A POST THAT KINDA HAS TO DO WITH FIBRO (PLUS JOY DIVISION)!

I'm going to be away from the desk for the next couple days, and would like to leave you (for the time being) with Love Will Tear Us Apart. I hope you enjoy the song, but that love will not, dear reader, tear us apart...

A programming note: I plan on making a new blog where I will post all my short stories that have nothing to do with fibromyalgia and actually start to post here, on a blog called THE FIBROMYALGIAN, about only fibro and everything related to it, which I haven't been doing much of recently.

What's my excuse for the dearth of posts and for posting so many lame short stories lately? The change of seasons has floored me and I've been sleeping all the time. I was on my feet for about eight hours last week.

Pity me.

I hope to improve or get on Aderral or Ritalin -- prescription amphetamines -- soon.

More to come! Till next, try not to enjoy:

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SOOTHING SAVAGE FIBROMYALGIA: THE SMITHS!

Well, it turns out there's a Secret Garden in all of us...

No, wait, There Is a Light That Never Goes Out:

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STEALING GOLF!

Let me preface this story by saying my parents' house is on a golf course, and we can see holes three and four from windows at the back of the home:

At seven this morning I was golfing hole four on the course, using nothing but a five iron, because I really need to figure out how that damn thing works. I've never been able to hit well with irons that aren't eight or nine.

I was out while the sun was rising and the dew was forming, knocking around about ten balls I had carried with me in my hoodie's pouch. On the fairway I watched all the neighbors' houses light up one by one as the people inside awoke and got ready for work and school. Personally, I was still awake from the previous night, going through one of my bouts of insomnia, which hit me about every other day. (I used to be on a ton of sleep meds to regulate my sleeping, but stopped taking them months ago because who wants to miss out on four a.m. infomercials and, especially, golfing practice at sunrise?)

By hitting the ten-or-so balls I had brought I was able to determine that, if I'm lucky enough to have a ball that lies on completely flat ground, I can hit a five iron reasonably straight, and about 150 yards. (...I should note that my distance is awful compared to any five year old who picks up a club for his/her first time.)

If the ball is on a downhill or uphill lie, I pop the ball up and slice the living hell out of it in the latter case; in the former case I succeed in excavating the fairway almost down to clay and zipping the ball about ten feet along the ground.

...Which looks cool at dawn. The ball whizzes along the ground, throwing the early-morning moisture off the blades of grass about ten feet high.

When I was done I walked down our road back home in my jeans and black hoodie, quite aware that if I do shit like this on a semi-regular basis the parents in my cloistered neighborhood are going to start thinking an insane person has invaded their sacred community to steal golf and bugger their children.

"All I can tell you, officer, is that if he thinks that weird Quaker-beard-thing on his face looks good, he must be nutty as an acorn."

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FIBROMYALGIA HAS TAKEN AWAY MY ABILITY TO SKATE... BUT IS SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY TO BE 'AWARDED' SOON?(!)

Well, no more skating. I can’t stand the pain after falling more than a few times... And the slightest brush of a knee against a metal ledge when I miss a grind causes the joint to balloon (see prev. post).

So now I have to find another way to have fun.

Parkour? ...I need to find something that involves mortal danger (otherwise, where’s the excitement?), but causes less pain than busting my ass and knees from grinds...

Maybe I can get back into skiing... I’m hopefully about to move to Portland, near Mt. Hood and year-round skiing...

Of course, these are stupid fantasies. I haven’t come to accept the limitations fibro puts on my physical activity.

I must come to accept walking as the most strenuous activity I can do, and ten pounds as the most I can lift (no joke), and that with incredible pain.

Fuck.

Speaking of moving to Portland, I suppose my Social Security disability claim could be approved soon. Hopefully within a month, allowing me to move and once again live independently.

The waiting has become unbearable. The closer I come to being given disability benefits, the farther away it is in my sight.

...Days stretch like months... I watch the clock and urge it on but the hands move counterclockwise...

Which, naturally, makes me extremely anxious. A 10/10, as it always has been, or thereabouts, ever since I have had to live here in Lummox...

...Agony... Anxiety... Waiting...

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JESUSLAND IS KILLING EVERYTHING GOOD IN ME!

I don't even want to write anymore. I just want Social Security to pay out so I can get the hell out of here and resume my life.

There is nothing here... Nothing to do and no one doing anything themselves...

Everything good about me is rotting -- my goodwill toward all, my desire to do anything, my hope...

This place is a prison...

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HERE'S HOPING MY TENS UNIT WILL EASE MY FIBROMYALGIA!

Today I had my second-to-last physical therapy appointment. My therapist, who I refer to as Mary Cassatt, worked with my insurance and got me a TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation) unit for free. Love her -- which explains why she gets a great name and people like Dr. Douchebag get names like Dr. Douchebag (those who follow this blog will know that he's the shrink who cut my Klonopin dose from 6mg to 4mg per day before he knew anything about my case. I've been super-anxious ever since he did that, and he doesn't care one bit. What a fucking douchebag...).

