Drugs

I met DeAndre January 23rd around 19:30 down on Portland in an undesirable neighborhood. I had scraped and flaked every little bit possible and then some. My symptoms were at a literal all-time high and I was coming unglued. My loser neighbor BJ was no help (why would he be?) so, in an act of desperation I started cruising the city for some teotihuacán.

I pulled up next to a junky white pickup and hollered through my passenger window. The guy in the passenger seat hollered back but I couldn’t hear him, then I had to move because I was blocking traffic, then the driver came out and asked me if I was willing to travel. I was shaking when I jokingly replied that I wasn’t going to China. We drove a zigzag west through side streets and finally arrived I don’t even know where. That’s when DeAndre came over to my side of the car. I rolled down my window, looked him in the eyes, and asked him to hop in.

You’re an angel. I’m sick and I’m losing weight. This helps with the nausea.

I wasn’t lying.

I have a whole medicine cabinet full of pills. My doctors loooove pills.

Oh, so true.

I’m over-sensitive to stimuli, like light and sound. It dampens my senses so I can focus.

Again, I was being honest.

Yesterday I came home from acupuncture and lay down on the couch to sleep. I drew the blanket up over my head and let my mind go quiet, resigned to drifting away into the same gray nothingness as the day before, and the day before that.

I’m losing my life. The house just keeps getting worse. The litter boxes are an embarrassment. I’m losing more ground each day, each week. I need to get up and find a way to power through or I’ll never get it back to a manageable level. I need to try and have some kind of a life, tired or not.

I got up and dug in. I was determined. I kept at it for a good four and a half hours. It was like running uphill but I made good progress and felt inspired. My back hurt when I was done, but it was a good hurt.

  

Hey, I printed it all out for you. Not to change the subject, but is there any way you can hook me up tonight? Are you free right now? OK, On my way with turkey and mashed potatoes.

Thank God.

When I got home I went right back at it. I stayed up too late because I worked up such momentum that I couldn’t wind myself back down again. I got up this morning, felt tired and achy, and went to work at my job. And I’m writing this 24 hours later with no naps.

Do I worry? Of course. I am always monitoring my rate of consumption, questioning my motives, checking in with my higher power about it, taking time to reflect on it here, etc. And then there’s that ever-present guilty conscience I like to impose on myself.

Do I rationalize? Naturally. This helps like nothing else does right now. It is already medically approved and helping a lot of people. It will be surely be legal here soon. It isn’t nearly as dangerous as many the of the pills I’ve taken as prescribed.

And DeAndre? He deserves his own post.

Dental Emergency

Dear Financial Assistance Representative:

I recently had my first dental emergency. I found myself in sudden and intense pain like I had never experienced before and I needed help quickly. The handful of visits I’d made to Evil Dental were consistently disturbing and this occasion was no different, so imagine how overjoyed I was to get an appointment at your Saturn location just minutes from my home. I am disabled and I have Medicare with Medicaid, so I made sure to tell the person who booked my appointment to prevent a misunderstanding.

I learned that I had to decide between pulling a tooth or having a root canal. I’ve never had either and I didn’t have a lot of time to decide, but both of the trained professionals who looked at it (Saturn and Evil) counseled me to save the tooth. So that’s what I did.

After it was over, the dentist told me that I couldn’t come back and be a regular patient if I didn’t pay the bill. I understood that a root canal required multiple visits to complete and I was pretty shaken up by the whole experience that the idea of not having an agreeable, reliable dentist scared me. After all, that was part of the reason this happened in the first place. I used my “emergencies only” credit card and paid the entire bill before I left to ensure that wouldn’t be an issue.

I went back for a second appointment some weeks later and I told the dentist first thing that I couldn’t possibly use my emergency credit card again and that I would need help with a care credit account or payment plan. I also said that a dentist should be able to connect his patients with the resources they need to access his services. He didn’t give me any information, but he did go in and do a “temporary filling.” I thought that’s what I left with last time. The assistant set up another appointment for me while I was still in the exam room but I still don’t understand where I am with regard to the remaining steps in this procedure or coverage/payment for those visits. It is my understanding that none of this is covered by my Medicare plan or by Medicaid.

