EVERY DAY IS LIKE SUNDAY

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A BIT OF NEWS FROM THE PAIN RELIEF NETWORK!

[This came to my inbox and I thought I'd pass it along and urge everyone who is able -- after donating all you can to me me me, of course (button's on the right) -- to give give give to PRN. The e-mail:]

Pain Treatment Advocacy Group Sues State of WA
Jun 25, 2008
By: Donna Gordon Blankinship
The Associated Press

SEATTLE - A pain treatment advocacy group filed suit Wednesday in federal court to challenge the restrictions Washington state officials have put on prescription pain medication

The nonprofit Pain Relief Network says the guidelines for prescribing narcotics, written by the Washington state Department of Health and published in March 2007, have influenced pain treatment across the country and have made doctors afraid to give opiate prescriptions[...]

Me (Calvin) again:

Get the full story using this link.

Donate to PRN using this link.

This post's title is a link to PRN.

...And sorry for the dearth of posts this month.

Family.

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put it on its back

when they stop staring
at your ass
you need their ogles back
enough to tell the
very superior old pale lie
you reserve for
more-often occasions:
your younger sister found blue in her crib.

...You were so young.

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THE EXAM! ...NOW: WAITING!

My exam was far too short. But I think I may have some sort of chance at being found to be disabled (infinite-non-jinx).

The doc started asking questions after taking my blood pressure, and I found myself reading from the pages containing the lists I made yesterday, so I just stopped myself and handed her the pages.

She looked at all the meds I've taken previously (we were on that topic at the moment) and was taken aback. So was I, truthfully, when I saw all the meds I listed, college-notes-style "a" through "z," then indented and listed next to asterisks. "A" through "y" covered only the meds I still have the bottles for.

After that I cheated on a few list items. For example: I put Paxil on the list (note to dear reader: Do Not Ever Take Paxil) and simply noted that I've taken every other SSRI, SNRI and NSRI as well.

So she had, and I hope the Social Security Admin. will end up with, a pretty-complete list of my current meds and their dosages, my current treatments (TENS), my past meds prescribed/taken, my past treatments (trigger-point injections, all the other injections given by Dr 9, so on) and -- first things last: everything that tags along with fibro (chronic fatigue, etc).

(Wow... This is so deadly close to what I wrote yesterday. ...Best to get past the list.)

She was amazed by everything. She would interrupt something she or I was saying to mutter "...You're only twenty-nine..."

She seemed to have a problem with the OxyContin and the fact my doc had upped my dose two months after I started taking it. She was worried about habituation, the definition of which she gave me... Not as an insult. She did so before she found me using similar words in our conversation. I let her know that the correct Oxy dose has not been reached, and I didn't need to take more Oxy to get the same relief I originally obtained from it. I also let her know I've been on high doses of benzos (mostly Klonopin) for more than a decade without becoming habituated, without escalating, on.

I also let her know of the studies I've found that prove people who need painkillers and benzos don't get habbed, hop on the escalator, get addicted, all that mess.

But it turns out that, even if she believes I am having to escalate my Oxy dose, she realized what the following illustrates:

"Overall, you've got to realize that getting on OxyContin was the last option I had and I had to take it."

Immediate response: "Of course without doubt."

...It may be a good sign that she spent most of our appointment trying to think of a clinic or hospital or doctor I could see that could somehow treat me better than I am being treated now (impossible -- and she came up empty, which was the only possible thing to do. I've tried everything).

Also, I believe she was impressed by the life I had been living until I had fibro (work-wise) and appreciated what it meant for me to be kicked off the track I had built.

...Fuck.

God damn it.

Now I wait for a letter and try not to think about everything that letter could be.

I don't know how to feel.

Until I figure out how I should, I'm at my default setting: Extremely Anxious.

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FIBROMYALGIA, SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY, CINDER BLOCKS!

Tomorrow is my second, and hopefully last, exam to determine whether I am so decrepit I must, essentially, become a ward of the state.

When I found out I was to have the test, two cinder blocks immediately were stacked one on another atop my ribcage.

So for weeks my muscles have been weakening until now my lungs only can inflate enough to take in as much air as is held in two of the empty pill bottles (one for each lung) I've kept in a drawer I'm about to pour on the floor so I can make a list of most of the the meds I've previously taken.

For the MD examining me I also will need to list all current and past treatments (like trigger-point injections), ailments that accompany the pain of fibro (like chronic fatigue) -- anything I can think of... Though I won't be able to get everything down.

(I know I've written something quite similar to this post before. But hell, I'm padding my blog -- I admit it... Plus I haven't read my own stuff in a while and recall my previous pieces as corpses in need of a Dr Frankenstein. ...And I'm not referring just to the recent stuff.)

I'm afraid to tell the whole truth and nothing but to the doc tomorrow because it's going to sound like I'm horribly inflating my case.

But I'll be truthful anyway... But be sure to let the MD know it's going to seem like I'm padding -- the way I'm padding the blog right now.

[UPDATE! -- written after initial post]

My analogy using cinder blocks was stupid: It only works if I've been lying down ever since I found out about my appointment... And I've had to walk to the bathroom a few times since then.

So how about this: Since then a daily-tightening rubber band has surrounded me from armpits to floating ribs.

Or how about this: Screw the analogies. I've been increasingly anxious ever since the letter, and now I'm in such a panic I barely can breathe.

Tomorrow will decide how I live the rest of my life.

A bit stressful.

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standard-current short story

The fireworks finale! The expectation before!

A description of what happened in the sky pre-finale. The description-length is dictated by the word count sought by the publication you hope to appear in.

Since you just saw the display being described, you can relate to it.

Something before, during or after the events described set off a memory for the narrator, or the events themselves now turn into something else on a sentence.

An ambiguous sentence. Or a sentence that nails the events above to a cross. A sentence meant to be a revelation. A sentence that, were it the first one, would have made what you just read not worth reading.

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ON THE 11TH: MY SECOND SSA DISABILITY EXAM!

An MD is taking care fo this one. So I'll have to write down my many disorders and all the drugs I take now/ever have taken, all the tests that I've had done, and all the treatments that have been foisted on me.

It should be a blast.

Meanwhile, the Ritalin doesn't seem to be working for me. I've gone back to sleeping all the time.

And since right now is a time, I should be sleeping in it.

I'll get back to it, and let you know what impressions I have after the exam.

...I need to learn how to write in my sleep...

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