29 Weeks 4-5 Days

5am started the beginning of an incredibly long and painful day.

I woke up. Normally I wake with pain throbbing in my leg and foot but this time I just woke up for no apparent reason. The clock said 5am and I laid there wondering why I'd woken. Within just a few minutes time I felt the first pangs in my ankle. I thought,"do I get up and get the heat pack and risk making my foot hurt really bad really quick? or do I wake Joseph and make him do it... my pain isn't that bad." About a minute later I decided to wake Joseph, even though I felt so bad doing it, but I knew that if I were to put any weight on my foot during these early pangs of pain, I'd definitely be paying for it in the next hour. He put the heat on my ankle and started to gently massage my leg. Over the next hour my pain rose to a level 8 and I was very glad I had woken Joseph during the very beginning. He rubbed my leg/foot while I moaned and almost cried in pain for 2 hours and then some. Finally the pain started to subside and was enough so that we could get some rest.

An hour and a few minutes later, around 8:45am the pain came back suddenly. Instead of building like it normally does, this started right off at a level 8 pain. Writhing and moaning again, trying to bear this pain was so difficult. 

By 10:30am I texted my mom letting her know what was going on and asked her to leave Lodi as soon as she could to come get Blake and take care of him.
By 11 I was a bucket full of sobs and crazy immense pain. Nothing helped. I 911'ed Chad to come get Blake. Joseph drove me to UCDavis L&D and I was on the verge of screaming in pain during the 40 minute drive. At this time, I'd been at and above a level 10 pain for almost 2 hours. The Methadone didn't seem to help. The muscle relaxant and Tylenol didn't do anything either. Joseph wheeled me into the L&D triage and I was taken to a room immediately. They couldn't give me any meds until they got a hold of Dr. C since I'd signed a pain contract with her stating that I'd not get any meds from any other doctor except her. This contract is STUPID and ER's should be exempt and be able to get me meds no matter what. The nurses and dr on the floor asked when I'd last been in the ER and what they gave me to relieve the pain. I had a very difficult time trying to give them information since I was still sobbing and writhing in pain.
 

For over an hour I was wishing I was as lucky as one of my friends who was in labor rather than this pain. This pain is waaay worse than labor; give me that instead!

Eventually Dr.C got back to the nurses and doc in triage and said they could give me 10mg of Percoset. 20 minutes later the pain finally got to a level 10 where I wasn't crying and grasping for the edge of the bed, Joseph's hand, or the thickness of the pillow under my head. I was finally able to form complete thoughts and open my eyes enough to look at who was caring for me. It's now 1pm.

By 2pm, the pain still subsiding but now around a level 7, Mom and Dad showed up and Joseph traded places with Mom to sit with me. The doctor came in and was happy to see that I was back to functioning level again. We talked about the plan of action and about my options with medications. I was now out of Methadone because of the drama with Dr.C/pharmacy/Medi-Cal. I got a call from the pharmacy saying that Medi-Cal put another delay on my pain meds because I'm pregnant and they needed to contact my doctor...again. It would have the delay til Monday at least. So the doc in triage, with permission from Dr.C wrote me a script for pain meds to last me from Friday evening to Monday and said that I'll have to get in to see Dr.C on Monday. I'll still be in the jam of Medi-cal not paying for my meds. I'd gone low: 63. I drank a juice and got my level up to 99.

Finally happy to be so much more out of pain. Joseph pushed me down to the main floor just in case it would aggrivate my foot before I could fill my prescription.

We decided to have Dad's insurance pay for the pain pills for now but knowing that they will catch it and eventually make us pay for the full price of the meds. For now though, I have the meds covered and we'll worry about that consequence later on. I called my primary care doc and left a message saying how the insurances were crazy and asked that he work with the OB/GYN docs and write me my pain scripts so that my Dad's insurance will cover the meds with no issues later on. My primary care doc never called me back. I'd asked that the message be tagged as "urgent" and give me a response by the end of the day, 3 hours later, but now I'm just hoping he will get back to me by Monday. We shall see.
I've said before that Dr.C doesn't believe that my pain is real, valid, or significant. She treats me like I'm just another druggie trying to get a fix.... I was glad these nurses and doc was able to see the real physical pain I was in with full meds on board. They were able to see that the pain is real. I just wished (even though I don't care to see Dr.C) that Dr.C would have been able to have seen me and experience the pain episode rather than hearing it from someone else and not believing anything.

We left the hospital and went to Wally-World to drop off the prescription. I wasn't feeling well so I checked my level: 53. Low again. I'd not eaten anything all day and was low from the physical exhaustion my body was experiencing/lack of food all day and was feeling quite sick. I had another juice but it only brought me up to 99. Mom and Dad went out to dinner with Joseph and I to IHOP. I was able to eat a good meal but only took limited insulin, expecting to go low again. I topped out at 171. For a huge meal that is not a good number to top out at. That means that I would have gone very low, continued to go low if I hadn't eaten. We went home to grab some items and then went to Fairfield for the evening and to stay the night just in case my pain worsened.

Doc had me completely stop taking Methadone and start taking the Percoset 10/325 every 4 hours to stave off the pain. Since Methadone is in my system for about 5 days, each day a lower and lower dose in my system, I expect that my pain will be okay in the beginning but rise over the weekend. We are staying here at Mom and Dad's house so they can help me with Blake/pain while Joseph is working. Today Blake and I have slept most of the day away. He was up way too long since yesterday and is catching up now. I'm exhausted from dealing with so much intense pain and took about a 4 hour nap with Blake. Poor Joseph had to get up early for an exam and came home to sleep 3 hours before his shift and a half. So far my pain has come back between 3 & 5 hours after taking a pill, so I'm taking them regularly every 4 hours. I am experimenting this afternoon though and seeing how long I can go without a pill. So far, the longest time I've been able to go is 5 hours, barely. My leg is visibly bruised at one place but my whole leg is bruised to the touch because of the massive hours of hard massaging done while in pain. That means that when I'm in pain now and in the next few days, I"ll have to have massage only on my foot and not my leg so that makes it more difficult to deal with the pain. I've already gone low once today and hope that it won't continue to happen.

This was my longest pain episode yet. For 8 hours I was at a level 7/8 or higher. And for 2-3 of those hours, I was beyond a level 10 pain with writhing and hollering in pain.