I have been having a very hard time lately. I don't really know who to talk to or what to do, thus I am reaching out here. In January of 2015, I wasn't feeling well. I had a doctor appointment that day with my psychiatrist. I am diagnosed with bipolar II disorder and generalized anxiety disorder as it is. Anyway, at this appointment, as I was talking to my doctor, I got terrible cramps and started asking to leave. I could barely hear anymore, I was in so much pain. I left her office and ran to the bathroom as I thought I was going to puke. Once there, I felt a huge amount of pain wash over me from head to toe and thought I was going to faint. I feel to the floor in front of the toilet and waited for it to pass. After it had passed, I felt a bit better, but thought it was weird so walked back into the office and asked them to call an ambulance for me. I didn't have a phone. I sat back down and waited for the paramedics. After what felt like a very long time, I started to think it was weird that no one had showed. I walked back to the desk and asked if they had called anyone. They said no, that they had called my psychiatrist. I told them this wasn't mental, that I was in a great deal of pain. They said okay, and I sat down. This whole time, I was doubled over with passing, horrible cramps. After a while, no one came still, so I went back up to the desk again. They said my psychiatrist was finishing up with her next patient and would be out soon. I sat down and waited again. She finally came out, told me I must feel embarrassed to be making such a scene and said I could wait in her office. Instead, they took me to a conference room with some guy I had never seen before, talked about me as if I wasn't in the room, and started trying to get a hold of my husband which is very hard to do because he is an arborist who works on site. No one took anything I said seriously. I was just some annoying patient being dramatic. Eventually, the got in touch with my husband. He informed them that I wasn't being dramatic and they should call an ambulance anyway. So, they finally did. My doctor made me feel embarrassed all the way out the door.
Once I got to the hospital, I was put in the hallway and waited without anyone even talking to me for quite some time. It was at least a couple hours before I was moved to a room. I know that this is how ERs go sometimes though. The doctor who did finally talk to me was brilliant though. I told he what was wrong and she asked if I could be pregnant. I said probably not because I was on birth control that I was very careful about (after having suffered a miscarriage only a couple months before, being pregnant again was something I was very serious about avoiding). She asked if my shoulder hurt too. I was surprised because it actually did. She said she thought it was an ectopic pregnancy which I thought was totally impossible. My husband showed up and I was wheeled into a room for an ultrasound. I was apologizing for being dramatic to him and he was reassuring me when the doctors started the ultrasound and started whispering to one another which made me freak out. Then a few more doctors showed up and they all were whispering very seriously. I started hearing things like "there's so much fluid in the abdomen here...and here...and here..." and really started to panic. I held my husband's hand like a vice. The doctors informed me that I had an ectopic pregnancy that had ruptured and I was bleeding internally. I couldn't believe it. I asked them if I should be scared and they weakly told me everything was going to be fine. I was shipped to another hospital.
By this point, it had been many hour since I first felt the worst of the pain. The bleeding was making the pain almost unbearable. They had me on morphine and I still writhed with any movement such as someone bumping into my gurney. Everything moved very fast after this. A surgeon was called in and talked to me briefly, telling me that they had to get me into surgery as quickly as they could and would have to remove the Fallopian tube, ovary, and the fetus. I saw the heartbeat on the screen when they did the ultrasound and felt awful. The last thing I remember is being wheeled to outside the OR and the nurses arguing about the urgency of the situation. One nurse pointed at me and said, "Look at her color! They need to hurry up!" The next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes to a room full of people, talking. I think I started to come to during surgery. I actually woke up trying to say something to them and realized I was alone in post op with my husband.
Recovery from this sucked, but not as much as I thought it would. I have a pretty nasty scar that still hurts even over a year later, but I can't complain. My psychiatrist never apologized for the way I was treated and even criticized me for making her job hard because I had had 2 pregnancies while trying to figure out medications. I left that practice and found another.
