Flippy - I Rant, You Read
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
late at night
Guess what? I have a blog
I was just making sure that you remembered, too. I have so much to write about and my blog has been so neglected lately. I wrote every day in November, and then couldn’t manage to write more than one entry in the next few months? That’s pretty lame. So, what’s new? Seven new feline residents, some of them kind of scary, but in a “scary, but we’re hoping to tame them” kind of way. Of course, we just named one of them Pandora, so you can guess that they’re not instantly cuddling in bed with us. In fact, one of them can’t be touched at all…yet. Felines and disability. I finally have a court date for my disability case - May 19th. Such a relief, but so scary at the same time.
I have to get to bed now because we’re probably going to Vegas in the morning, and our Vegas/doctor trips are long, long, loooooong days. But, I wanted to let you know that I hadn’t forgotten about you and that I’ll soon have kitty info and pictures. You’ll get to meet our new three-legged pal, Willly. Three l’s in Willly. 
We think he very recently had his leg amputated because he’s not very good at getting around on three legs - he seems to get tired easily, plus he keeps trying to scratch his ear with the leg that’s missing. It’s sad to watch, so I try to scratch his ear for him, but I’m not sure if I’m doing a good job on it. I think you’ll like Willly - he’s a nice boy and has fascinating eyes that have pigment eyeliner all around the rims of his eyes. They’re cool and spooky at the same time.
Gotta go, but see you soon.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
terribly early in the morning
Okay, So Jennifer Grey Won, But What About My Teeth?
It was such a fleeting satisfaction, watching Jennifer Grey win DWTS. And, with a ruptured disk yet - I could almost feel her pain. She must’ve been doped up something good to be able to dance like that, although you could see the stress on her face. I’m glad Kyle & Lacey came in second, too. A big “middle finger” to the white trash classless person from AK. Ack, is right.
I tried to go to bed, but couldn’t sleep, so I got something to eat. I thought there was some hard crunchy stuff in my food, which was weird. Yeah, uh, that was part of a molar. Considering I don’t have money or insurance, this may end up being a big problem. In the last six months, I’ve broken three teeth. The first two broke because my bite meets and I think all the years of wearing a groove into the middle of my two front bottom teeth finally did them in. They look really crappy if you look closely, but it’s merely cosmetic and not overly noticeable. However, my molar has a filling in it (well, what’s left of a filling), and it cracked off part of it down to the gum line. I fear pain and infection from it. Geez, not only do I still need to figure out how to get to the pain mgt doctor for everything else, now I need a dentist. Great. Happy holidays. This year can’t end too soon.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
evening
A Post I Wrote About Chronic Pain Recently
[According to my doctor, every person on opiates is addicted after a week or two.] - this is someone’s else line, to which I was responding.
That’s one of the problems right there. If our doctors don’t even know the difference between dependence and addiction, it’s no small wonder that the general public is so misinformed. Not only are people NOT addicted after a week or two of opiates, most people aren’t even DEPENDENT after that short a period of time. It’s not like anyone starts off with a dose of 60mg of Oxycodone. I started off with a 5mg Lortab and then moved to a 10mg Combunox, and then gradually increased my dose over years.
If we can get people to quit worrying about addiction with pain patients (I think the percentage is like 2-5% or something like that) and get them to treat the pain, everyone would be a whole lot better off. Frankly, even if people are addicted, wouldn’t it be better for them to pay for their meds and be seen by a doctor once a month than get cut off and go looking for street drugs to replace their pain meds. Also, many of the addicts are also pain patients, so I’d rather their pain was managed and then when they decided their addiction was affecting their life, then they took it upon themselves to get help.
I’ve never had a single sign of addiction (never “lost” a prescription, never run out early, never look wasted, never driven while impaired, etc.), yet my stupid ******-**-*** accused me of being a drug addict, then got my ******** involved, and then I was accused of faking being ill and drug seeking. Yeah, I sure faked that herniated disk so well that the MRI had every single doctor who saw it exclaiming, “Wow, that’s big!” Yeah, I’m a big ol’ faker alright. Ugh. It turns out my ***-**-***l was arrested for drunk driving shortly after accusing ME of abusing drugs. So, yeah, I’m pretty sick of these addiction accusations…for all of us. Oh yeah, and I’ve never addressed this point publicly - Leigh-Ann and I were both accused of being “high” because someone said we had red-rimmed eyes. That’s not a sign of presciption medication use, red eyes. That would be a sign of maybe pot use (Leigh-Ann has never tried ANY illegal drugs…I’m not quite that innocent), allergies, or perhaps crying. I have never driven under the influence of anything (okay, ONCE, when I was 17…and I drove very slowly through side streets - it never happened again), so if someone ever sees me out somewhere and thinks I’m high, they’re tottally and utterly wrong. I take my safety and the safety of my passengers and fellow drivers seriously. I spent my twenties being horrified at friends driving drunk (one totalled multiple cars) and trying to stop them. More than once, our friends banded together to drive the drunk person’s car home for them, while one of us followed to give the sober driver a ride home. Now that I’m even older (and wiser, heh), there is no way I would be even more reckless than I was in my youth, when I didn’t, even then, drive impaired.
