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Originally Posted by My kids are cool
This was true for me as well. I functioned extremely well in front of people and would go back to my office and just sit there with my head on my desk. I would go home and take care of the kids and then just crawl in bed and pull the covers over my head.
Even when I broke my arm and thought I was doing a good job of telling the hospital people that I was in great pain and needed help, I was apparently not acting appropriately. I was told I did not act like someone with a broken arm (apparently because I drove myself to the hospital and was conversing with them calmly). Then, despite me saying my pain was a level 8, and I was in significant pain, they did not offer anything for the pain. When the doctor finally showed up and was in disbelief that the nurses had not given me pain medication, the nurse shrugged and said, "she didn't act like it hurt." The doctor was yelling at her -- "it is completely broken! It hurts. You cannot expect everyone to react the same way to pain." She just shrugged again.
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Eventually there were some days I would just start to cry at my desk (those were really bad days). I often wore a warm sweater with a hood because it was FREEZING in the office anyway, so then I would just pull the hood up to partway hide my face. I am sure when I finally took FMLA time people talked, but I really didn't care.
And wow re: the nurse treating you that way...that's terrible. I would have started getting really angry at about the point when they didn't offer any pain medication! I have had to wait for pain meds when I was going through the ER for kidney stones...they were asking me a billion unimportant questions and I could barely speak it hurt so much...and I have a high tolerance for pain.