So I'm about to watch TV and electrocute the hell out of myself for the rest of the night. Should be fun!

...I'm also definitely getting used to the 30mg of OxyContin per day that I'm on. Yesterday (or today, to nitpick) I went to sleep at about 2:00 and woke at 10:00. Not bad. And I didn't feel like I had to dive under my bed's covers at 8:00 pm like I have every preceding day this week. Good stuff!

And today I don't feel tired or apathetic at all, plus I'm not getting motion sickness. Pretty sweet!

So I currently use only Oxy, Klonopin, Prozac, and a TENS unit to control my pain (from fibro) and generalized anxiety disorder (which is really, left unchecked, a 24/7 panic attack). And I think I may as well drop the Prozac. But I'll probably have to wait to get out of my parents' house to do that, since they figure I may as well take it since it may be doing something and it's cheap because I get the generic: fluoxetine.

But, the Prozac, I am all but sure, is doing nothing. Studies show that antidepressants are only slightly better than placebos. ...And I've been on every SSRI, SNRI, Gabitril, et al, and none of them helped. I have always needed Klonopin, and have been on large doses of benzodiazepines since age eighteen. It's the only thing that works for my anxiety at all and, therefore, the only thing I truly believe I should be taking for it.

So after all the crap with all my doctors -- I've seen about fifteen in all for my fibro -- I'm simply going to be on Klonopin, OxyContin, and use a TENS unit.

Very, very simple. The doctors I see and have seen, of course, had to make it as fucking hard as possible for me to get to this point -- trying probably around thirty drugs in all that didn't work, under-treating my pain and anxiety while doing so (except for Dr. L in DC. Guy is a genius, and provided me with the most stable period of my life by taking such good care of my GAD in my pre-fibro days).

To wrap things up: I have known for years that all I truly need are OxyContin and Klonopin. But it has taken years to get down to just these two (after I wean myself off Prozac/fluoxetine).

Most doctors do not listen. And most have their favorite therapies. And most hate to prescribe their patients Oxy and Klonopin because they're potentially addictive and can induce tolerance.

BUT NOT IN PEOPLE WITH FIBROMYALGIA AND AN ANXIETY DISORDER.

Doctors need to wake the hell up to the above reality.

Now for some electrocution!

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MUSIC TO SOOTHE SAVAGE FIBROMYALGIA: INTERPOL!

Still getting used to OxyContin... Though maybe a bit less tired, overall, today. Then again, I usually don't feel like I have to totally crash until 8:00, on the nose. If I do go to sleep then, I wake at midnight and can't get back to sleep until 4:00 or 5:00, then sleep until about noon.

...While I remain useless, please enjoy No I In Threesome:

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OXYCONTIN, SOCIAL SECURITY, AND HELL!

I couldn’t post yesterday because my server was down. So here’s what happened yesterday:

I had to fill out new forms for my lawyers who only now are getting around to processing my change of address. ...I guess this is what happens when you hire a big firm and they switch your caseworker one billion times on you: Important things are shunted into the memory Hole. (Note to self: I’ve used “Memory Hole” too much lately.)

So I had to fill in a form to let my current caseworker know that she needs to check out my six new doctors -- my psychologist, my neuropsychologist, my GP, my pain management specialist, my psychiatrist and my physical therapist.

So the ball is rolling in Jesusland... But that ball feels a lot like the boulder Sisyphus rolls...

Also, I’ve been taking 30mg OxyContin daily, and have yet to adjust to its side-effects. namely, I get motion sickness from being in a car for two minutes and constantly feel tired.

This, too, shall pass.

Also (I’m wicked-awesome at transitions...), I’m finishing Dante’s Inferno today. It has failed to bring me back into the Catholic fold because the people he finds in hell who are punished harshly are the people he, personally, hates the most.

So this atheist, apparently, is only going to hell if Dante is my judge, and finds my character unbecoming...

It would seem I will end up with the Virtuous Pagans. In which case, the Citadel provides all the light I will need.

...Then again, I’ve had freaky sex (“freaky” in Dante’s view, includes oral and probably any position but missionary), so I suppose I could be cast about with the Sodomites. But, then, Dante put three of his favorite writers in with the Sodomites, and writes that their fate seems not-too harsh. ...And is the only person to ever suggest that these persons were Sodomites.

It seems to me that, before he took a break in writing the Inferno, Dante would have cast them in with the Virtuous Pagans, if not placed them in Purgatory, had he not wanted to talk to them so badly.

So my afterlife, according to Dante, should not be so bad... At least I’m not one of his hated popes. Then again, he judges everyone but the Florentines to be incredibly sinful people... But it should serve me well that I am not from any of the Italian places he names that are full of nothing but Grafters, etc.

Which brings me to this larger point: All religious people would place in Hell those they, personally, detest.

Leave it to divine judgment and shut the fuck up, people!

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FIBROMYALGIA + BAD SKATING = OW!

I went skating today. The first pic is my left knee, the second is my right:



Note how the left is already so swollen my patella is almost hard to make out.

