semi-synthetic opioids, and where is the spring in my step?
Drugs are bad. I quit being a drug addict today. My own one woman intervention was enough. Trapped in the bathroom with somewhere else to be, the madness had to stop. Because everything else had. But let me back up to before things got... backed up.
I have two aftermarket holes in my neck: one 3/4 inch horizontal cut left of center above my clavicle, and one puncture just above that sorta resembling a bite from a vampire with a looth tooth or missing fang. The hole was for a drain the surgeon left in for a couple of days. It wasn't very decorative. Now it's gone. My life is better. The cut was his incision point and exit door for a hyperactive parathyroid which had been doing the job of 6 strapping young men, when really it needed to be doing the work of only a single chubby hamster on an exercise wheel. So that teeny gland got cut out. He also took another one for good measure. And symmetry. Now I'm wondering if he's going to charge me double...
Just in case he has to go back in later on, Dr. G. tagged the other two remaining glands, not unlike how Green Peace might tag baby seals to keep an eye on 'em, and he sewed me up. Behold Frankenstein! only less zigging and zagging involved in the stitching, but I'm sure as much artistry and finesse as Gene Wilder ever had. The good doctor even snipped a skin tag I asked him to during our pre-surgical huddle up. THAT is personalized service. THAT is a PPO.
Fast forward 4 hours in the O.R. which I thankfully remember nothing about. I woke up without a mustache drawn on my lip or bourbon spilled on my gown, so I'm thinking it went pretty professionally, and those fellas' degrees were probably not of the Caribbean variety.
The morphine immediately post surgery was groovy, so groovy in fact I didn't hesitate to ask a complete stranger to please fetch me a bedpan. I guess she worked there, but I didn't check. Then I apparently asked her for a cherry popsicle. I know I must have been in a stupor because I would have otherwise asked for grape. The cold treat helped a bunch. My throat was pretty sore from having been intubated with this special hose that stimulates the vocal nerves to make them scooch over so they don't get in the scalpel's way. Me not being able to talk would have been a shame. My kids didn't have enough allowance saved between them to bribe the doctor otherwise.
Being detached from tubes and plugs and getting to come home from the hospital, I've been generally much more pleasant to be around. Well maybe. Presby is a fine place to be surgeried on and everything, but needing ask for help to use the bathroom, and buzzing the nurse when lights start flashing on machines that are hooked up to you, possibly indicating tiny air bubbles are about to be pumped directly into your brain gets old after a few hours, and I was there 24. I like my own bed. I like my dirty kitchen. Mostly I like my body unperforated by needles shooting stuff in and sucking stuff out me.
Ah, all those needles. The last day or two have me looking like a horrible junkie, track marks up and down and veins all bruised, the surrounding skin dark as the circles under Helena Bonham Carter's eyes in Fight Club. If I were a drug addict, I'd probably go with pillz, though. Ironic because I am a horrible pill swallower. Maybe chewables? Just no needles. Snorting would be ok, too. Then again, I'm a terrible sneezer. It must be hard to be a Goldilocks drug user and find the one that's just right for you.
The Lortab my insurance company was paying for may be as close to opium as I suppose I'll ever get in Dallas, though I'm certain if I stood out on Fitzhugh long enough, someone would hook me up with a diluted version. Sadly, habituating to hydrocodone is a terrible nuisance and inconvenience - usual sleeping and waking hours get hosed, my circadian rhythms were entirely thrown. big yikes. Hydrocodone puts things in suspended animation, things like rational sequential thought, a typically healthy appetite, how pain is perceived. And GI transit.
Samuel Beckett in all his minimalism suddenly became very relevant to me. A few titles seem oh so apropos:
*Krapp's Last Tape (I am NOT making that up)
*Come and Go
*Catastrophe
*Happy Days
*That Time
*Waiting for Godot - who could forget Estragon's lines as he talks to himself -- "Let's go. We can't. Ah!"
Lortab makes you consider drastic measures. Ralston hot cereal has 5g of fibre per serving. That's 20% USRDA. I had 2 servings yesterday. I was disappointed with the lack of result. Very disappointed. So I visited the Metamucil website. Yes, I realize visiting cyberspace alone probably wouldn't do the trick, but I wanted a visual testimony. I needed to see all the happy, relieved people depicted on the page. So I looked. And I was jealous of their carefree expressions. I coveted their unfurrowed brows and flat, uncramped tummies. I remembered in the not too distant past that ideal to strive for, what is that word usually reserved for the AARP crowd? ah yes, regularity. Such a thing should never be taken for granted. Ever.
