Discrimination Against Me and My Disabilities- Baptist Hospital Conway, Arkansas
02/25/2024
Jessica Ann Lane
messyjessycreatesart@gmail.com
Complaint against:
Baptist Hospital
Conway, AR
Dr. Brandon Baker Morshedi, MD
I have something to say. I feel like this should be a #metoo moment, only for discrimination and violation. It happened last night, I think. No, the night before. Friday. Well, let’s go back a tiny bit further. I am a chronic pain warrior and very proud to have been strong through the worst nights, days, weeks, and years. I have a big problem. I am allergic to morphine. I have no pain meds. Now, I take other things for nerve pain and migraines that prevent some forms of severe chronic pain, but are not a controlled substance or anything like that. So when your meds stop working or your having a flair up or you are stopping one medication and going to another, whatever the situation, you pretty much just have to suffer through some of the worst pain that a human can possibly endure and survive. I have been disabled and have not been able to teach full-time for a while. I worked hard to pick a time to try to go and teach Art to very special to me children here in my lovely hometown of Conway, Arkansas. This caused flairups, as I knew it would. So I began procedures (that’s all you have if you are allergic to morphine) to help with the most painful areas first. My back had just underwent several procedures on the lower spine and that pain was just recently under control, my migraine medications were finally working so that I only had about half of the pain, my gastroenterologist was running tests next, and then, in order to help with my occipital neuralgia and migraine pain, I went to get a nerve block on my right side. I had done this before and burned the nerve a few years ago but it comes back. Pain will find a way. Like ants or cockroaches, it always finds a way to get back in.
Now, this experience happened after school on a Thursday. I went in for a nerve block which is required by my insurance so that I can get a nerve burn to fix the problem. It felt different this time. Half of my head, neck, shoulder, upper torso were totally numb. I went home and cried in pain. Even though it was numb, everything was at an outrageous number on the silly little pain chart they use to rate pain levels. I thought that it would wear off and go back to normal by the next morning. Now, I really have very little in the way of pain medications with the exception of Toradol which is an anti-inflammatory and you can only take it a few times every 6-8 hours for only a few days, every now and then. When I have these back procedures, nerve blocks, nerve burns, and injections straight into the nerve that runs along the back of your skull under your skin, I have no sedation. No pain medication. Nothing. Did I mention that the sedation that they use does not effect me? Yep. So, I take the squeezy ball with the smily face that the nurse hands me and I try as hard as I can not to scream. My mom said she heard me from the waiting room a few times. Now, let’s go back to the point of this story.
The occipital nerve block was too much for my body to handle and my body was reacting and flaring up to the extreme. To the maximum. If I have an uncontrollable migraine that lasts weeks and my meds are not working, I will go to a walk in clinic, they all know me around here, and I go for a migraine cocktail. That is what I learned from going to the Emergency Room a few times and then realizing that I can just get that at the walk in clinic. I saved money on copays and deductables. If you have a disability or chronic illness, you know that medical copays for 4+ specialists a month plus medicines, that really adds up. The Migraine Cocktail is a mix of Toradol and steroid. Wonderful on my migraines. It does nothing for my neurological or muscular pain.
There is so much pain for me with no relief. I’ve asked my neurologist and my Spine and Pain Specialist and we have tried every muscle relaxer. I curled up in a ball of pain for three days after a back massage that was a Valentine’s Day gift from my Sweetheart. I was in some of the worst pain of my life. Nothing I could do, right? Just bear through it so that you can go to your new job and teach these awful, terrible, lovely, special, and beloved kids Art. We can’t get substitute teachers. Not allowed. It’s a special program. So I don’t want the kids who maybe depend on me being there a chance to think that I am not dependable. Maybe no one in their life is. You never know how kids get to where they currently are. I don’t want to put any extra stress on our little team of a few teachers and staff.
Oh, yeah. Back to the awful procedure reaction. I went to school the next morning even though I felt awful and told my co-workers straight away that I was going to need a lot of help today. Something wasn’t right. I couldn’t hold my head up and it was causing EXTREME stress on all of my other muscles from my head to my ribs. Those muscles hurt so bad that it was so hard to breathe. Gosh, it hurt so bad to breathe. I was already in trouble with my gastroenterologist and neurologist because I had lost about 35 pounds (I now weigh about 108) in about 4 months due to all of the pain from my disabilities.