Anyway, I felt fine about this whole situation for a while. I was just glad to be alive. I already had 2 kids I wanted to be around for. But, about 6 months later, I started having a lot of chest pain and trouble breathing. I went to my PCP and they thought I had a blood clot in my lung and rushed me to the ER again for a chest CT. It was terrifying. They determined I was fine. When the breathing and chest pain issues wouldn't go away, they had me checked for asthma and such and I was fine. Then, in October of that year (9 months later) my husband revealed he had cheated on me. I was devastated. He had always been my rock. I also had to go off my psych meds again because they thought it might be interfering with my thyroid. I started to feel worse and worse. I have had my thyroid, stomach, heart, etc checked and nothing appears to be wrong. However, I feel sick constantly. I am nauseous after I eat, have terrible chest pain, feel like someone has their thumb on my throat all the time, pain in my joints, such terrible fatigue that I neglect things I love (such as playing with my kids), constant headaches. It causes me terror to the point that I lose sleep at least 3 nights a week. I just stay up crying, thinking about all the things I will miss if I die. I have been to the ER 7 times in the last year and a half out of panic. Medical bills are looming. I don't know what to do. I can't talk myself down from the fear I feel. I have been 100% convinced that I was having a stroke/heart attack/had cancer, etc... I don't trust my doctors to care or listen to me. It has been so bad, I started reading about coping with terminal illness and finally thought better or it. But, it seems to get worse with time instead of better. I just don't know what to do anymore. The thought that this all might be some manifestation of PTSD only recently occurred to me. But I feel like what I've been through is really not that bad. I don't know though...
Once I got to the hospital, I was put in the hallway and waited without anyone even talking to me for quite some time. It was at least a couple hours before I was moved to a room. I know that this is how ERs go sometimes though. The doctor who did finally talk to me was brilliant though. I told he what was wrong and she asked if I could be pregnant. I said probably not because I was on birth control that I was very careful about (after having suffered a miscarriage only a couple months before, being pregnant again was something I was very serious about avoiding). She asked if my shoulder hurt too. I was surprised because it actually did. She said she thought it was an ectopic pregnancy which I thought was totally impossible. My husband showed up and I was wheeled into a room for an ultrasound. I was apologizing for being dramatic to him and he was reassuring me when the doctors started the ultrasound and started whispering to one another which made me freak out. Then a few more doctors showed up and they all were whispering very seriously. I started hearing things like "there's so much fluid in the abdomen here...and here...and here..." and really started to panic. I held my husband's hand like a vice. The doctors informed me that I had an ectopic pregnancy that had ruptured and I was bleeding internally. I couldn't believe it. I asked them if I should be scared and they weakly told me everything was going to be fine. I was shipped to another hospital.
By this point, it had been many hour since I first felt the worst of the pain. The bleeding was making the pain almost unbearable. They had me on morphine and I still writhed with any movement such as someone bumping into my gurney. Everything moved very fast after this. A surgeon was called in and talked to me briefly, telling me that they had to get me into surgery as quickly as they could and would have to remove the Fallopian tube, ovary, and the fetus. I saw the heartbeat on the screen when they did the ultrasound and felt awful. The last thing I remember is being wheeled to outside the OR and the nurses arguing about the urgency of the situation. One nurse pointed at me and said, "Look at her color! They need to hurry up!" The next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes to a room full of people, talking. I think I started to come to during surgery. I actually woke up trying to say something to them and realized I was alone in post op with my husband.
Recovery from this sucked, but not as much as I thought it would. I have a pretty nasty scar that still hurts even over a year later, but I can't complain. My psychiatrist never apologized for the way I was treated and even criticized me for making her job hard because I had had 2 pregnancies while trying to figure out medications. I left that practice and found another.
Anyway, I felt fine about this whole situation for a while. I was just glad to be alive. I already had 2 kids I wanted to be around for. But, about 6 months later, I started having a lot of chest pain and trouble breathing. I went to my PCP and they thought I had a blood clot in my lung and rushed me to the ER again for a chest CT. It was terrifying. They determined I was fine. When the breathing and chest pain issues wouldn't go away, they had me checked for asthma and such and I was fine. Then, in October of that year (9 months later) my husband revealed he had cheated on me. I was devastated. He had always been my rock. I also had to go off my psych meds again because they thought it might be interfering with my thyroid. I started to feel worse and worse. I have had my thyroid, stomach, heart, etc checked and nothing appears to be wrong. However, I feel sick constantly. I am nauseous after I eat, have terrible chest pain, feel like someone has their thumb on my throat all the time, pain in my joints, such terrible fatigue that I neglect things I love (such as playing with my kids), constant headaches. It causes me terror to the point that I lose sleep at least 3 nights a week. I just stay up crying, thinking about all the things I will miss if I die. I have been to the ER 7 times in the last year and a half out of panic. Medical bills are looming. I don't know what to do. I can't talk myself down from the fear I feel. I have been 100% convinced that I was having a stroke/heart attack/had cancer, etc... I don't trust my doctors to care or listen to me. It has been so bad, I started reading about coping with terminal illness and finally thought better or it. But, it seems to get worse with time instead of better. I just don't know what to do anymore. The thought that this all might be some manifestation of PTSD only recently occurred to me. But I feel like what I've been through is really not that bad. I don't know though...