Welcome to My Withdrawal

Friends, I've thought I had been through some really awful shit in my life. I mean, I was held captive and by that I mean a huge man had me by the hand and wouldn't let me go as a matter of fact he pulled my shoulder out of the socket and caused permanent damage to my wrist, Sounds tragic. I know but wait there's more.

My parents both died relatively young. Dad passed away on Christmas Eve, 1991 at the age of 53. Mom had several medical problems including dementia which made it really difficult for my sister and I to keep her diabetes under control. Stella just wanted what she wanted when she wanted it and she was willing to punch either one of us out to get it. She was 74 when she left us in 2014. Sad, yup is sure is and we miss them a lot but wait it gets better.

My sister was driving my van and either passed out or lost control somehow and rolled the vehicle over at least once. She broke her neck at C2 which could have killed her instantly but thank goodness it didn't. She recovered from that just in time to have an asthma attack that turned into pneumonia. She was on a ventilator for eight days. I couldn't find out from anyone whether or not she was going to live. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. She was touched my a leprechaun with good luck and she has lived to drive me crazy on a regular basis but given the alternative I'll take it.

I think we could all agree that this pandemic thing is a huge pain in the ass that is going to drag on into 2021 and who knows how much longer. I still have friends working in the field. I don't want to open my Facebook page and find out that one of them has died from this mess. By the way, please don't take medical advice from anyone who's name doesn't end in PHD. This is of course a suck fest for the entire country but wait there's more and this is the really good stuff. I just went through medication withdrawal that is equal to or greater than some of the previous traumas.

I try to be careful not to let my medications run out because I made that mistake years ago. I was only without one of my meds for two days and I was puking like a college student on Thirsty Thursday. I'm human and I made a mistake. I trusted that my doctor had called my pharmacy to refill a medication I need to help me be a pleasant person and also to keep me from jumping out of my skin at every little noise. My doctor requires 48 hours notice for medication refills. I called the office way before that because my medications come through the mail and they need some lead time as well. My doctor is a nice man but sometimes I'm not sure he's firing on all cylinders. He dropped the ball. This left me in a really bad position. I also dropped the ball because I didn't check to make sure the order had been placed. I had a lot going on in the week before this happened but when I was down to my last two tablets I got worried because nothing had come in the mail. I called my pharmacy and was told no order had been placed. That was on a Thursday. The lady I spoke to told me that since I was in an emergent situation they could override the doctor and send my medication out right away. Right away meant three to five business days. Now if you are counting with me you know that Thursday wouldn't count because that was the day the order was placed. Friday wasn't going to happen. Saturday isn't a business day so that was out. Sunday's are only made for football so not a business day. I was already sick as a dog but I'll get to that after I tell you that I hoped against all hope that Monday was going to be THE DAY! It wasn't. The following is the story of madness, mindlessness, smells that should never happen and the I don't know how the hell I lived through this madness.

I knew that this was going to suck really bad but I had no idea how bad. I don't even think suck covers it. It really #$%Ting sucked!!

It was cold, lonely, painful. The migraine started almost immediately the second day I was without the med. I have had these migraines for years so I knew what was coming. The first decision I had to make was whether or not to keep the vomit merry-go-round. It was a miserable vomit up my guts followed by excruciating pain... rinse and repeat. The nausea was hard. The best description I can think of is the scene in " Grease" where Danny and Sandy are dancing outside the "shake shack" during " The One That I Want." That back and forth, up and down motion. It was hard to keep myself from vomiting but that night I did. It was an unknown though. I could lose that battle at anytime. I was stuck like that for four days. I still had things I had to do everyday. The dogs weren't going to go without there canned food and if I didn't get it as soon as the little white dog piped up he could get louder and louder, not good for a migraine. The cats aren't as demanding but I had to feed them too. The cat boxes were a different kind of hell. My head and stomach told me all about myself every single time I moved a muscle but I had to do what I had to do. I kind of felt like my insides were trying to beat the crap out of me like Rocky did to Apollo Creed. There is one more item I have to include in this segment. It's the other curse of nausea. It's the lurk of the burp. A burp could mean that all the air that I had been swallowing was just trying to get out OR it could be THAT BURP that would jumpstart the vomit/ pain situation so while I was floating around on generic sleep ibuprofen and my other meds. I weighed my options. I could take a chance and just let it go or I could hold it as long as possible which could squash it until it just turned into a fart. I chose option two which was a good call. That fart not only made some of the nausea better but it sent one of the large dogs running which gave me more leg room. Bonus.

Sleep, my old friend deserted me in my hour of need. I passed out for sure but there was no rest. If I managed to put my head in some contorted position that for some reason satisfied the blood flow and eased the pain I stayed that way. I didn't move a muscle. I think I was playing some weird sort of Twister. I am really proud of how limber I still am. I know at one time that I had one hand on my head, my hips were twisted to the opposite side of the rest of my body and I had almost shoved my knees into my mouth. My head seemed to like this position so I went with it. I knew that lactic acid was building up in my legs. My right arm was numb and cold. I wasn't taking normal breathes. I was either panting like I was in a Lamaze class or trying not to breath at all. It was inevitable that some noise was going to break the silence and I was going to be on the migraine merry-go-round from living hell.

When my body is in natural homeostasis, ( properly medicated) loud noise can make me jump at least a foot up into the air but when I'm in pain a cat sneeze can send me through the roof.

I started having some hallucinations and it seemed as if every horrible thing I had ever done was coming back to shame me. I had snap shots of things that I had done that I'm not proud of and have had other things done to me that I hate to think about but some of them always seem to come back when I don't feel well. Sad to say the rumor is false, I'm not perfect. I know this may be shocking but it's true.

