Quick(?) trip to the ER and a little bit of help

I had been feeling nauseated for the past few days, and last time that happened, my sodium was low. Since I hadn’t heard back from the kidney doctor about yesterday’s labs, I called his office. My sodium was 124, so they told me to go to the ER.

The ER doctor ordered another sodium check and hung an IV bag with sodium chloride. That doesn’t usually help any, but it doesn’t really hurt, either, so I went ahead and let them do it.

My sodium came back at 127, which is low, but not critical. They decided to send me home and re-check it on Monday. I’m not sure how I feel about that because I have surgery scheduled for Tuesday, but I guess I’ll just have to reschedule if they end up sending me to the ER again.

While I was waiting for the results of my lab test, my head began pounding, as it does pretty much every day. So I asked the doctor if he could give me something for it. He gave me some Tramadol right before I left the hospital.

On the way home, I was having a little trouble swallowing and wondered if I was having an allergic reaction to the Tramadol. Since I didn’t want to go back to the ER, I went to my doctor’s office.

He wasn’t sure if I was having an allergic reaction or not (he said if I was, it was mild), but just to be safe, he gave me a shot of Benadryl and a steroid shot. He also gave me a prescription for Fiorecet for my headaches. It’s sort of like Excedrin Migraine, but doesn’t have as much caffeine.

I had been wanting to talk to my doctor about a referral for palliative care anyway, so I asked him about it. He was confused because historically, palliative care has only been provided to patients who are on hospice. But lately I’ve been reading they’re also offering it to people with serious illnesses. Like they do with hospice patients, palliative care teams help with things like pain, symptom relief and the psychological aspects of being ill. He said he’d never heard of them doing that for people who weren’t terminal, but he would check.

I heard his nurse make the call, during which she said, “You do? I’m going to send you a referral.” Then I heard her tell the doctor. He said, “Cool. I had no idea they did that.”

So the palliative care people are going to call me next week to schedule an appointment. I’m so glad I asked because I know they’ll be a lot more helpful when it comes to pain and symptom relief than the doctors will. And I’m guessing my doctor has other patients who could also use the help.