Yesterday I was taken to the emergency room in Ravenna for constant and excruciating pain in my side. The GP had asked me for an urgent X-ray and told me to go to the emergency room. I spent 5 hours there where I kept repeating that I had fibromyalgia and felt the pain increased tenfold, struggling to breathe and move.
Nothing to do. They gave me a blue code, took my blood pressure 3 times and that was it. I was not given the x-ray that the doctor had requested. After 5 hours I left from despair, from humiliation, from not knowing who to turn to if, even in the hospital, there are no staff trained to assist patients suffering from fibromyalgia.
I, a disabled patient with chronic pain, asked at least to be able to have an X-ray to see if it was the ribs or a bad muscle tear, but instead I was left without treatment and abandoned, in tears. Even the boy who was caring for the patient next to me, seeing me in so much pain, went to call a nurse who, like everyone else, dismissed me by saying that the doctor would visit me shortly.
In short, what happened, besides being shameful, caused me one of the most well-known symptoms of fibromyalgia: the muscles and tendons that pull, the legs that feel heavy. It’s like turning into a block of stone.
Furthermore, after being warned several times that I no longer had painkillers in my body, my chronic migraines increased and consequently also my nausea (also chronic) to the point of being doubled over on my stomach, a position not compatible with pain in the cost I came for.
In the end a group of resident nurses/doctors blamed me for not making them understand the situation! But I went in saying I had fibromyalgia and was told “don’t worry, everything is clear now we’ll take care of it”, and I repeated this to every person who passed near me. Furthermore, on the first page of the admission document, it was written 3 times in bold letters “fibromyalgia patient”.
I don’t want to go on further, but I believe that the lack of empathy and above all the lack of preparation in dealing with a disease that affects over 2 million Italians is a serious matter.
LP
