Dear Mr. RN Quinton,

So many things to say.  Where do I even start. Hmmm .....first, I'd like to say that I'm not sure how you made it through nursing school when you either obviously can't read, or can't comprehend.  Maybe both even?  This became a "fact" to me because in every single room of the ER where you work, they have great big posters hanging that has the mission and values listed.  The number one thing is that patients will be treated with respect and dignity and compassion from all medical staff.  I'm not sure Mr. RN Quinton, but I really think that would include YOU! I'm sorry to say that you completely fail in this area.

When you ask a person if they have any chronic illnesses, it might be construed as disrespectful when they tell you one of their chronic illnesses is fibromyalgia and you reply with a long drawn out "oookkkkaaayy.  Well, do you have any real chronic illnesses?"

Your second fail followed just moments later.  After you pointing out how swollen the entire top of my hand was, and telling me to take my rings off before they "get stuck", you go to take my pulse and you grab my affected wrist.  As you grab it and start squeezing it, the first indication that you just messed up would have been my body immediately tensing up while I loudly yell "Ouch!  Your thumb is really hurting me!".  You'd think that at that point, you might have immediately let go and took the ONE step to the side that you'd need to take my pulse on the wrist that isn't in any pain or trauma.  I'd think an "Oh gosh! I'm sorry I hurt you" would have quickly followed.  I honestly couldn't believe that instead you said "Well that was your wrist.  I thought you said your hand hurt.  Which is it? Your hand or your wrist?". Are you kidding me?!  I told you that origin of the pain was on my hand about 1/4-1/2 of an inch above my wrist.  You can clearly see that my   hand is swollen from my wrist to my fingers.  After all, you pointed out that I needed to have my rings off because my fingers were swelling.  Therefore I'd think you'd have the common sense to realize that part of your LARGE thumb was also pushing on the spot of origin on my hand, 1/4-1/2" above my wrist and that my wrist itself also has pain and is also swollen along with the hand, and the fingers.

Now, I thought I was going to a hospital to be diagnosed and treated.  I didn't realize that I was going to have to play "baseball" but unfortunately you, Mr. RN, forced me to play.  Your third strike with me?  Yeah, that would be when you were wrapping my hand and kept disgustingly telling me to hold my hand out straight and to keep my fingers spread apart while you were wrapping.  As I was saying "ouch" and gasping from pain taking my breath away as I attempted to hold my fingers apart, I'd think that you'd find a different way for me to position my hand/fingers that wasn't as painful.  I'd already told you that moving my fingers in any way caused me excruciating pain. You wanna know something else?  I was only 4 classes away from sitting for MY nursing state boards and there was no reason in the world for you to even want me to spread my fingers completely apart while you wrapped my hand.  Not my fingers, my hand.  Do you see any reason for him to freak out, unwrap, yell at me to keep my fingers spread, and re-wrap my hand?? Because I sure don't!

You, Mr. RN Quinton, made it crystal clear that you don't believe in fibromyalgia and that you had decided that because of my fibromyalgia that you don't believe in, that you were going to be a complete jerk to me and not care about my current pain that I was there to be seen for.  I would've thought, after you knowing the doctor was freaking out because my x-ray showed two bones in my hand with pointy calcification spots from an old injury, and many bone fragments floating around in my hand, along with the doctor believing that by hitting the palm of my hand falling into the bath tub that it pushed a pointy bone up and severed tendons and ligaments and him calling to refer me to an ortho right away and telling me that I need surgery, would be a clue to you that I honestly was in pain and this wasn't just some "faker fibromyalgia patient" and that maybe you should've cared whether or not you were hurting me wrapping my hand.  (Whew, HUGE run-on sentence but I'm kind of mad and snarky right now and I don't care enough to want to go correct my bad grammer.)  Anyway Mr. RN Quinton, that was your third strike and you were out!

You, Mr. RN Quinton, are a total DHAC (doesn't have a clue).  You, Mr. RN Quinton, are one of the reasons why I put together my Living With Chronic Pain seminar in the first place.  You, Mr. RN Quinton, are why I'm going to call the hospital and attempt to book my seminar in their facility, to present to their staff. Also, you're lucky Mr. RN Quinton, that I absolutely can't stand even the thought of confrontation.  Had that not been the case, I would have completely unloaded on you tonight and it wouldn't have been pleasant.  One more rude, disrespectful move by you tonight would have pushed me over the edge and I wouldn't have been very polite, friendly, or professional.  I had a complete arsenal of words circulating in my head that wasn't very nice!

Fibromyalgia Numbness

For three straight days now, I've been dealing with numbness in my left hand and little finger.  I've read from multiple sources that fibromyalgia effects 3-5% of the population.  Out of that 3-5% that's effected, roughly a quarter of people suffer from fibromyalgia numbness.  Just my luck, to be in that quarter, out of the 3-5% of the fibro population. 

Everything I've read states that Fibromyalgia Numbness can affect any part of your body, including your face, but the most common areas for it to strike is the arms or hands and fingers.  Everything also states that it can last only a short while, or it can last forever.  There's nothing that can be done about it.  No medication to relieve this symptom.  Of course, they don't know "why" this happens.  Just that it's neurological.  One theory is that muscles that are tense and knotted, put pressure on a nerve to cause the numbness sensation.

The other day, it was just annoying.  Now, I'm past that annoying stage and I really don't like it one bit.  It interferes with my typing.  It feels weird.  I want it gone.  Even rubbing lotion on my hands a bit ago felt weird!

In 2008 the National Institutes of Health was expected to award $393 million dollars to study hypertension, while only awarding $9 million dollars to research fibromyalgia.  Based on a financial report from the NIH's website, U.S. government funding for fibromyalgia research ranks in the bottom 10%.  This saddens me, and pretty much assures me that I'll be living with fibromyalgia for the rest of my life.  I'm not hopeful for a cure to be found in my lifetime.  I am  hopeful though of getting the symptoms into remission, and maximizing that time that I have with it in remission.   

For now I'll keep on with the muscular and tendon pain, the sleep disturbances, the fibro fog, and the numbness along with everything else.  I'll keep my head up and keep hoping for a miracle breakthrough in private research.  What I want to know though, is that if I'm "lucky" enough with the numbness to hit 1/4 of the 3-5% that has fibro, why can't I hit the lottery??!