I went for a disaster torque (grind): I went down a mini-ramp, jumped off a three-foot-high launch, and I actually had the trick -- on a ledge five-and-a-half-ish feet in the air, balanced between the third and fourth wheel of my frame and on my tweaked left boot. Then... Well, something happened.

I don't think it sunk in that I actually had the grind. It was stupid of me to try it in the first place because it was my second time out in two years... But a bunch of grommets were blocking the fun box and I had grown sick of running into and then yelling at them.

So when I came to the end of the ledge I didn't know how to land -- forward, backward? What if I just let things sort themselves out and drop straight down onto my knee and bash the smaller ledge below?

...The latter is what I went with.

...So the above makes it a good time to talk about how the OxyContin is working (I started taking it today because I was a little excited). I've taken two pills today, 10mg each (and have found out that taking 10mg of OxyContin means taking only about 8mg to 9mg of oxycodone over a period of time), and things seem to be well. I take another at bedtime. I may not have to take as much oxycodone in the time-release preparation because it provides round-the-clock relief. I won't be building up a massive migraine in my sleep every night...

However, the lower dose of oxycodone means that my IBS is... er, causing problems... (I promise never to discuss IBS in any detail.) But my pain is still about a 6/10... Unless you count my damaged knee and how it feels...

...Well, then I guess my pain would be a 6/10 nevertheless. Fibro puts one in such a state of pain that, as I've told many doctors, I'm sure I could take a bullet in the gut and hardly give a shit. ...The positive spin is that I would actually be able to drive myself to the ER with one hand and hold in my intestines with the other.

So I suppose my point, then, is rather well illustrated: Whatever I did to my knee to make it balloon like it has did not increased my pain one iota. It's simply impossible to bend the fucker.

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OXYCONTIN!: THE CLOSEST THING TO A CURE FOR FIBROMYALGIA?(!)

My apologies for not posting in a while. I spent the past few days at my younger brother's and couldn't post because it would have been rude.

So now I'm very tired and about to nap, sitting here, upright.

But I felt the need to write that I have been prescribed OxyContin, and look forward to starting taking it because I believe it is likely to be the best way to manage my pain. I'm going to start taking Oxy Monday because I'm going to go to the local skate park tomorrow. My pain is that much more tolerable, and my life that much better, that I can resume the activity that, after writing and sex, gives my life purpose!

...It's important to note, here, that doctors will tell you that narcotics will turn you into a zombie who never will leave his/her couch.

More bullshit(which is all you should expect to hear when a doctor talks about narcotic/opiate analgesics). When you take someone's pain level down to a tolerable level, they can stop being a zombie, get off the couch and do what they will. Before treatment the person was in too much pain to be able to move much. You take away the pain, you take away the impetus behind the person's near-immobility.

...I'm going to be taking 10mg pills every eight hours, so the dosing is more convenient... Better than taking five Percocets every three hours and fifteen minutes, anyway.

I just hope me taking 10mg of OxyContin doesn't mean I'll only be getting 30mg of oxycodone per day. That would seem to be a step back in my treatment, since I currently take 50mg of oxycodone per day.

Of course, you'll be able to read all about how well things go this week. But I'm cautiously optimistic!

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MUSIC TO SOOTHE SAVAGE FIBROMYALGIA: THE GO! TEAM!

My Internet connection is going to crap out at any second. This is my third try on this browser (sixth overall) to bring you The Go! Team: The Wrath of Marcie.





I'll write when I can be sure what I put up won't go down the Internet Memory Hole.

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CLEAN PISS!

I got a call today: My drug test came back quickly, and I'm clean... But for the oxycodone, of course.

Much rejoicing...

Dr ML&S will see me Friday, at which point I'll discuss upping my dose, and taking straight oxy instead of Percocet, which has Tylenol. Right now I take five pills a day, 10mg oxy, 325mg APAP (aka Tylenol) per pill. Fibromylagia is a disorder one has for one's entire life, incurable as of this writing (and I'm not holding my breath for one...).

So I need to be on oxycodone for the rest of my life. But here's the trick: Most doctors give you oxycodone or morphine or whatever in a preparation like Vicodin, Percocet, and on because they want to be able to catch you overdosing -- or at least catch you taking more than they had prescribed.

Here's how it's done: by prescribing oxycodone, morphine, etc pills that contain Tylenol/APAP. Four grams of Tylenol is an overdose. The whites of your eyes will turn yellow as my clean piss and you'll get liver damage for the rest of your life if you take more than that. And doctors definitely don't want you taking more than is prescribed.

So, daily I'm ingesting 1,625mg of APAP so my doctor can be sure that I won't take a megadose of oxy.

Why would I? I have a certain number of pills for a set number of days. If I take more one day I screw myself the next. And I think it's been established that I do not like pain, and so avoid it or, perhaps more accurately, elide it as much as is possible. I do so, now, by taking five Percs a day.

I would like to be prescribed oxycodone, nothing but, because APAP is worse for you than the oxy. In fact, taking APAP daily for the remainder of my life is bound to eventually compromise my liver.

