false alarms and pain pills... joy

Ow.

That's pretty much what it boils down to.  I have never been in this much pain, and I'm pretty sure I've said that before.  But it's been really bad lately.  I can't work anymore.  But I'm too scared to not work because I don't want to put them in a bad situation and I really could use the money.  But physically?  Working is probably one of the worst ideas for me... currently.

I left work early on Friday.... Yesterday.  It seems like days ago, but it wasn't.  This is what went down....

I was near tears, trying to work as fast as I could, but I was in so much pain I could hardly breathe.  Lunch time finally came, and my mom had ordered me a delicious salad from Costa Vida (delicious!), so I was on my way over to the new building, which is where she works, from the main hospital, which is where I work.  The walk wasn't that long.  Normally it would take me only a couple of minutes to get over there... but yesterday it took me ten before I even got the the elevators leading up to her floor.

There has been this sharp, stabbing pain in my ribs and my back... the baby moves like crazy all the time, and it is so painful.  My joints are all messed up, so walking felt almost impossible because my hips hurt so badly.  Not to mention that I kept getting comments from everyone that I looked really pale and sick, even though I had been eating a ton all day and had taken my pills.

Okay.  I finally find my mom and the food, and by the time I've gotten there, I'm too sick to eat anything.  I had gotten really nauseated.  Even though I had been taking my pills for that too.  All the nurses and doctors were asking me questions about how I was feeling and where the pain was coming from.  Finally, they convinced me to go into the main office for my department and tell them that I couldn't work the rest of my shift, and to go to the hospital I was already pre-admitted at to see what was wrong...

We finally get there.  And I got settled into a room, and am so nicely dressed in an IV gown.  I'm hooked to monitors to monitor the baby's heart beat and my contractions to make sure everything was okay.  The nurse asked me a million different questions about everything from my pain levels (which she didn't believe were that high) to past conditions that I've had.

I knew when I walked in that I wasn't in labor.  There was no way that I was having contractions, because I couldn't feel any.  The problem has been my ribs and my back the ENTIRE time that I've been pregnant, and all everyone says, is there's nothing I can do and to just wait it out.  How nice of them... Great advice.  To which I would respond.... "shove it where the sun don't shine!"  With a nice, big smile.

So, I lay there.  Strapped to machines, with lubricating jelly leaking out of my who haa from the first time they checked to see how dilated I was, trying to sleep with the amount of pain I was in... It seemed impossible.  But apparently I drifted off to sleep, and the nurse came back in to check me and see how I was doing.  When she found that I was exactly the same, (DUH, I knew that), she said that she could give me something for the pain, and send me home.  (The pills were awesome by the way, and I had no pain for the rest of the night... and they did kinda make me pass out...)

BUT  when I asked if I could get some kind of prescription to help ease the pain while I wasn't working, the nurse said no, and looked at me like I was crazy.  She also said I should just try warm baths and non-asprin Tylonol.  When I told her that I have been doing that every day for months and it hadn't done anything, she said I should just keep trying because they try not to give much medicine in the last few weeks of pregnancy.

Stupid nurse.  She didn't believe that I was in much pain in the first place, and whenever I asked for help with the pain, she just brushed it off like I was another pregnant lady complaining about simple pregnancy pains.  Which really bugged me.  When I asked to talk to my doctor about what I should do about working, she brushed it off again.  I felt like she wasn't listening to me at all!  

Any time I've mentioned the pain I'm in to anyone, they just say, "Welcome to pregnancy!  It will be over soon..."  Really?  That's all you have to say?  Try it one more time and I'll shove my maternity brace down your throat.  Did I mention that I went to physical therapy?  For two weeks?  And they told me that nothing they could do would help me, so it would be best for me to come back after I had the baby if the pain was still bothering me.  NO JOKE.

So you know what I'm going to do?  I already talked to the people at my work and told them I was having a really hard time working and I am in constant pain... and working makes it worse.  I'll just have to make the final decision, and tell them that I can't work anymore.... good lord.  I'll have to stop working, try to figure out how to pay for the things I need and keep my job so I can keep the health insurance and have a job to go back to when it's time.

On the plus side, I'm dilated to a 2 and I'm already 80% effaced.  Woot.  But I could stay that way for weeks.  Only 20 more days...

I love dealing with stuff like this... Now if I could find a way to make the pain not be so....  painful.  

Wouldn't that be nice?  I can't wait until this is over....  Keep your fingers crossed.