A new trip to the hospital

I am on day 15 of having the same migraine I have been calling my regular doctor and also trying to make an appointment with a neurologist. My regular doctor prescribed pain killers and told me that if *I* was worried that I should go to the ER. I was very frustrated by this... How the heck am I supposed to know if its a dangerous situation? I honestly expect to be told what to do by the experts I have trusted my care to. I suspect that due to our litigious society and costs of insurance they have a strict set of rules on how to dole out advice.

It's been many years since I have gone to the emergency room due to headaches. I know the drill, they run me through a cat scan, give me some drugs and tell me I'm not going to die and thats it... But with this most recent change in the pain and duration, and with the stress that it seemed to be causing myself and my wife I decided to go and make sure that nothing was dangerously wrong inside my head.

It was mostly a positive experience, the emergency room was not very busy and all the staff seemed concerned, professional and attentive. It was the first cat scan have had in maybe ten years and as expected, it showed no dangerous growths or problems. I have sort of mixed feelings about this however, on the one hand it's wonderful to have my mind put at ease that I don't have a tumor or some other situation, but on the other hand it's frustrating to think that I can have a 14 day long constant headache that has no detectable cause. A small part of me just wants them to find something... something that can be fixed, repaired, taken care of.

It was interesting that Stuart Black was the nurologist that they instructed me to follow up with and that he was this same doctor that I recently have been trying to get an appointment with but was booked up for over year. When my wife called for the follow-up they seemed disinterested in my case and repeated the line that he would not be able to see me anytime in the foreseeable future.

I'm not really sure what the hell the follow-up was for and why I was directed to speak to him if he in fact had no time for a follow up with me. Once again the structure of the medical business confounds and confuses me. I do have an appointment in three weeks with an associate of his and I'm assuming that its someone who has access to the same resources and knowledge he does, so I am hopeful that this new doctor may have some good news for me although honestly I think I am just going through the motions. I don't want drugs that ease the pain at the expense of my already limited cognitive ability and energy... I want a reason, I want a cause and I want it to get fixed.

Unrealilistic goals I guess.