I always figured that with the pain being chronic, and not curable, that hospital was completely useless. Until last night. I ended up in hospital, hooked up to an ecg and having blood tests and xrays to make sure I wasn’t having a heart attack. This is the first time I have ever been admitted to hospital because of the chronic pain.
The paramedics – Bec and Will – took me seriously. If they hadn’t, I probably would have just stayed home. And while technically there were no particularly beneficial outcomes from the hospital trip, the way I was treated in hospital was so different to what I was expecting. It’s rare that medical staff do take my experiences seriously in general, and it was a complete shock when the doctor had already treated other patients with fibromyalgia who presented with the same symptoms.
Turns out that after over a week of coughing – probably from some viral illness – my chest was so sore it was giving off all the pain symptoms of a heart attack. After all the tests came back showing my heart itself was happy and healthy, I was discharged in the early morning hours and sent home to rest up. Thankfully I have today to keep up with resting before getting stuck into work tomorrow.
Ruby the Chronic 