I will testify that I have given birth, naturally, we’re talking 10 pound babies here. I have broken bones, undergone major surgeries, and have almost every word in the Medical Dictionary that ends in myalgia, along with other disabilities. I will tell you that when you have that much pain, are allergic to meds that might help you, the doctors don’t have any solutions for you, you know that most of your pain is neuromuscular and there is no cure. Well, you get tired of it after a while. You have to have a strong support network to get you through the really hard times or you have dark thoughts. Back to the story. It hurt so bad to even breathe. My neck and shoulders were having severe and painful spasms attempting to hold my head up. I left school. Tears were just pouring down my face. I cried a waterfall. For hours. I pulled over and called my Hunny Bunny, still bawling so bad I couldn’t talk. It also hurt to breathe. Talking requires breathing. He told me to call the clinic and ask what I should do. Well, I cried and tried to use as few words as possible that I had a procedure in Conway (you have to go through dispatch in Little Rock I guess AND they have Friday afternoons off) and something was really wrong. She said she would get a nurse to call me back. I told her I can’t do that. I may need to go to the emergency room. She agreed and advised that I go. I have never in my life gone to the Emergency Room for pain other than migraine tornadoes in my head. For one, I have the impression that ER doctors may think you are just looking for pain meds and you take them all of the time, I guess? Second, what can they give me? Why have I never been offered anything by any of my other doctors? So I immediately go to Baptist Hospital here in Conway. I’d only ever had good experiences with them. The other hospital in town isn’t really that great. I was very dizzy and stumbled into the ER entrance. The Security person realized that I needed a wheelchair and helped me around to register and such. I was waiting for three hours. Now, I know that you need to attend to heart attacks and such as soon as possible. But squeeze me in between. I found out later why I was left out there, trying to quietly stifle tears and moans of pain, for three hours. Yes, they were busy. Yes, we are a smaller city and don’t have a huge staff each of our hospitals. Yes, I would have gone to a walk-in clinic if I knew what to ask for. Yes, I would have an emergency medication for back up for when things get this bad. But this was what my barely functioning body and brain chose. I was already here. My Love had come from work in Little Rock directly to Baptist ER in Conway. I had already been waiting for two hours at that point. The third hour went by with a loving shoulder to cry on. Finally, someone came out and called my name. They twirled me around in the wheelchair and I almost threw up because I was so dizzy (Did I mention that half of my head was numb, including the my ear. So I was very dizzy. My equilibrium must have been off or it was the residual side effects of the nerve block medication from last night. Anyway, they rolled me back, put me in a bed and some of the pain subsided on the stressed muscles but now I had severe neck pain, occipital nerve pain, and an oncoming migraine. So I curled up in the fetal position and cried for about an hour more. I was so hungry. I had tried to drink a couple of swigs of Ensure at lunch but it made me very nauseated. By lunch on Friday, I was not functioning properly. I was so hungry and thirsty. But I could not have eaten anything because of the pain levels anyway. Finally, the doctor popped by to tell me that I had a very complicated medical history and then asked me what he could do for me. I told him that I needed something for pain, what I had tried, a quick history of that, and I exclusively pointed out to him that I had never been to an ER for pain except for my migraines and I go to the walk-in clinic now that I know Toradol and steroids work and they are available there. Almost word-for-word, this is what he told me.
First of all, this is not an emergency and I don’t have time for pain patients. I have heart attacks, brain tumors, etc. Your pain is just an inconvienience. Learn to deal with it. I don’t want to hear what hasn’t worked. I am not your neurologist or pain doctor. I’m just an ER doctor. I don’t know what to give you unless you tell me. I have had 5 chronic pain patients this afternoon. Doctors need to stop telling their patients to go to the ER. I can’t do anything for them. Their doctor needs to do something for them. Since I legally HAVE to treat you if you walk through my door, what do you want? Some Toradol and some Valium? Let’s get that started so we can get you out of here and you can go home.
He also asked me jokingly if I just want him to knock me out and I begged him to. That’s how much pain I was in. He said no, because then he would have to actually admit me into the hospital overnight for observation and he said he wouldn’t do that for a pain patient. He also wouldn’t send me home with a tranquilizer because he would lose his medical license.
The nurse comes in and stabs my vein with a good ‘ol fashioned ER IV. Stab, stab. Blood is just running down my arm and flowing off of the tips of my fingertips. She puts clear tape over the IV starter hook up. It is covered in blood. Yuck. We did have another nurse come in and give me a warm blanket and found a pillow for me (heart emoji). Finally the meds nurse comes in (She was great) and injects me with a large dose of Vallium and Toradol. I said no to the steroid offer from the doctor because I was still shaking so bad from the Nerve Block the afternoon before that I didn’t want any more in my system. I’m still crying rivers of tears at this point, several hours. So much pain. Hurt because the doctor told me, the first time I trust a doctor enough to go ask for help that I ALREADY KNOW has a huge stigma attached, that I was such a waste of space and I just needed to learn to live with it better.
Our response was- I understand that you have other patients that need care faster than me. I have never been to the ER for pain, I’ve always just dealt with it. My doctors have tried this, this, and this, and nothing works. I came to the ER because I had no alternative. If my doctor is closed and/or can’t help me, I can’t wait until Monday, the After Hours Walk-in clinics don’t carry the powerful and/or rare medications that you can find at an ER, right? I want you to understand my situation. The pain is so bad that you just want to make it stop by any means necessary (He later provided a suicide prevention leaflet with my “discharge” papers).
