Chronic Pain Thoughts: Provider & Hospital Call Out

 Dear Reader,

For the last several months I've been watching my mother-in-law fight cancer. What started as neck pain turned into a death sentence. I am sick and tired of these providers ignoring us and acting as if we are the ones that are bothering them.

This provider call out is about one provider, I'm going to start at the beginning. For the sake of this blog, we are going to use the name Debbie as referenced to my mother-in-law. I don't have exact dates and all names.

It started as a pain in the neck. We all noticed the hump that slowly growing but thought nothing of it. Being stubborn she didn't go in until she started loosing feeling in her arm. Her provider of course sent her to Spine & Pain. Now, those of us who have chronic pain know exactly where this is going to go.

Having asked for my advice I told her not to let them do injections or prescribe things like Gabapentin, Lyrica or Cymbalta. At her first appointment, without any diagnostic testing (X-Ray, CT or MRI) they told her it was nerve pain and of course gave her the wonderful gabapentin (We in the pain community call this garbagepentin), they gave her the lecture about how such-in-such injection would really benefit her, which she declined. Fast forward to a month and as we know, the gabapentin wasn't helping.

After finally being sent for an MRI, they find what appeared to be a cancerous tumor growing on her spine. A neurosurgery consult was done and it was decided the best approach was to go in, remove the tumor and fuse 4 vertebrae. The tumor ended up being 7 inches but they could only remove 6. At St. Vincent hospital she was given Tylenol only. We had to fight to get her actual pain medication. She was sent home in a brace

After she healed from the surgery she started Chemo. Things went well until they did consolidated chemo where they brought her to the brink of death. She contracted COVID and Pneumonia while in the hospital. I honestly didn't think she would make it out but at least her pain was being managed.

After all this she couldn't sleep because she was in so much pain. They of course upped her gabapentin and gave her cymbalta. Ugh, I realized all this wasn't going to end well but I wanted to make sure she remembered the time she had left.

She struggled with pain control the entire time. Complained that her Oncologist didn't take her seriously and basically ignored her concerns. She had her daughter, who is a PA help her navigate everything but was still being ignored.

After a few falls, she was admitted to the hospital again where they found the cancer had spread to her bones, mostly her pelvis. A new treatment plan was put into place, but this treatment plan didn't include anything for pain.

She was taking, Cancer medications (I don't know exactly which ones), Cymbalta, Gabapentin and Naltroxone along with enough for 2 Narco's a day. We spoke with her on Tuesday 12/16 she was talking about how she didn't know how much more she could take

Wednesday, she fell, Thursday she fell again and ended up going to St Vincent Hospital via ambulance. After a CT scan we found she fractured her T2 vertebrae and had a brain bleed. While in the Critical Care ICU she was given IV Tylenol and Gabapentin. She moaned in pain, kept asking why she was in so much pain.

While sitting in the waiting room, I found out that at her Oncologist appointment, she was in so much pain she couldn't sit in the chair, so she opted to lay on the exam table, when the doctor, Brian Burnette with GB Oncology came in, he asked her if he should come back after her nap. Not only is this rude and not compassionate but it shows he doesn't care about his patients.

Debbie is going to die withering in pain because St Vincent's Hospital & Dr Brian Burnette refused to give a dying patient anything other than Gabapentin and Tynelol. I can only imagine the person making these decisions will receive something stronger when it comes to their time.

Have you been referred to a provider? Google them, check them out on www.healthgrades.com, Web MD and even the reviews on the provider's web site. Don't be afraid to leave one!