healing process.
Then the pain came back. We went to a hospital affiliated with the one that did the surgery. The first time, they didn’t do any tests and gave him some morphine. Two weeks later, he was back in. The ER doctor was great, but the doctor in the observation unit was absolutely terrible. He came in without ever having looked at much of dad’s records. We asked him about the atrophied kidney and he asked “What atrophied kidney?” I was on the phone with my mom when I heard that, and I had to hang up quickly. (Mom has a cuss jar, and I couldn’t afford what I was about to say.) All he saw was a history of ER visits and assumed my dad was looking for pain meds and sent him home, still in pain. Here’s the sick part…not only did they accuse him of just wanting drugs, they sent him home with more morphine and drugs to help him live if he overdosed.
THIS DOCTOR DID NOT EVEN CARE IF DAD WAS A DRUG ADDICT. HE JUST SENT HIM HOME WITH MORE DRUGS.
I just want to be very clear here. My dad has a prescription for morphine, and he was given refills. Almost two years later, my dad is still on the original bottle and has half the pills left. By no stretch of the imagination can dad be considered a drug addict.
Not even three days later, we take dad to a different hospital when he was in pain again. We had to fight dad to get him to go, because he thought he wasn’t in enough pain. I suppose that doctor had done the job, because my dad was afraid he wasn’t in enough pain to justify the hospital trip. They found that his aneurysm had grown another centimeter in a very short amount of time and had a bad infection in it. He was rushed by ambulance to the hospital that did the original surgery.
This doctor could have cost my dad his life. An aneurysm can pop at any time and cause the victim to bleed out internally. Because of his assumptions, he sent a critically ill man home and it could have killed him. Does that doctor probably see a ton of patients just looking for pain meds? Probably. Does that excuse his unprofessional behavior? ABSOLUTELY NOT.
You want to hear something even worse? This doctor was NOT the only one. It seems like most of the hospitals just got dad out of pain and sent him home. One time, we insisted he stay. The doctors told him that the cause of all his issues was lying in the hospital bed. You know, that one that wasn’t at his home when his pain began? Two years of hospital trips, people. TWO YEARS. Most of which were a pattern of “Hey, he’s in pain. Give him morphine. Is he in pain now? No? Can he hold down food? Good. Send him home.”
Here’s all he was told:
- His hospital bed made him hurt.
- Immune therapy did something. We don’t know what.
- He just wants pain meds.
- The atrophied kidney did it. (This one was actually a good guess by a doctor that took him seriously.)
- You need to build your pain tolerance.
- Go see pain management.
- Yeah, you have an aneurysm. It’s not doing anything. It’s small.
- You aren’t digesting your food. (There was some truth here.)
- Have you pooped today? No? You’re constipated.
- Let’s give you some morphine so you don’t have to go to the hospital.
Dad was in the hospital every 6 weeks, give or take. Every time he went to the hospital, he was NPO, which means he wasn’t allowed to eat. Then they would move him to a liquid diet, then they would send him home without anything happening. This also took a toll on his health, because in the course of the cancer and stomach issues, he lost around 100 pounds in less than a year, further weakening him. My dad survived stage four cancer twice and we were losing him to malnutrition, a fact that I angrily pointed out to at least one doctor.
Far from being a drug addict, my dad is now recovering from having the 6cm aneurysm removed, one of the biggest surgeries one can have. In addition, his digestive system has decided it doesn’t like him very much, which we have been telling people for two years. Some people have listened to that, but they haven’t found out what’s going on. Others have just admitted their ignorance and sent him on home. The hospital he is in now sees the problem and won’t let him go home until they figure it out. As much as dad is ready to come home, I’m grateful for this. They are going to make sure they send him home as healthy as they can, and able to care more for himself. Dad is in the medical center in downtown Houston, and it’s supposed to be one of the best hospital systems in the world. I have every faith that they’re going to do the very best they can for him, and return him to us as healthy as they can get him.
Once again, this is a hill I’m willing to die on. As a doctor, you have a DUTY to believe your patients and treat them with the utmost respect, no matter what assumptions you have made in your head. You have an absolute DUTY to run all the tests and make sure of your diagnosis. Will mistakes happen? Of course they will. Those mistakes should NOT happen because you made an assumption about a patient’s drug history and you decided to scoot them on out of your way and clear your list of patients. This is completely inexcusable, and I hope that when a patient dies as a result, you permanently lose your license to practice. It’s a matter of time before that happens. You cannot make assumptions about anyone’s pain levels. One day, it’s going to cost someone their life, like it could have cost my dad’s life. Luckily for dad, there are competent doctors out there that saved his life. I understand that I don’t know anything about being a doctor or how busy an ER is when it has people “drug-seeking”. Guess what? I DON’T CARE. Treat every single patient with respect. Lives are in YOUR hands. You have the obligation to do better. SO DO IT.
I also want to be very clear on another point. I’m not directing this at the doctors that was unsure of what was going on and made some guesses to see if they were correct. That’s going to happen. The perfect example is the one that spotted the atrophied kidney. We never knew that one of the kidneys was totally not functional. That was a legit option to explore. My dad has had some wonderful doctors along the way, including the doctor that removed his aneurysm, his primary care, and the oncologist that got rid of the cancer. There’s been ER doctors that have done their best. I’m speaking specifically to the doctors that totally wrote dad’s pain off and did the bare minimum to get rid of him. They do not deserve their license to practice. Do I know what it’s like to be a doctor? Nope. Here is what I do know, though. As a doctor, you take an oath to do no harm. Some of these doctors have utterly violated that oath by allowing themselves to become so jaded that they only see drug addicts in chronic pain patients. Step back, evaluate yourself…AND DO BETTER. You almost killed my dad.
Edit: This is a few months later, and the competent doctors did indeed save my dad’s life. He is home and recovering, gaining weight and gaining strength daily. Also….he doesn’t have to take pain pills now and oddly enough, has not overdosed on morphine. His only two trips to the hospital since September were false alarms due to errors in lab work, not pain.
Huh. A two-time cancer survivor and aneurysm survivor actually had a medical emergency and wasn’t just looking for pain meds.
Imagine that.
Another edit, and the worst one yet…A few months ago, my dad’s brother passed away suddenly. We got the autopsy report back a few days ago. You want to know what killed him?
An aneurysm in his aorta. Same place as my dad. It busted.
DO BETTER.
Unapologetically Disabled 