The meds eventually helped the pain in my breathing and the tears didn’t flow, but now dripped. About 45 minutes to an hour later, the doctor came back to check on me, probably hoping to free up a bed from this waste of time and resources laying there, he asked how I was doing. He noticed that I was at least laying on my back and not curled up in the fetal position anymore. I said that it was still pretty bad but it had helped a little. He said that he could give me a little more vallium but not much more because I only weigh 108ish pounds. I said that would be great. He REALLY probably thought I was just there for the drugs at that point or, maybe, he realized just how much I was in pain. One can always hope. That really helped to make the pain more manageable. But, am I supposed to take very high doses of valium every day? How do I work? Or do I just stay at home in bed like I have been for many years either wacked out on Vallium or writhing in pain. Either way is an absolute, hard NO for me. Besides, which doctor would prescribe that for their patient?
So far I have tried to be as non-judgemental as I possibly can be, under the circumstances. Now, I will judge. The doctor made me sit in the waiting room for 2 hours before having a nurse bring me back, even though I was curled up in a ball, in the wheelchair, crying my eyes out, because pain patients mean NOTHING to him. In my opinion, doctors with no compassion for EVERYONE should not be a doctor. He took a Hippocratic Oath stating that he would help people, in an ethical manner. If a hospital does not have a compassionate care doctor or nurse or other type of resource, they need to get one quick. That’s not cool. If you hire doctors with unethical practices, at least have someone there to pick up the inadequacies of the other doctors.
I complained of complications from a procedure in my neck and it was causing severe pain when I went into the ER. Not once did anyone check the injection sites on my neck and upper back. I still had the goo in my hair from the procedure the evening before because I was in so much pain from said procedure that I could not shower that night or the next morning.
The doctor really didn’t say much about a diagnosis, there was no diagnosis listed on the discharge papers other than “muscle spasms and neck pain”. It was just a printout of something stating I had been there which I could have printed off rom my online chart with their hospital, a handout on suicide prevention, and a few leaflets on muscle spasms- like suggestions to help, such as put heat or ice on it. Yeah, never thought of that, never tried that, been a chronic pain patient for YEARS, etc. Don’t you think maybe I or my doctors have thought of and tried that before? The doctor or Nurse never came and talked to me about my hospital ER discharge. They just threw the papers on the bed, unhooked me and put me in a wheelchair to take me to my car.
You know, I was in so much pain that it wasn’t until about half way through Saturday, as I was crying in pain, that I thought of what had happened, his words, how I was treated, how FIVE chronic pain patients had been treated that way THAT SAME DAY. How many every day? Do they get this same doctor or another, more compassionate doctor? How has there not been a complaint about this guy? Maybe there is and I just don’t know yet. Maybe they are the type of hospital that hides these types of things. Let me tell ya, it’s really not in their best interest to discriminate and have biases against a certain group of people, NOT MATTER WHAT THEIR DISABILITY IS. I should have been treated better. I have always been humble, tried to say something if I noticed it wasn’t right in a nice way, or just simply keep my mouth shut and move to another doctor. But this is unethical, discriminatory, and he is putting people’s lives in danger. He saw that I was a chronic pain patient, he obviously has a bias against that category of disability, and only treats them if he has to.
I feel that I need to say something for myself, as well as all of the other chronic pain survivors. We are survivors EVERY DAY. We go through the most painful experiences a human can go through every day and make the decision to endure the pain for just a little while longer before you simply can’t stand it any more and put a stop to it yourself. Don’t worry about me. I want to be here. I have people who care about me and people who I care about. I’ve not always had that. I was in such a manageable pain level situation that I actually took a job! Don’t let that fool you, I lived in terrible pain every day but I felt like the migraines and my lower back were manageable enough that I could work on the rest of my issues a little bit every week after school. A procedure here, a follow up there, a half day to go see a new doctor in Little Rock.
I was made to feel embarrassed about my disabilities- for having them, for seeking help for them, for coming to the ER for treatment when it was clearly just an “inconvienience” to have. I was made to feel like a low life drug adict looking for drugs. I was made to cry harder because I felt so ashamed, yet confused at the same time. Was he joking? Why would a doctor say those things to a patient? And why did no one even examine my head, neck, injection sites, muscle situation. No exam. Just those words and an IV.
You know what? That was just wrong. I don’t tolerate my students picking on kids with disabilities. I would just pass out if someone told me one of my sons was bullying a person with disabilities, or anyone for that matter. Is there a word that describes how I feel? Violated. Offended. Discriminated against. Bullied. Ashamed. Emotionally hurt. Hopeless. Oppressed.