I think doctors need to treat our pain, while making sure our dosage is appropriate for us. For us, not for the DEA or our relatives or our friends. Some of us have a huge tolerance for meds, some of us don’t. There isn’t a pat answer for what will help each pain patient. We’re all different. For instance, I can’t take any morphine based meds. They do nothing for me. It’s like I’m taking water pills. MSContin, Dilaudid, et al., don’t work. I suppose it might be different if they were IV meds, but the pills don’t work at all for me. Other people, I know they’re knocked out by those meds. Flexeril is my Kryptonite - it puts me to sleep for days. One teeny little pill knocks me out. It works like a super powerful sleeping pill. I’ve only taken two or three in my whole life because the reaction was so awful.
P.S. I used asterisks to protect the “reputations” of the guilty. They know who they are, but I don’t need strangers coming across my blog to know who they are.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
terribly early in the morning
Damn you, herniations!
I’ve just discovered something I wasn’t overly sure about before. This is the first time in more than four years that I’ve been off pain meds, and for the last few days I’ve been having trouble getting to sleep because of, I thought, Restless Leg Syndrome or just plain ol’ achy legs. However, the pain has continued, but only in my left thigh. It was like, DUH!, the left thigh was my original herniated disk pain spot. It then spread down my left leg to my left calf, then left foot, then when it started moving to the right side, I got scared that I wouldn’t be able to drive if it affected my right foot, so that’s when we stopped trying therapy, steroids, and pain meds and decided that surgery was needed. Now, I don’t have insurance, so surgery is out. Not that I want surgery again - it was completely unenjoyable. But, crap, no more herniations. I already knew that besides the big bulge in the disk that was fixed, I had one other disk that was starting to go. However, since the location is different, I assume the pain would affect other areas, rather than completing ye olde L4-5 pain checklist. I could be wrong. I’ll go look it up after I post this. If I come up with anything interesting, I’ll let you “herniated disk” keyword people know. I know other people don’t really care, but I have met some really great people who found my blog because of my herniated disk posts. Hiya, Maegan! And dude in Australia, and other guy somewhere else. Okay, so I’ve only kept in touch with Maegan, but one good friend is worth annoying a bunch of other people with blog entries they don’t care to read. Plus, it’s my blog and all that. And, it’s NaBloPoMo, and I have to write something every day. Considering my life isn’t currently filled with fun activities and such, you get what you get.
Just a short little aside - did you guys know that Jet magazine is like Jet pamphlet now? We got a free subscription (hey, we’re interested in lots of stuff), and we were shocked to get the “magazine” and see how tiny and how few pages it has now. It’s like the “Airplane” reading material about famous Jewish athletes, although honestly, that would be much larger than the new Jet mag. It looks like one of those freebie tv guides you get at a convenience store. Next you’ll tell me that BET doesn’t exist anymore…or all they show are Tyler Perry movies. By the way, if anyone Black is reading this, could you tell me why those Tyler Perry movies make so much money? They mostly look the same, like Eddie Murphy dressing up in drag as a fat lady all the time…only it’s Tyler Perry and 2010, not Eddie and 1985.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
evening
NaBloPoMo - It’s killing me this year
Between the dogs getting out, the weaning off my meds (uh, those of you with your stupid accusations and know-it-allness about meds - well, you’re wrong, I feel like total crap off my meds. It’s not withdrawal, it’s just plain ol’ pain and it sucks), and it being a surprise appearance of “that time of the month”, it’s combined to kick my butt. I can’t remember feeling so worn down, sore, and just useless in quite some time. I know that it’s the combo of both physical and mental stress, but it just doesn’t help me feel any better. Oh yeah, and for those of you who don’t want to read about my aches & pains, stop reading. This is my blog and I’ll whine about whatever I want to whine about. So there.
I hope that as the days goes on, I’ll start writing some more interesting and entertaining blog entries. For right now, I’m just trying to function, which is really the best I can do right now. I’m hoping that when/if we sell our dining room set/bed frame, that I’ll be able to afford to see a new doctor and get some meds. Or, I hope we’ll be able to join a medical study in Vegas and that doctor will do us a favor and write our prescriptions. The hard part is needing to rent a car to get into Vegas because the Aztek is falling apart bit by bit, and I’m afraid to drive it back and forth to Vegas through the hill climbing portion of the drive. I really think it would be too hard on the car.
Okay, I promise to try to find something amusing or educational for future entries.