As I threw my Rx in the trash, I could have sworn I saw a vision of Nancy Reagan wearing a "Just say NO" sweater and raising a glass of prune juice to me. Could it still be the morphine?
I have two aftermarket holes in my neck: one 3/4 inch horizontal cut left of center above my clavicle, and one puncture just above that sorta resembling a bite from a vampire with a looth tooth or missing fang. The hole was for a drain the surgeon left in for a couple of days. It wasn't very decorative. Now it's gone. My life is better. The cut was his incision point and exit door for a hyperactive parathyroid which had been doing the job of 6 strapping young men, when really it needed to be doing the work of only a single chubby hamster on an exercise wheel. So that teeny gland got cut out. He also took another one for good measure. And symmetry. Now I'm wondering if he's going to charge me double...
Just in case he has to go back in later on, Dr. G. tagged the other two remaining glands, not unlike how Green Peace might tag baby seals to keep an eye on 'em, and he sewed me up. Behold Frankenstein! only less zigging and zagging involved in the stitching, but I'm sure as much artistry and finesse as Gene Wilder ever had. The good doctor even snipped a skin tag I asked him to during our pre-surgical huddle up. THAT is personalized service. THAT is a PPO.
Fast forward 4 hours in the O.R. which I thankfully remember nothing about. I woke up without a mustache drawn on my lip or bourbon spilled on my gown, so I'm thinking it went pretty professionally, and those fellas' degrees were probably not of the Caribbean variety.
The morphine immediately post surgery was groovy, so groovy in fact I didn't hesitate to ask a complete stranger to please fetch me a bedpan. I guess she worked there, but I didn't check. Then I apparently asked her for a cherry popsicle. I know I must have been in a stupor because I would have otherwise asked for grape. The cold treat helped a bunch. My throat was pretty sore from having been intubated with this special hose that stimulates the vocal nerves to make them scooch over so they don't get in the scalpel's way. Me not being able to talk would have been a shame. My kids didn't have enough allowance saved between them to bribe the doctor otherwise.
Being detached from tubes and plugs and getting to come home from the hospital, I've been generally much more pleasant to be around. Well maybe. Presby is a fine place to be surgeried on and everything, but needing ask for help to use the bathroom, and buzzing the nurse when lights start flashing on machines that are hooked up to you, possibly indicating tiny air bubbles are about to be pumped directly into your brain gets old after a few hours, and I was there 24. I like my own bed. I like my dirty kitchen. Mostly I like my body unperforated by needles shooting stuff in and sucking stuff out me.
Ah, all those needles. The last day or two have me looking like a horrible junkie, track marks up and down and veins all bruised, the surrounding skin dark as the circles under Helena Bonham Carter's eyes in Fight Club. If I were a drug addict, I'd probably go with pillz, though. Ironic because I am a horrible pill swallower. Maybe chewables? Just no needles. Snorting would be ok, too. Then again, I'm a terrible sneezer. It must be hard to be a Goldilocks drug user and find the one that's just right for you.
The Lortab my insurance company was paying for may be as close to opium as I suppose I'll ever get in Dallas, though I'm certain if I stood out on Fitzhugh long enough, someone would hook me up with a diluted version. Sadly, habituating to hydrocodone is a terrible nuisance and inconvenience - usual sleeping and waking hours get hosed, my circadian rhythms were entirely thrown. big yikes. Hydrocodone puts things in suspended animation, things like rational sequential thought, a typically healthy appetite, how pain is perceived. And GI transit.
Samuel Beckett in all his minimalism suddenly became very relevant to me. A few titles seem oh so apropos:
*Krapp's Last Tape (I am NOT making that up)
*Come and Go
*Catastrophe
*Happy Days
*That Time
*Waiting for Godot - who could forget Estragon's lines as he talks to himself -- "Let's go. We can't. Ah!"
Lortab makes you consider drastic measures. Ralston hot cereal has 5g of fibre per serving. That's 20% USRDA. I had 2 servings yesterday. I was disappointed with the lack of result. Very disappointed. So I visited the Metamucil website. Yes, I realize visiting cyberspace alone probably wouldn't do the trick, but I wanted a visual testimony. I needed to see all the happy, relieved people depicted on the page. So I looked. And I was jealous of their carefree expressions. I coveted their unfurrowed brows and flat, uncramped tummies. I remembered in the not too distant past that ideal to strive for, what is that word usually reserved for the AARP crowd? ah yes, regularity. Such a thing should never be taken for granted. Ever.
As I threw my Rx in the trash, I could have sworn I saw a vision of Nancy Reagan wearing a "Just say NO" sweater and raising a glass of prune juice to me. Could it still be the morphine?
posted by becky at 1:41 AM
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