Last nights episode (watched this morning thanks to the trusty TiVo!) had my blood boiling. Each episode generally has 2 cases presented in the hour, neither person knows they are about to face an intervention and believe they are being filmed for a documentary about addiction. Generally it is an ok show but like I said, last nights pissed me off.
I don't even know where to begin but I guess I could start with the A&E websites own mistruths on the issue...
Family and friends decide that an intervention is their only hope of saving two men: Kelly, a man with a 160 IQ who lives on the streets and survives on beer and other people's spare change, and Mark, who's so addicted to painkillers that he's had a morphine pump surgically implanted in his abdomen.
Now I know of no doctor that would allow someone to have an intrathecal pump for that reason. Rather I suspect that seven surgeries have left this guy in a fair amount of pain and the pump was installed for that reason. Did they even bother to do a reference check on this? I am used to the crappy newspapers and magazines screwing up their details but this is pathetic.
This poor guy was bullied into treatment where they not only got him off his oral pain meds but removed his pump. WHAT? I know he had to agree to all of this but if you saw the episode you would have noted that his sister really did bully him into this.
There is so much I could say about this episode but basically it really seemed to me that if this guy was as he says he was, in pain, then they do not understand the problem of chronic pain. Sad indeed because in the end he paid the price for their stupidity and ignorance.
Perhaps later on when my thoughts are going at a million miles an hour I will say more on this. If you have the chance to see this episode it is worth the hour in my opinion. If you suffer from back problems and/or chronic pain you will understand what I am trying to say here.
All I know is that my family and I have had this conversation a few times. I want to make sure they are all crystal clear on what the extent of my injuries are and what my quality of life is with and without the meds. They have seen me without them, barley functional and VERY cranky as well as with them. While I am not going to be running the marathon or cutting a rug anytime soon they have seen that with my meds I am able to do some things with my kids, I can get around better then I can without them and so on. They have seen that my meds bring a quality of life that otherwise is no longer there.
It's too bad this poor guys family did not see that.
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