As you can tell from my earlier post, I was pretty sure the pain was gonna kill me, and I wasn’t too unhappy if that were the outcome. I was seriously afraid that nothing was gonna touch the pain anymore, that maybe it wasn’t the med change, it was some new, worse, more debilitating stage.
As it turns out, pain relief was not that far off. It did take an hour and a half after taking my meds for it to calm, but I could feel it step down, bit by bit. You know that 1 – 1o pain scale they always ask you to assess yourself on? Well, I was at about 100, and for that hour and a half, I could feel it go down 1 number at a time.
I say this after having borne my second child naturally, lived through meningitis, and passed a kidney stone. Those are always my pain criteria. When I’m asked about pain, and it’s really, really bad, and I think any normal person would say it’s a 10, I realize it’s not as bad as one of those 3, and so I end up saying something like “8”. This was no 8, m’dear!
Anyway, it’s down to a tolerable level. And I think I know what my medication levels should be to get me through the next 3 weeks. To anyone who read my post, or my Facebook comments, I hope all of my whining hasn’t put you off. I would apologize, but honestly, those outlets were really helpful in getting through this afternoon.
I hope I don’t get that whiny again, anytime soon. I don’t like being that way, and I always worry that it’s going to keep people from wanting to be around me. I don’t whine because I need the feedback from others. I write whatever I need to, and if someone else reads it, that’s great. But, I don’t need the “I pity you” type of response. Make a joke (yes, even my friend making a joke that she later thought might have been insensitive was amusing and not offensive) or distract me with Battlestar Galactica plots, or whatever. Really, when I need sympathy, I have a few friends who I think understand what I need, and throw a dose my way, followed by mocking me (Brenda, you know who you are).
Anyway, after resurfacing from the pain, I started to think about the guy I caught on camera either stealing or attempting to steal my pain pills a few months ago. I’ve often tried to empathize with him, to understand why he would do that. He wasn’t in pain, and it wasn’t a 1-time thing. We were friends. Our kids and our dogs played together, we often had drinks on my patio together. He saw me struggle through those days without my medications (even though I didn’t know he was responsible at the time), and how awful it was for me. So I struggle to understand how he could do that to me.
My mom told me that one of my cousins that I grew up with (she lived with us a lot) did that to her a few times, and that after being helped up, her life is now a shambles again, because of drug use.
Tonight clarified something for me. Although my body may be physically addicted to these pills, it’s not the same thing that a drug addict feels. During the worst of my pain tonight, I knew that there is no way I would steal pills from my mother’s medicine cabinet (though I’d probably beg her for one or two), and that there is no way I would break into someone’s home to get them, or rob a pharmacy to get them. Needing pain relief is not the same thing as needing a “fix”.
So, there’s not one ounce of understanding that I can give toward my former neighbor. I do have compassion, and I hope that he gets help via drug rehab, and I hope that he spends some time in jail. But, I cannot empathize with his actions.
That said, I have one more related ramble. Someone else will have to tell me if this is just Utah, but since my 11 and 13 year old sons started school, they’ve come home during Red Ribbon Week every year, and told me that it made them sad that I do drugs. Now, this was before my current issues. My sons were talking about my smoking habit, and the fact that I drink. I went through year after year, trying to explain that it wasn’t the same thing as “doing drugs”. I didn’t want to undermine the beneficial things that school was teaching them about drugs – never do I want to find my son dead with a needle in his arm, or even high on cocaine. But, smoking a cigarette will not lead the average smoker to other illegal activities, like theft and burglary. Alcohol can lead to drunk driving, but if every person who drank alcohol were to drive drunk, 3/4 of the population would be sitting in jail.
I finally broke down, and took my sons to the medicine cabinet, and showed them a bottle of Ibuprofin, and the warnings on it, and that it was a drug. They knew by then what Ibuprofin was. I showed them other things, like medication for upset stomachs and sore throats. And then I took them to the kitchen and showed them Baking Soda, which is also technically a drug.
I told them that while smoking was unhealthy, there is nothing wrong with drinking when you’re old enough and as long as it doesn’t violate your own moral conscience. I told them that even illegal drugs like marijuana can have medical uses, even though we aren’t supposed to use it in the U.S. I told them that pain pills were illegal without a prescription, and that taking them illegally can lead to bad things like addiction and theft and so on. But that taking them when the doctor gives them to you and you need them is different.
I explained all of this and so much more. And I will continue to tell them. Because, if they think drinking alcohol is just bad as using meth, they have very dismal futures ahead of them. And so, I will be honest with them about the repercussions of drug use, and which ones are worse than others, and that while smoking pot may not seem like a big deal, it can take away so many options for your future if you’re caught with it. And I am honest with them about my struggle to quit smoking. And I hope that they’ll understand, and that when they become adults, they’ll define their own lines and will not cross them. And that they will not turn out like my ex-neighbor. (If they smoke cigarettes, I’ll wring their necks, though!)
So, thanks for reading my ramble, I’m going to go finish the last episode of Battlestar Galactica as I wait for my sleeping pills to kick in.
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