Disciplinary actions and pain relief: analysis of the Pain Relief Act.

I am a forty-six-year-old registered nurse who specializes in oncology care and education. I am also a patient who suffers from chronic nonmalignant pain, and this malady has been the most frightening, the most humiliating, and the most difficult ordeal of my life.... The general tenor of the medical advice that was given to me was this: I would just have to learn to live with the pain.... ... I found myself begging, as though I were a criminal. Defensive and angry and yet in such great need, I would beg forgiveness for having this pain. I became withdrawn, completely disabled by my terrible, relentless pain. I was unable to function profession-