Also, to purify my pills and take nothing but oxy I would only have to perform a simple cold-water extraction of it from pulverized Percs, five times daily. In fact, if I am to be prescribe nothing but Percocet, I plan on performing cold-water extractions of it to help my liver out.

(Google "cold-water extraction" and vicodin or percocet to know how this is done... But I can't recommend that everyone or even anyone do this because I don't want some fucker suing me because they are able to take an oxy overdose after performing extractions. And Tylenol does prevent that. But in this awful way: You'll die from a Tylenol overdose well before you'll die from having taken too much oxy.)

Of course, doctors will tell you that the APAP enhances the effects of oxy, so you have to take less of the narcotic itself. Pure bullshit. Narcotics come with APAP so doctors can easily know if you've tried to take too much of what you've been prescribed.

...And the "easy way" will land you in the emergency room, and you'll be lucky to live through your APAP overdose. Better you had OD-ed on oxy. Far easier to survive, and no permanent damage done to any of your organs, most likely.

(I do not endorse the taking of oxycodone by anyone but me. Is my ass covered now?)

The truth is that opiates/opioids are the safest drugs to take. If you take too much you'll fall asleep -- the only "negative" effect. However, if you're trying to kill yourself, I suppose it's a great way to go. You'll get high as Stalin was on power and syphilis -- unless you suffer from chronic pain and, therefore, can never get high off pain medication -- and die from respiratory depression.

But I have no idea how much oxy that takes. I would guess approximately one assload.

...And anecdotal evidence shows that heroin addicts live a damn long time. Their shit can be cut with strychnine and it's apparently safer than Tylenol.

...Was all the above simply a way to justify what will be my reasonable request for 30 more milligrams of oxy when I see Dr ML&S Friday, and to not have the oxy coupled with APAP? Why do I feel the need to justify it at all?

In any case, I hope I, at least, spread some pro-narc pro-propaganda...

I hope to write about my progress in physical therapy tomorrow... But if you've been following this blog, you know I often plan on writing about something and then get completely sidetracked.

Nothing like a good tangent... (And a good tangent, in my eyes, is any one that doesn't involve trigonometry.)

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PROBLEM SOLVED?(!)

I wrote a letter to Dr ML&S, delivered it this morning, and was taking another piss test this afternoon.

If this one shows up clean -- and I have every reason to believe it will -- he will continue to see me, and to prescribe Percocet.

Whew!

I would transcribe the note for you, but I don't have it. I believe it's now part of my chart at Lummox Family Medical (too lazy to see if that's consistent nomenclature for where I go to see Dr 9 and ML&S).

But what had pissed off Dr ML&S most about my previous test is that he thought I lied to him. I was honest when I said I had ganked a morphine from I won't say who, but didn't tell him I smoked weed.

...I didn't because I don't. So the letter I wrote described to him why I didn't tell him THC would show up in my piss: it didn't occur to me that it would or even could.

I also made sure to let him know that he saved my life, literally, because I was seriously contemplating suicide before he wrote the Percocet prescription. I also let him know of my incredible improvement in physical therapy.

So he's a great guy for letting me take another test. This results of this one should come back to me in two days. Then, when all is well, I will see the doc on Friday, at which point we'll discuss my situation since I saw him last. I plan on asking for 20mg more of oxycodone -- and to ask for it straight up -- without the added Tylenol. Since I'm going to need oxy the rest of my life, the last thing I need is APAP eating away at my stomach and liver.

So all should be well!

...What a freaking relief...

[Pain: 5/5.

Anxiety: 7/10.

And if you're visiting this site after being redirected from Wordpress: Welcome! Hope you like the new digs!]

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HOPEFULLY SNAP SHOTS MAKES THIS SITE EVEN MORE INTERESTING!

I just installed a tool called Snap Shots that enhances links with visual previews of the destination site, interactive excerpts of Wikipedia articles, MySpace profiles, IMDb profiles and Amazon products, display inline videos, RSS, MP3s, photos, stock charts and more.

Sometimes Snap Shots will bring you the information you need, without your having to leave the site, while other times it lets you "look ahead," so you can decide if you want to follow a link or not.

If the snaps annoy you, just click the Options icon in the upper right corner of the Snap Shot and opt-out.

I hope this service is useful to everyone -- but please opt-out if it bugs you.

Also, please let me know in Comments if there are any services you think would further enhance this site, or if anything about the layout bugs you.

Thanks all!

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MIRAPEX: A CURE FOR ALCOHOLISM!

I used to have such a thirst for alcohol that I would get drunk on Thursdays and always be horribly hungover at work on Fridays because I had stayed up until the wee hours the night before because it took me quite a while to get drunk.

In my search for a way to ease my fibro I ended up on Mirapex, and about a month into taking mega-doses I no longer wanted to drink.

...Well, I wouldn't be shaking for 5:30 to come on Fridays, anyway.

