Harming worker health

I am a current employee of Amazon. All of last week I was battling a cold and Friday night I thought I was getting worse so Saturday I decided to go to see a doctor at a urgent care facility. They didn't have a doctor but there was a nurse practitioner there. The nurse practitioner heard me coughing so he ordered lung and chest x-rays. After reviewing the x-rays he said that my lungs are clear, but I have an enlarged heart. He said that if I don't get this taken care of I am at risk of having congestive heart failure or a heart attack. He prescribed some medication to me 10mg. I am only supposed to take one pill per day for a week. I took it Saturday and it really hit me hard because my body wasn't used to this type of medication. I went in Sunday before my shift and spoke to a Amcare person. I showed him my medication and documentation, and I informed him of my reaction to the medication. He stated that I should take the medication right when I get home and before I go to bed. That way I will be ok at the start of shift. Monday morning after I got off work when I got home, I took the medication and then fell asleep. Tuesday, I woke up at 4:00 pm to get ready for work. I still felt very drowsy but I really don't have much time to take off so I had to go in to work. I went to Amcare to speak with them again and for them to check my vitals. I wanted to them to see if I was able to work or not. Nobody was there so I stepped outside and saw a safety guy. He asked if anyone has seen me I said no. The guy paged the Amcare person to come to his office, and after waiting 20 minutes the guy finally shows up. He said that he can't help me because he has a meeting to go to, and that I need to wait for another representative to show up. I waited another 20 minutes but nobody showed up. I walked outside and saw the safety guy again and he asked me if the other guy had helped me. I said no and I told him what the Amcare representative told me. The safety guy and another guy both told me that nobody is going to be in Amcare until 6:30 p.m. My shift starts at 6:00 so I couldn't just sit in Amcare and not work. I went and talked with my AM and informed him of the situation. My AM told me to go ahead and go at 6:30 to see the representative in Amcare. At 6:30 pm I went to Amcare saw the guy, but the guy refused to help me because I didn't have any paperwork with me. He told me to go home to get the paperwork and comeback to the facility then he will help me. I was under the influence of medication and several people that are paramedics saw my condition and said that I can't drive because I am in no condition to drive. The drive is usually 30 minutes but with traffic it would have taken me over an hour to get there and back, so I would have been driving and sitting in traffic while under the influence. Before last night's shift I spoke with the doctor at the facility that I went to Saturday, and he said from what I was describing my blood pressure was very low. During my shift last night I talked with my AM, and I informed him of what happened and what the doctor said. Later on he talked with the Amcare guy that refused to treat me, and the Amcare guy said that he wanted to treat me but because I refused to get the paperwork like he wanted he couldn't treat me. He also said that I should have told him that I wanted my blood pressure checked and he would have done it. The AM sided with the Amcare guy and said that I should have driven home while under the influence to get the paperwork, go back to work, they check me out, and then go back home. The AM also said that I should have instructed the Amcare guy to check my blood pressure.

The lesson that I learned: You can be under the influence of some medication to the point where you about to pass out or worse, but they won't help you unless you have paperwork in hand.