I started to remember and feel pain from things that happened so long ago that they should just be forgotten for all eternity but there they were. The ripping out of my hair was vivid. It was as if each single strand that was being yanked out was screaming in pain. I saw the follicles being taken away and blood instantly filling the wholes where my hair had been. I heard someone say, " this is your own fault. you need to feel pain for the pain you caused." There were so many voices in the blackness of this withdrawal. I just listened and said I was sorry over and over.

I was also watching a movie of my life. The bits and pieces that I remember. The first frame was a scary fight that my parents were having when I was 4 years old. Things were thrown, things were broken, I caught shrapnel above my right eye. Stitches the end.

My sister, Liz, is always in every dream but this time it was all the times she tossed me down the wooden stairs. We are sisters so hair was pulled, punches were thrown, Liz was bitten. The end.

The rest of the movie included events that were unhappy and sad. They are really irrelevant to this story. I can say that I was hurt in different ways by different people but aren't we all?

Yes, I was sick. I don't know what day the fevers started. They came and went. I was sweating so much that I had to change my clothes, sheets and blankets so often that I ran out of clean linens. I put off doing all of that for as long as I could because, truthfully, I couldn't do anything without being winded almost immediately. I was trying so hard but I couldn't do everything I needed to do. I gave up on the linens after the third time because I didn't have the strength to do laundry. I curled up on the bed in a wet towel. That was the other thing because I was sweating so much I stank. I'm pretty sure that the stench coming off me was a mix of skunk stink, rotten seafood and toe jam. I was surprised the dogs slept with me so I dragged my butt to the tub. I kept the drain open a little bit to make sure I didn't drown if I passed out. It turned out to be a great idea because I did pass out. It must have been for a while because my water had gotten cold. I heard my Dad say, " Liz needs you." I said, " Dad, I need you to feed my little buddies their nighttime can. Bella ( my blind, diabetic terrier) can show you where her insulin is. The rest of the medications are in the drawer." I'm pretty sure they didn't get their can that night. I also have no freakin' idea how I ended up back in bed. The last thing I remember from that night was getting lost in my bathroom. The light was off . I was confused. I eventually slammed my head into the door. It really doesn't matter what happened in between the time I got lost and my head hit the door. It's just one of those things best left unsaid, boring stuff. so moving on.

There is no sense of time in withdrawal. The sun came, the sun went. The end. I did realize on Monday that my medication hadn't come. I had made it through the weekend. I was hoping it would be there. I cried, knowing that another night of agony was coming. The same migraine, the same hallucinations, panting, pain in my legs. The non-stop trembling in my hands all the while hoping that by Tuesday one little tablet was going to make all of this go away. This withdrawal think is no joke.

I kept thinking that I was dying. I wanted to do this so many times in my life when I was really depressed. The ironic part is that I'm pretty content right now.

Withdrawal was like having all of my strength sucked out of my body by a high powered wet/dry vac. It was relentless. The vacuum was sucking me in. I was doing my best to fight it. I found myself singing the " Doe, Ray, Me.." song from The Sound of Music. I must have sung that a thousand times.. Doe a deer, a female deer. Ray a drop of golden sun. Me, a name I call myself. Fa, a long long way to run.. So a needle pulling thread. La, a note to follow So Ti, a drink with jam and bread... that will lead us back to Doe... over and over.. How the hell that song showed up I'll never know but it helped keep me present as much as possible.

I knew that sometimes with withdrawal a person could have fevers so I checked mine whenever I thought about it. The time that it was 103.6 I thought to myself , " Damn, someone is really sick." It, for some reason, didn't occur to me that I was the sick person. I asked my Dad if he was OK. He said, " Hun, I'm fine. I've been dead for years." I said, " what the hell? why didn't you tell me. Did you feed the dogs before you went?" I know he was shaking his head and laughing but I don't know what he said. I have to say that the hallucinations with my Dad were comforting. I didn't feel as alone. I couldn't call for help anyway for reasons that don't need to be discussed here. It just wasn't an option so having Dad hovering around was comforting.

I feel really sad for people who go through this all the time. I am lucky. This was the second time this happened to me but this go round lasted a long time. I never want to do this again.

Tuesday did come and so did my medication. I hadn't eaten in days, no real sleep and I think Dad was ready to go back to his fishing hole. My ridiculous thought process let me believe that one 2 milligram tablet was going to make it all better. It didn't. I did, however, sleep very well that night. I slept that night. I slept through Wednesday and most of Thursday. I would get up only to feed my furmaly or to pee. I would throw in a load of laundry and go back to sleep. My best friend, sleep , had come back. I had really missed her. I have never felt so exhausted in my life. This is Friday and I'm just getting a bit more strength back. I am still sleeping a lot.. My hands are still shaking. My head still spins if I move around to fast, remember when we were kids and we like to play that game where we would spin around in circles until we were so dizzy we fell down. It's just not fun anymore.

I am not an addict but I am dependent. This entire incident has given me a whole new empathy for people who are addicted to drugs that hurt them. I can't imagine how their lives make any sense at all. I know that it took strength for me to get through this. I knew that there was a light at the end of my tunnel but what about true addicts? What light is at the end of their tunnel? Do they even realize how strong they really are? I'll bet that if they knew the absolute strength it took for them to withdraw from something like heroin or meth that they could turn their lives around with that strength.

Well, this is the end of my tale of woe. If I have entertained you or you just like what I've written. I most humbly ask that you tip your writer so I can continue to amaze you with my life experiences. The illustrator of this piece caught the mood of this story perfectly. She and I would share. We appreciate any little thing. I'm also very humbled that any of you took the time to read about me. Thank you so much.

Teresa