Today I have swallowed about three liters of wine just to see if I can, in fact, get drunk. It would seem I cannot. ...And I'm not even weird on it, though it's matched with 50mg oxycodone (through Percocet) and 4mg Klonopin.

I didn't sign up for this... Apparently Mirapex changed my brain and did so, perhaps, for the rest of my life. I haven't taken the stuff for months, but still have no thirst for the drink. Last week when I was in such pain that all I wanted to do was die I couldn't even make myself swallow enough vodka to make a difference. Maybe there isn't an amount of vodka that would make a difference.

I simply slept well the night I drank vodka... And woke the next to find two fingers in the bottom of a fifth.

Strange thoughts on this strange day...

...If you think you have a problem with the bottle, ask your doc about Mirapex. I believe it's supposed to allow your brain to produce more dopamine... Or somehow make more dopamine available to your dope-loving brain. Either/or/and.

All I have now is a headache because it's been a while since I've taken a Percocet, and I'm going to have to take 50mg of Trazodone and a Sonata to get to sleep just so I can get the sleeping over with, it can be another day, and I can have more Percocet... I only get five a day and make myself stick to it.

...But what about Tylenol etc and liver damage (I take five Percs a day, 10mg oxycodone/325mg APAP)? Three-twenty-and-five multiplied by five is 1,625mg of Tylenol. Four grams is an overdose. And the wine must be taxing my liver like Paul did Jews before he had a seizure and founded christianity.

...I've been taking a multivitamin and a strong B-complex tab ever since I was put on legal dopes at eighteen years old, and I get a liver enzyme test at least once a year, and my largest internal organ is just fine. Pristine. Begging for more.

And now I have pared down my drug diet to three meds I know and love, which should save my delicious liver some trouble: I take only Prozac, Klonopin and Percocet. I need nothing else (well, except for Trazodone and Sonata so I can get to sleep)... In fact, if Prozac wasn't available in a generic formulation, I'd drop that too. But the drug reminds me of my college years, is relatively cheap, and so it stays.

...When my rationality and my sentimentality collide, the latter wins almost every time.

...I will forever keep a quilt that was my older brother's that has bled all its stuffing and a brain that spews dopamine like a busted fire hydrant... But I'm unable to splash in the middle of the road in the late-July of a humid Washington D.C.

I'm unable to get drunk.

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AN ANVIL HAS BEEN DROPPED ON MY NUTS (PLUS TURING MACHINE: DON'T MIND IF I DON'T)!

I found out today through a letter that Dr ML&S sent me that he may not prescribe me any more Percocet because some THC showed up in my piss. He says he is unlikely to see me anymore as a patient (as opposed to us seeing each other as lovers who are into S&M so heavily that every sexual encounter we have almost kills one of us), even though he believes wholeheartedly that Percocet is exactly what I need.

Insanity insanity insanity...

I'm going to write him a letter, to be dropped off Monday, letting him know that, though he thinks he prescribed me enough Percs to last me until Dr 9 comes back from vacation, he did, in fact, only prescribe me enough for two weeks, not the four it would take to tide me over until I can talk to Dr 9 about him taking over prescribing Percs.

I'm also going to let him know I didn't tell him THC may show up in my piss when I saw him Monday because it didn't occur to me that it would or could. I was around smokers the Thursday before I saw him and didn't smoke, myself. The test must be ncredibly sensitive and the amount of THC minuscule.

Right now my stomach is cramping I'm so anxious. I'm swallowing 4mg of Klonopin now (done), and can't write because thinking about this is making me so physically ill.

More later.

Until then, please enjoy Turing Machine while I enjoy a massive panic attack!

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LACK OF HATE = WRITER'S BLOCK?(!)

Since I have been on Percocet -- Monday -- I have found it hard to sit and write.

This could be because I still am getting used to the slight lethargy I'm experiencing as a side-effect of the oxycodone (active ingredient in Perc)... But, then, I went on an hour-long walk in foot-deep snow today...

So I seem to be finding it difficult to write about my medical situation now that I have little to bitch about.

Well, I certainly don't want my situation to change... But I need to keep writing.

I think that means I need to provide the story of how all this started: From my fibro diagnosis, to my resignation from The Washington Post, to me applying for Social Security Disability, to me having to leave Washington, DC because I was one step away from living on the street (ran out of money, ran up credit cards, sucked dry all savings) to, finally, moving back in with my parents and having to start over with new doctors.

I think that's how things are going to go.

Of course, while we're catching up with the past, I will continue to provide updates regarding all my current visits with my doctors and my physical therapist.

Speaking of Cassatt, my latest appointment with her was Tuesday. For the first time I was able to use the exercise machines in a way that actually made them sense that they were, in fact, being used. During all my previous visits I was barely able to move the pedaler (you sit down and push down with your feet, alternating left and right) and the arm bicycle (you use your hands in the same way your feet pedal a bicycle).

Immediate, considerable progress, brought to you by Percocet.

...It's amazing to think, now, of just how badly I wanted to die just last Sunday!

