going up? yea it's all fun and games till you come down
It had been a month since getting the pins removed. A month full of healing, and new concerns. Did the surgery work? Well, happy to report that yes, it did. But, with one problem gone, two more came to take its place. During the last 4 months of wearing a cast, I had told doctors about a painful pulse in my forearm. I had been told it was normal due to the number of times I was misdiagnosed from the first day of my injury and therefore left in a cast for 8 months... The pulse and ache that I felt in my arm was muscle atrophy from being in a supinated position. I mean, okay, makes sense. I wasn't able to move the lower extremity of my arm that entire time. The only solution was to begin increasing medication that would help with the inflammation pain. Great, more ingredients for my morning cocktail. Meloxicam, tramadol, and now oxycodone. The beginning days of opioid dosing can be a blur, but the moments that are the highest and lowest are easiest to remember...
There I was lying on the ground, flat on my stomach. Finally, something I could finally do again without the struggles of maneuvering around a cast. An alarm goes off, Cal turns to me "Hey love, time to take your medicine". He took note of the time and got back to work...
The two most difficult parts about taking pain medication are remembering to eat and finding sufficient entertainment before it kicks. I rarely remembered to eat, mostly because the side effects of all my medications combined made my appetite fluctuate tremendously. Finding entertainment also had its ups and downs. See, I was able to get extensions for my assignments so on my rest days (my more medicated days) I could recover from school. After all, doing homework with one hand took more brainpower and time than I had while in pain. Finding friends who had similar schedules as mine to try and find a good way to stay positive while on strong meds was proving to be difficult. Everyone was go, go, go, especially during the beginning of midterms. So, I started to plan out a medicine schedule with my boyfriend. I would only take the strong meds around him so that I could hang out with him and his roommate in order not to be alone and manage the many side effects I would experience. Not to mention, I was physically unable to open any pill bottle with one hand, stupid child lock.
Cal's roommate loved the classic tv show, Friends. His obsession worked out for both of us. He got to enjoy his show, and it gave us something to talk and bond over. Tyler's laugh could force anyone who was having a tough day to crack a smile. So, there I was on their carpet, watching Friends, trying very hard not to distract Tyler from his last assignment of the night. But, alas, the meds won... "Cal, do you have colored pens and paper? I wanna color I'm bored". They both laugh and promptly get back to their laptops. Minutes pass...the top of my head begins to tingle and the room slowly begins to sway.
me: hehehehehe
boys: *silence*
tv: not a funny scene
me: hehehehehehehehehehehehehe
tyler: slowly turns around (the creak of the dorm chairs gave his swift move up)
cal: whats going on over there jaz?
me: everything... hehehehe ... is blue
tyler: Yup, she's finally lost it
cal: what do you mean?
me: the pen is blue, the crayon is blue, the carpet is blue, tyler's bedsheets are blue, tyler's shirt is blue, his jeans, his towel... man's got an issue
tyler: HAHA what the heck, your the one cracking up about a color... Im not the crazy one...
cal: wow... idk what to say...
tyler: here eat some goldfish. you need food.
me: stops laughing, Hell yea, goldfish.
This is by far one of my favorite memories of my early medicine days because it was one of the few times where things didn't feel so low. The medicine was able to give me some mental and physical reprieve from the pain.... so I started to cherish those moments, the moments where I felt as though I was drifting in ecstasy. From choosing to sing silly songs in the hall (sorry neighbors lol) with new girlfriends I had met while spending so much time in Cal's dorm building, to binging Lord of the Rings with the best guy friends, I found my moments of happiness. But the more I took the prescribed medication, the more the happy moments began to turn into growing side effects.
Here's a list of just some of the ones I felt:
nausea
vertigo
nightmares
night sweats
headaches
irregular bowel movements (so uncomfortable )
loss of appetite
anxiety
brain fog
dependency
loss of sleep or oversleeping
The side effects took center stage. It started to become a huge stress deciding whether to be in terrible pain and think straight or be pain-free and push through it all. At the end of it, I always thought about what would be best for me, not anyone else. The doctor's understood my pain, they knew I needed those periods of rest and reprieve, even if they weren't perfect, it was something. I had to keep taking them... I had to find a way to keep going
Comments