Down the Rabbit Hole

Forgive me, bloggers; it has been three weeks since my last session.

My surgery on the 10th went really well. While my surgeon was poking around in there, he noted that I have a lot of adhesions from my prior surgeries, most likely from the monumental screw-up that was my first C-section. He was afraid that he would do more harm than good to try to take out some of the scar tissue, though, because I might just make more scar tissue in the healing process than is already in there now. So that may cause problems down the road because my internal organs are sticking to each other; lovely. My surgeon is a veritable Pollyanna, spewing rainbows and unicorns, eh? We'll just take the stance that it will not be a problem, and move on from there.

My holes are healing nicely, although they did have to make them a little larger to get my very diseased and chock-full of rocks gallbladder out, and to check the liver for something.

My post-surgical pain meds, alas, were the source of some adventuring of the Alice In Wonderland variety. Codeine, morphine, and their derivative make me rather violently ill. So after this surgery, instead of prescribing me Oxycontin or any meds of that ilk, they decided to give me an opiate-based painkiller instead. I did not realize what it was, I was pretty out of it after the surgery. I was instructed to take one to two pills, every four to six hours. Since I am rather sensitive to most medications, I took one pill about every eight hours instead, always with food, starting Wednesday evening before sleeping in the living room recliner. My Friday (two days later) 11 p.m. dose was my last, by choice.

Shortly following the ingestion of that dose, I had both an allergic reaction and what can only be described as a "trip", a la LSD or acid. For four hours I thrashed around trying to escape the flashing blue, white, and black lights, static, voices. I felt like I was on fire, but when I touched my arms and legs they were ice cold. I also itched all over and broke out in a sweat. I had to have been hallucinating to see the dark translucent figure standing near the chair. And, I was convinced I had to keep moving my arms and legs to prevent a blood clot ~ which apparently were the nurses' last instructions when they sent me home from the hospital, I just don't remember that part. The weird thing was, I could see my husband sleeping on the couch but couldn't get his attention until about 4 a.m. when I came out of it enough to call for him.

I described what had been going on, and that I had a killer headache, and that I wasn't taking any more. I had a nasty, musty/dirty taste in my mouth, too. I went back to sleep and had a smaller, similar episode.

When I woke up on Saturday, I felt like I was moving underwater. Everything felt like it was moving at about a fourth of its normal speed, and my head was throbbing. I was very nauseous. It felt like I was being compressed somehow, like I was shorter than I should have been. It also felt like I was touching someone else when I rubbed my forehead. Definitely odd. I also was itching like crazy, shaking all over, and paranoid about everything. When I slept I had bizarre dreams, one of which apparently involved harvesting cheeseburgers from the living room wall ~ don't forget the ketchup dripping down! And I couldn't sleep that night, because when I laid down I became short of breath and started getting chest pains.

After two days of feeling this way, we found out what was going on: I was going through withdrawal symptoms. The drug I was prescribed in similar in composition to heroin and methadone, and even though I didn't take it nearly as often as I was told to, my body still managed to reach its threshold. So when I quit taking it, cold turkey, the withdrawal started. Normally you gradually come off the medicine (which I was also never told), but because of the allergic reaction I couldn't start back up on it or any of its cousins. I just had to deal with it.

The shortness of breath only happened when I laid down, so I dealt with that by sleeping in the chair for a few days. On Tuesday, however, the chest pains and shortness of breath continued throughout the morning when I was up and about, so after a quick visit to my surgeon's office I was sent pronto to the emergency room and I was back in the hospital for most of the day. My calcium levels are way up, which can attribute to some of the symptoms, but they didn't find anything else. They figured it was just more of the withdrawal symptoms I was having to go through.

So, for nine days I went through what one typically imagines a junkie would go through, complete with nausea, feeling like bugs crawling around in my skin, violent headaches, dizziness, lightheadedness, and paranoia and anxiety attacks. I had the shakes so bad, my husband complained of me drumming on the bed with my arms and legs (but I didn't realize I was even moving). I felt like I was going out of my mind. I was remarkably lucid for large chunks of time, and I can remember what was going on and thinking that it made no sense and that whatever was just crazy ~ and then, down the rabbit hole again and I was completely out of it. Those times when my mental acuity slipped, I don't remember anything at all. I can certainly understand why people stay hooked to their drug of choice, if it means they can avoid the living hell that is withdrawal. It took until Monday of this week (the 23rd!) to feel more like myself again. I still have some issues sleeping, even now, with vivid dreaming and breathing issues, but when I'm up and around during the day I feel much more "with it".

My calcium levels are still elevated, so I have to go back in another week to get more blood work done. And my doc had initially said I couldn't do any heavy lifting for three weeks, and he extended that an extra week to make it four total. My incisions were healing fine, but all the thrashing about due to the meds has prolonged the internal healing process and he wanted to make sure I finished healing before I start vacuuming and hauling children again. I am allowed to drive again now, though.

I am having to rethink some things. Up to now, every time I heard a story about some Hollywood type getting addicted to painkillers, I assumed they were really closet junkies anyway. I am now thinking that this may or may not be the case with a lot of people. I have never done any drugs, ever. (With the exception of alcohol, which I developed a little problem with and had to sober up from ~ almost 7 years straight now!) I followed my doctor's instructions, and even took extra precautions of taking as little as possible at larger time intervals than prescribed, and here I am in the same boat. I have not taken any more since Friday the 12th, but I also know that I can never take that particular medication ever again ~ both because of the allergic reaction and the whole addiction thing.

More updates on A soon ~ he is doing so well!

~ the Accidental Junkie