I also talked with Cassatt about her getting in touch with my insurance company (Thievery Corporation... Check out the group/club owners in DC I borrowed this name from) to see how much it will cost me to get my own e-stim machine. Hopefully it won't be much, since I already have met my insurance deductible for the year.

...Huh. Maybe I can still write, if I can get my ass behind my desk. But is it interesting without the hate behind it?

Stay tuned!

[Pain: 5/5.

Anxiety: 8/10.]

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REASON TO LIVE? YOU KNOW HOW TO SPELL IT!

P-E-R-C-O-C-E-T!

Dr 9's stand in has me on 10/325s x 5 per day (10mg oxycodone, 325mg APAP) for now. I see him in two weeks, when we will talk about the dose and my past medical records (from Dr W), bloodwork from a few months ago, etc.

CHRONIC OPIOID ANALGESIC THERAPY!

Pain is a 5/5!

Things were getting horribly bleak, and I have christened Dr 9's stand-in Dr ML&S for My Lord & Saviour, accordingly.

That's all for now!

[Anxiety: 10/10. I had to pee in a cup on Monday, when I saw Dr ML&S. I watched Lost with some pot smokers Thursday, but didn't partake... If my piss is dirty it could affect my treatment... Plus Dr Douchebag has me on Douchebag-level treatment for my anxiety, of course.

So I call Super-Mega-Ultra-Not-Jinx so that everything works out! (And yes... I consider myself rational, but for a few insane superstitions. At least I recognize them to be insane... And most of them are OCD-ish tendencies, not real superstitions.)]

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F---------------------------K!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry that the head looks awful, but I didn't think it proper to write FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!! in that space.

I received worse than no help from the people I saw today. And to cover my ass (Cover the ass you want to be in the world...), I must admit this is a work of complete fiction. A one hundred percent fabrication. The below is a horrible dream I had. Or something.

JK Rowling isn't the only one with a lackluster imagination... (Easy with the fillet knives fanatics...)

...On with it. Here is what happened in said dream:

I wrote the following on Wednesday night, hoping the doctors I saw today could read it, since my writing is better than my speech, especially since I've had fibro. Enjoy, and I'll tell you what happened at the Center after (this is going to be a long post, so swallow the drugs I don't have access to, if you have access to them yourself). The following is an integral piece of the story though.

Or not...

Hell, it's just so damn degrading it simply must be relevant.

Enjoy!:

What I Have:

FIBROMYALGIA, which causes:

1. Chronic Daily Migraines [when I write longhand all my knowledge of grammar, punctuation, and proper capitalization evaporates like a sip of brandy on the tip of the tongue], pain 10/10, nausea 7/10, photophobia 7/10, phonophobia 10/10.

2. Pain Pain Pain Pain Pain Everywhere (10/10).

3. IBS -- have lost 17lbs. in past month... Not necessarily bad, but a lot to lose in one month -- Pain associated w/ it 10/10, decreased ABILITY to eat and drink fluids. Always dehydrated. (GP not concerned.)

4. I'm 29 and I need a cane to walk. ENOUGH SAID? (Or, rather, written?)

5. DID I MENTION PAIN? The pain is going to drive me insane very, very soon.

6. RLS -- restless legs syndrome.

7. Generalized anxiety disorder.

8. Major depression.

9. Inability to sleep longer than 4-5 hours per night because PAIN wakes me.

10. Alpha wave intrusion into delta-wave sleep, so sleep is short, and of poor quality.

11. My Mom and I shared a hotel room last night. I knocked myself out with Benadryl, which I've had IV too, it does nothing, but woke her up about every hour because I apparently moan loudly due to pain in my sleep.

Current Meds:

1. Topamax, 100mg/day: does absolutely nothing. Have been on for one month and will discontinue, just as I have tried and discontinued every other migraine drug (plus prednisone in case they were cluster headaches).

2. Klonopin, 4mg/day.

3. Vistaril: Dr. Douchebag (psych.) wrote script for up to 200mg/day, but SAID I can take as much as 400mg. Not a good way to practice medicine. (Will be seeing a new shrink beginning March 20.)

4. Zanaflex: 24mg/day.

5. Ultram: 200mg/day. A horrible and cruel, cruel joke. My GP previously prescribed my Vicodin over 2 weekends. He prescribed (I think...) 7.5/750s x 20, but was unhappy that I took all of them over the weekend.

I did so -- and made sure not to exceed 4grams APAP in any 24hr period [that's an overdose, for those playing along at home] (Dr 9 doesn't work on Fridays, so weekends were 4.5 days) because the Vicodin couldn't come close to taming my pain. [That sentence could have been a bit clearer... But, then, it doesn't matter: The docs at the Center wouldn't read it or even let me read it to them. Why not? They didn't want to hear anything I had to say! One doctor took down the meds I'm currently on, and from then on it was a battle royale: Me yelling at them, and them trying to advocate for their position and failing miserably. It would seem the two doctors I dealt with had never been in a debate in their entire lives. Or a lukewarm conversation.]

