Just Say No

One of my doctors put me on the Fentanyl pain patch. I am supposed to replace the patch every three days. It works very well, but I noticed that on the second day of wearing each patch I was becoming nauseated and/or vomiting. Obviously I don’t want to lose any more weight . . . oh yeah, and I am a big wimp when it comes to nausea and throwing up.

When my doctor and I talked about it, he suggested I try Morphine instead. I made the switch on a Thursday night.

Holy Mackrel, Batman. I would not even wish that shit on O.J. Simpson. It was horrible. I went back and forth from having intense chills to sweating so much that my clothes and sheets were drenched. I couldn’t sit up. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t watch television. I was miserable for THREE AND A HALF DAYS. Seriously, I went to bed Thursday night and didn’t get up until Sunday morning. And, I got down to a scary ninety-two pounds.

To make matters worse, my nurse came on Friday to pull out my needle and put in a fresh one. He couldn’t get the new needle to go in my chest all the way, so he pressed as hard as he could. It felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest. I swear he pulled a muscle in my chest, because it hurt for a week and had a huge knot on my pec. I finally told him to leave it alone so it stuck out of my chest a half of an inch for the week.

Then, just when you thought it can’t get worse, it did. For two of the three nights (while I couldn’t sleep because of the morphine) ALL I could think of while laying in bed was Melrose Place. I remembered the story lines, characters’ hair styles (both at the beginning of the series and at the end), their outfits, their names, even direct script quotes. It wouldn’t stop. It was a living hell.

Just say no to drugs.