Apologies for the long story but I like to be thorough. If you would like to contact me, my number is (716) 865-4092 and my email is cindyloohoo@yahoo.com.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sick

It’s the week in between Christmas and the New Year, so I’m sick. This has been true more often than not for me at this time each year, at least in adulthood. I would run myself into the ground trying to get through that mad holiday dash and my body would just give out. Not so much since I stopped working five years ago. In fact, this is the first time I have had steady, conventional employment in recovery, much less at the holidays. I hope that’s just a coincidence.

So I’m sitting here writing this because I don’t seem to have much energy for anything more. I’m on the mend now – I think – but damn. I don’t know if I still have a job or not so my anxiety is nagging at me in spite of my attempts to distract myself. 

Going into the holidays I hadn’t been getting a lot of sleep. I know the day after Yule, [which also happened to be a Self-care Sunday], I let myself flop and just sleep/rest/take it easy all day. But after that I went right back to eyes-popping-open-by-five-like-they’re-spring-loaded short nights. On Christmas I got there early so the presents were done well before dinner went in the oven. I kicked back the recliner, grabbed a fluffy blanket, and snoozed for a good while, maybe 1½ -2 hours.  She said I twitched the whole time I was out and was quick to offer coffee when I was getting ready to leave. I wonder if she saw that glazed-over eyes thing she claims she always saw when I was sick as a kid. It was a long ride home so when I got there I headed straight for the couch to kick off my shoes and cuddle up with my cats. That’s when it started and I didn’t get up long enough to put on my glasses and acknowledge life until around 11 am this morning.

There were sweats and chills throughout, intense itching the first half, headache the second, and intermittent diarrhea that caused me to soil myself. I got up to pound a cup of water once or twice and look at the empty bowls until I could gather the strength to get back up and fill them. I also changed clothes twice due to sweat or other fluids. Some time yesterday I checked my phone to see what I might have been missing and I saw the missed call from Sabrina.

Shit, I was supposed to be at work…when? It can’t possibly be so soon. What day is it? What time is it? Shit, I think it was today. Yep, (the calendar on the fridge confirms)it was today and I’m supposed to be there right now. OMG What can I do? I can’t go, hell, I can’t even sit upright. I can’t call, I can’t think long enough to put three words together right now. I might lose my job. There’s nothing I can do about this right now. OMG I gotta go lay back down. I can’t deal with this right now. Goddess, I have to give this one to you. I’m scared.

When I finally did get up and felt reasonably sure that I could stay up, I called the house. I didn’t want to call my boss directly if she had already left for vacation. No answer. Ten minutes later my voice came out shaky and yes, she had already left. I’m supposed to get a call back this afternoon, likely within the hour. 

OK, I guess I’ll just work on practicing acceptance. If it doesn’t work out then I guess this wasn’t my time or place. Hard to believe people once trusted me with their children’s lives.

LOL I’m a dud

I chuckled out loud to myself tonight while washing dishes. The thought occurred to me that, from an evolutionary perspective, I’m a complete dead end. Disappointing but anticipated, like that one steamed clam that doesn't open, we accept that some paths simply  lead nowhere.	I think evolution probably tosses out far more duds than it does winners. Given even the rudimentary road map that we currently have of the human genome, my mind spins at the total possible combinations of all that data. I have to think that the house usually wins, and that evolution gambles on innumerable variations before finding anything significant enough to catch on.
I broke the chain that, as the sole offspring of my two parents, only I could have continued. I’m also an only grandchild on my mother’s side, so my progeny would have been the Hail Mary pass for much of the family recipe to squeak through. I wonder what percentage of women in the world will spend their lives (assuming they have some kind of life) never having borne or raised a child. I once heard someone say that this was actually the original definition of the word we now understand as “virgin,” but I digress.
That code is like God’s blueprint.  Man might be able to glimpse the script but I doubt he will ever fully comprehend it.