Recently I called 111 due to severe endometriosis pain (extreme pain caused during period). The reason I called was because the pain seemed worse than usual - barely able to move, or think, just a world of agony. The usual dizziness, vomiting, shaking and fever was significantly worse and it is this that made me call - I thought something had gone very wrong and I might have an infection or something that was causing me to go into shock.
The woman on the phone was intitially sympathetic - I was groaning and panting my way through the pain as if in labour and was struggling to speak because the effort hurt even more. She said that she had endo too and understood. She then proceeded to lecture me about "lifestyle", telling me I neede to cut out red meat. I explained I was veggie, almost vegan (cheese is my downfall) so she started saying I should be entirely vegan. I also had to give details of my exercise regime. Of course, this kind of supplementary information/advice can be helpful in the right context but I don't think this was the right context!
Worse, because she inititally seemed sympathetic I ended up expressing, in a garbled way, my fear of this impacting my ability to hold down a job (not currently in paid employment). She told me she had never lost a job due to endo, in over 30 years. Well no, I suspect the NHS had decent sickness policies to cover this sort of thing! Bit different if you work in the local supermarket.
I repeated several times that the reason Id called was because the associated fever was so much worse and I thought maybe something else was wrong (I was concerned that I'd just be found dead a few days later, if it hadn't been the middle of the night I'd have called some people and got them to check up on me). It's so confusing because if I didn't have endo I'd have called an ambulance with those extreme symptoms, so it's hard to know if one should when the symptoms are significantly worse/different. She reluctantly offered a phone call from the out of hours GP (who called several hours later), but continued lecturing me about lifestyle - as if I can make this extreme pain disappear (and my lifestyle isn't bad, all her assumptions were wrong but she just got to a really nitpicking stage as if determined to blame my pain on me).
AIBU to think that when someone is in so much pain they feel like they are dying, it is not an appropriate time to lecture them about lifestyle? And even more shocking from someone who calims to suffer from it herself? I'm guessing she's the type who barely noticed they were giving birth and was running marathons the next day...