And how could Dr 9 expect Vicodin to tame my pain? He knows my previous Doc, a pain management specialist, had me on Percocet, which only succeeded (at the low dose it was set at) at keeping me non-suicidal and able to walk one block to and from work.

Vicodin is a horrible joke. Ultram is Dr 9 pissing in my hat and making me wear it.

* MY SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS: I have only received any pain relief whatsoever from Percocet. I would suggest we treat my pain aggressively and treat me with about 70mg oxycodone to start, and see if I need more or less. [Again, could have been more clear. At least you know I'm transcribing exactly what I wrote... Although I'm not convinced it's important that it be one hundred percent accurate... Oh well. It is. The next transcription will be bullshit.]

Of course, now that I've written that, I appear to simply be a drug-seeker.

But we all know about pseudo-addiction, don't we?* [My doctor did not.]

My pain -- my indescribable, horrible, hell-itself pain has been amazingly under-treated for years. AND I WANT RELIEF AND I WANT IT NOW. EVERYONE KNOWS OXYCODONE WORKS, BUT SIMPLY NEEDS TO BE SUPPLIED IN A SUFFICIENT DAILY DOSE.

LET'S DO IT ALREADY. HOW MUCH LONGER DO I HAVE TO SUFFER BECAUSE DOCTORS WON'T SCRIBBLE A FEW WORDS ON A PAD? THOSE FEW WORDS -- THAT SCRIPT IS LITERALLY MY TICKET OUT OF HELL!

* See final page for brief summary of pseudo-addiction. [I left, briefly, to piss in a cup, after inviting the doc to read what I had written. When I returned, the page was flipped to the summary on pseudo-addiction. Bad Sign No. 1.]

6. Prozac, 40mg/day.

7. Mirapex, .5mg/day.

8. Insane amts. of vitamins and minerals: generic Centrum; 100mg Co Q-10; 100mg B-2; B complex w/ vitamin C; 1,000 IU vitamin D; 1,000mg magnesium.

ALL THE ABOVE ARE WORTH A WOODEN NICKEL EXCEPT KLONOPIN.

[What a hokey and cheesy way of saying that only Klonopin is worth taking. ...And “hokey” is, itself, hokey and cheesy.]

Dr 9 sent me here so I would be put on chronic opioid analgesic therapy [when I first mentioned this term, the doctor I was speaking to had no idea what I was talking about. It would have been poetic if a cold bead of sweat trickled down the nape of my neck at that moment. What really happened: I closed my eyes for a second, slid down in my chair a few inches, and the words “You are so so so fucked” went through my head.], which he will not do himself because he “doesn't do much prescribing of narcotics.”

[As it turns out, neither does the Center. I was informed by three people, multiple times each that I had “zero chance of getting treated with narcotics.” And they all said "getting." They couldn't even use proper English and say "being" -- and let's not start on "zero." Small things like that help me be remorseless when it comes time to yell simply to wound... When your display will get you nothing you want but the other person's pain.]

In short, he wants you to put me on COAT, which he will then prescribe for me monthly.

P.S.: I wrote all this down because I've been stuttering and groping for words in speech since I've have had fibromyalgia and wanted all this to be clear. I hope it is.

I also know it reads as though I am incredibly desperate.

You have no idea how desperate I am to get some, any -- hopefully the most possible, though -- relief from my pain.

PLEASE HELP ME. YOU ARE LITERALLY MY LAST HOPE. I have nowhere else to go.

Goddam. I'm finally done transcribing that freaking note. ...Doing that was not fun. Hopefully this next will be, for all of us:

Did I refer to the over-full colostomy bags I saw today at Fakename Whatever Whatever Pain Center as “wizards” in my last post? I'd punch myself in the balls for that one if it didn't feel like I'd already been hit by Tyson (admittedly, everywhere but there) in his good years -- and his pre-wife-beating pigshit rapist years. He lost it in the ring and outside it at the same time. Borderline personality disorder?

Whatever. Fuck all rapists.

Can people stop cheering for Kobe for fuck's sake? Maybe it wasn't rape, but...

Well, I'm pretty damn sure it was. So sit down, shut the fuck up, oh wow he jumped high and a ball went in a hoop. Your city is now better than the city the rapist is playing against. You and the rapist became one in that moment -- you cheering for him as the ball rolled off his fingers made all the difference. Now go get in a fight in the parking lot with some guy who flew in all the way from New Jersey -- a fight started because you're both body-painters and got pissed at each other on-sight.

How long does it take for the paint to come off each, individual, hair?

So the two of you go to jail, while Kobe finds a rape victim or two then buys their silence -- for now... But his story ends in a jailbox to be sure...

But back to me me me me me:

It's a good thing I have about 10 glasses of wine in me. Because:

“Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t have you by the throat.”

Charles Bukowski wrote that in Factotum (which everyone should read and if anyone calls him a beat they should get beaten). I've always shared that horror with Bukowski. It's never seemed right that someone has to work to live. And so we have a society where everyone fucks around all the time at work. Why can't we just work intensely for one eight-hour day per week? We would be far more productive.

And we could live our goddam lives 160 hours per week.

