Saturday, July 03, 2004

personal downdate 3 July 04

On Thursday one of my expensive prescriptions ran out, and I decided to try a similar, cheaper version of the drug... chemically it was exactly the same as the expensive one except for one little hydrocarbon chain at the end that was right-handed instead of left-handed. Nevertheless within 24 hours I was in pain approximately similar to that of a few months ago, and today I was unable to get out of bed without a stabbing pain in my side, and even in bed I felt like my guts were foreign organisms. I made a damn quick call to the doc to get the other prescription refilled, hopefully it will kick back in soon.

Even after all this time, I am still resistant to the idea that I can't function without medication. I made the choice to not take anymore narcotics (a choice that was not without repercussions, first the withdrawals and then the increased pain), but the other stuff, the stuff I apparently need just to function, has it's own problems. In the meantime my pain level is high enough that a valium and two sleeping pills haven't knocked me out tonight... I've been sitting here for 5 hours wanting to sleep, with enough drugs in me to fell a large beast, but sleep will not come.

On the bright side (such as it is), there are some interesting things going on. As I meet more of my neighbors and get to know some of them better, I feel like we made the right choice buying this house... our People are here. Strangely, a block or two in any direction moves into less appealing neighborhoods... this block is like an island of friendly creative people. The only problem is that there's some kind of breeding frenzy going on, so the adults are usually too busy to 'hang out'.

Another interesting thing is that I've just about finished reading all of the old posts on Tina's blog, 2+ years of very personal posts, and they are helping me with my own problems... it's not so much what she did to fix her problems, it's the honesty she used to come to know herself well enough that a solution became apparent. Personally I try to be pretty honest; my biggest dishonesty is that I'm disproportionately harsh on myself, and I often compare myself unfavorably to other people my age. (Which is completely bullshit, of course, when I look back and see how far I've come, but somewhat valid in terms of cultural expectations... which I never respected before, but somehow became diseased with during college and professional work.) Hearing someone else tell of their own path through life gives me some perspective on my own, and perspective is sometimes in short supply given the limited view of life I can see from this bed.