News From the Nursery Lab - 2010-2

job hazard - for me

I'm on my third day off work. Believe me, it was most unexpected.

Now I've got something new I have to watch out for. An unexpected job hazard for me.

I've talked before about having rheumatoid arthritis in my thoracic vertebrae, knees and elbows. I'm tremendously grateful that I don't have it in my hands as I work with them so much.

Periods of damp, wintery or rainy weather can set off a flare-up. Right now we're on something like ten days without seeing sunshine and for some reason, that jolt of brightness and Vitamin D seems to keep a flare-up at bay.

I worked Monday a half shift because of MLK day, then my usual shift on Tuesday. I was in NICU that shift, and went to pick up an art line draw. The baby was having an EEG done; the tech was spraying some sort of glue on the leads to make them stick to baby so the test could be done. I was in the room for approximately five minutes waiting for the sample to be drawn.

When I got back to the lab I had a headache, severe pain on each side of my nose, just by the eye sockets. The headache ebbed and flowed throughout the rest of the shift and I could not rid myself of the scent of the glue.

At bedtime I still had the headache. Drugs hadn't touched the pain. I went to bed way early for me...like 7:30 p.m....and woke up around midnight with my back feeling as though red hot pokers were shoved down alongside my spinal cord. I managed to call in to work, then laid in bed as still as possible for the rest of the night.

By morning I couldn't lay that flat any longer. I made my way to the kitchen and you don't want to know how many ibuprofen I swallowed. Suffice it to say I'd have bled to death had I cut myself.

I couldn't make it to work yesterday, either. I called the doc, then made a chiropractor's appointment, knowing at least if my back wasn't "out", he could use ultra-stim and get those erector muscles to relax somewhat. And, I made a massage appointment, too. I couldn't do many more hours like that. I have an extremely high pain threshold, so when I'm hurting, it's far more than the average person can tolerate.

When the doc was taking my history, I told him about the EEG incident. He stopped, looked at me, and said, "You were having a flare-up based on an allergic reaction."

Seems that the glue smell getting into my olfactory nerves started a chain reaction. People with compromised immune systems can be very sensitive to certain things, as of course, anyone else can as well. But auto-immune folks tend to end up with a flare-up instead of breaking out in hives, or getting sick to their stomachs or the like. And, until the body flushes that away from the nervous system, you're pretty much sunk.

So, I end up with a vacation of sorts. Not the kind I have in mind, though. I'd much prefer something with sunshine and a warm beach. But, the treatment and the massage did help, and I'm in far less pain today. With hope, all will be well again on Monday!