Unending Detox! Ridiculous!

It's been 4 weeks and 4 days since this whole detox thing started. There have been many ups n downs about it but overall I'm just so damn tired. Thankfully I slept pretty solidly the past 2 nights. But it doesn't seem enough, and I have to keep functioning. This last step-down, to 2.5 mgs a day, has once again keyed off the detox cycle and I'm back in the lav half the morning, have itchies and am generally edgy... In the big pic it's not much. I can deal.

God I'm tired. But there's too much going on, I've been up since 6 and have a full day ahead. It's the last Heat Fund recipe for the radio show & Daryl oughta be here in an hour to pick up the load of Q-Bossy. Cam's coming by after her radio show to help pack my stemware carefully. Great Goddess Caffeinea, help me!

And still no word from the PA family about my brother.... oy.

Back @ 7:30 to add that I'm way dehydrated and drinking about a gallon of water a day. These little detox effects are annoying- the dryness that may also be winter; the nose situation; the face breaking out; it's all just a festival of beauty.

And Another Thing & Then I'm Gointa Bed

Somehow, thru the last month, my old sense of humor came back. I was just reading the posts of the end of Jan/ beginning Feb. Though I blushed lot, I laughed my ass off at my complete out-theredness. In one post, I p.s.'d a progress report on my Mainiac lovebirds and said I was addicted to "watching Robert Plant's penis and the rest of him." Very nice. I remember almost none of that week, but it's pretty damn funny.

Pushing On

Packed 2 boxes in record time. There's an urgency behind getting things done when you're doing it while fighting pain. I push and get careless because I want accomplishment. But that's gonna be something to work on. My total standing time is now 5 minutes, down from the 9 minutes it was when I last checked. Something else to work on.

There's a lot of work. Interior questioning of how far to push myself. The very apparent weak shape my body's in, thanks to years of dragging my ass on junk. For now I'm merely going by how much pain I can take til it's bound to make me go ugly, then I stop. But I need to push further there, too, and keep my temperment in check.

My newly-racing mind is having a hard time slowing down to normal human speed to deal with others. More to keep in check. But it'll get better with practice. I can keep my mouth shut if I want, so that's a blessing.

Daily Mysteries

At least once a day these days, a mystery appears. Today's is a magazine called Saveur, a good mag about foods and such... but the subscription, a mystery. They didn't send me a card or announcement, I have no idea who is the sponsor of such a great surprise. I only know it's tagged to be a sub til Dec of 2011.



Mystery magazine subscriber, will you please enter and sign in?

And thanks!

Both Sides Now

I'm starting this blog ahead of time so I can track the progress. When I post I'll change the date to its current.

In wk 4 of detox (2/24), all the pain is back in glory hallelujah. I seem more concerned with getting comfort than anything else. Sleep is short periods- 3 or 4 hours at a time. I'm bored, distracted or sick of anything in short order. Can't concentrate to read- or draw- because pain flares if I'm at rest too long so I can't get to the zone. How the hell am I ever gonna deal with this without the bastard drugs? But with the bastard drugs I was a zombie! I don't even have a fully-operative brain yet, which became clear to me this morning. I'm far from detoxed; I thought the hand jitters were done. This is a much longer deal than I thought it would be and I don't have time for it. I'm moving in 4 weeks!

And pain is tiring. The drugs were tiring, too, but I didn't have a jumping person inside saying, "Hey, do something!" on the drugs. There's a volition to Do again, and while that's great, I'm not physically up for it. When my brain's running better I'll figure it out.


2/26 Twice in the last week the Fentanyl patches came to mind. Could I just slap a couple on and get a few days' relief as a break? The moment the pain subsided I'd be right back to it like the junkie I am at heart. So, nope, not an option. And I went thru Hell to get rid of it. Ain't doing that again. This has to be figured out and I can't do that yet, so it's just shut up and suffer time. I keep telling myself I'm better than my pain. I can fix this, given time. There are better ways, there have to be. I'll have my brain, and in my new place I'll have bookshelves and I can spend hours, days, poring over all the loves of my life that have been boxed and unshelved for 19 years. And I have the intertubes. I'll find it. I'm the most stubborn Highlander Viking around. I'll fix this.



2/28 Okay, the jitterbug legs are attacking. Stepping down to 5 mg seems to get bad at the 14 hour point...junkie shit lite. Itchy but not terribly itchy legs and arms. High annoyance over nothing. I could use a punching bag. Or drums. Drums would be better. Every new bit of this, every little twist, pisses me so off and fires up a blast furnace of hatred for opiates. When I started this things were so different; a totally different purpose. I was incensed that pain relief was being criminalized. I was quitting as protest. I could never launch a protest on those drugs. And the new Medicare insurance was giving me a hard time about the Fentanyl, so I said Screw It All. But my view has radically changed. I'll take the pain and keep my brain, if that's okay. But that's just my choice.

3/1 It's March!!! That alone is an accomplishment. And it's sunny and dry. It's still early, but I think I can function today. I had 7 whole hours of sleep, no leg dancing, no hellacious pains. This past month has been a trip, sometimes pretty literally. I'm back in Kansas, so to speak. As long as I can keep stress levels low, make steady progress in packing, keep my head, not get injured and keep up the PT, I should be able to handle this move. 25 days. Pain or no pain, it's happening. I'm not 100% clear- still a week of one-a-day to go- but the worst is over in kicking the drugs. Gotta stay focused on the good; gotta push myself.

Living in constant pain is a misery, but there are worse things. Like not being able to think straight, being in a dope haze, having no hope of things getting better. When you're drugged so heavily, you lose control of so much. Coming back isn't easy, either. But there's so much more of life if you can just live with the pain and not give it power.