The fact is, society can do whatever it wants by mutual agreement... In this case, American society. If we choose to work far fewer hours, but to actually make those hours count, we could do it, and easily. And the economy would be fine: Fuck Wall Street and stocks and ever-rising profits. Let's hit a nice plateau and stay there. If we decide we're OK with that, we're halfway to home plate. (And 99 percent of us should be because our portfolios aren't really doing a goddam thing for us compared to the Trumps etcetera of the world. Fuck the rich, kill the stock market.

[Ed.: But I could really care less... I remain untouched by the economy at large: The 12-year old socialist bastard who writes my stuff for me (I get him drunk on mouthwash and set his spirit free on the electronic page) gets the job done in 15 minutes or less.]

Fuck. Fuck...

Sorry. Took a huge hit today and am avoiding the real topic.




I'm almost at the end of my rope, and I have more than enough to hang myself with. And I feel like using it to do so.

But I remember how one of the doctors I saw today didn't so much as flinch when I yelled at her: “What the fuck do you do for fibromyalgians (TM) in this place, give them a gun and point them out back?!”

She seemed to consider it in her stony silence.

All my doctors want me to leave them the fuck alone. They want a moment's peace. If they knew I was dead, they would be assured peace.

And I have made my life's purpose to deny them peace so long as they deny me mine. I treat all who are in the position to help me but who do not as if they are actively hurting me -- as if they are my fibromyalgia made human. And they may as well be. They have the power to make me feel about eighty percent better. Easily.

It's not a hard fucking thing! Scribble the word “oxycodone” on an Rx pad, sign it, date it, hand it to me, and TING TING TING! this dirty angel gets his wings and is sonic-booming out of Hell.

The worst thing about my death? The doctors would not be blamed by anyone but my nuclear family. Everyone else would call me a pussy who "took the easy way out."

Dears, suicide is never the easy way out. It's how a sane person responds to an insane world that has pushed him/her to the ledge...

When doctors don't do the right thing, I sleep with a clean conscience despite the fact I've uttered every obscenity I can think of at them. I sleep better for it, in fact. I have known people for only one hour and have judged them to be stupid, vile, ignorant, and without the requisite amount of empathy to survive in an orangutan colony.

But do I really trust these snap judgments?

Huh...

Mostly, I think the people I deal with are horribly, horribly ignorant. And "ignorant" is rooted in “ignore.” Which is awful, because it suggests a person is choosing stupidity. And the people I deal with are. They ignore facts that disprove them. The mountain of evidence that will wash them away...

The docs I deal with learned what they learned about narcs 30, 40 years ago. But guess what? A few planets have been discovered since then, and Pluto has been demoted too (it never belonged... You have the rocky planets, then the gas giants, then... an asteroid?).

And what has been discovered about narcs in the years since these docs learnified themselves?

Well, for starters, people in chronic pain don't develop tolerance to narcs.

I was talking with one doctor today:

“Well you're so young no one would...”

(The point of using reason with these people had long past... In fact, I don't think reason has a place in the entirety of Jesusland... Get thee to a coastal city... And in the West or Northeast -- the South is tainted!) “Oh, of course, I'm 29 and I have so long to live that my tolerance would get so massive that...

"WAIT! I want you to read this!"

In my hand was the article from this post, showing that, as written above, people in chronic pain don't develop tolerance to narcs.

“No. I won't read it.”

“What?! It's only a few paragraphs! It covers a few studies!

A weird, small silence as we glared at each other, her eyes not cold, not distant... Simply no light behind them.

"What? Will reading it harm you in some way?!”

“No, let's--”

“OK, then riddle me this--”

“I won't riddle you anything.”

Can you believe this exchange? It's like a brother and sister squabbling, not a doctor and patient having a discourse for crissake!

“Listen, I know you're going to go into the bullshit--”

“I don't think this is the way we should be speaking.”

“OK, then it's crap that people in chronic pain develop tolerance to narcotics. If you would read this you would see that careful research bears out what I say.

“This is not the truth.”

“This is not the truth?! I hold the truth in my hand.” And I held my hand in her face.

“No.”

“Fine. Listen.” She started to speak. So I made sure she couldn't, which meant I had to yell. It felt good... It gave me the fleeting exhilaration you get from punching through an ocean wave...

“IF PEOPLE IN CHRONIC PAIN BUILD UP A TOLERANCE TO NARCOTICS, WHY HAS [FRIEND OR LOVED ONE], WHO HAS [MS,MD, THEREABOUTS] BEEN TAKING THE EXACT SAME DOSE OF MORPHINE FOR SIX YEARS? HE HAS NO TOLERANCE TO THE DRUG AND HE CERTAINLY ISN'T A FREAKING ADDICT!

"THERE'S ABSOLUTELY NO TOLERANCE AND NO ADDICTION SO DON'T GIVE ME THAT STUPID CANARD! READ SOMETHING ON CHRONIC PAIN AND NARCOTICS THAT HAS BEEN PUBLISHED THIS CENTURY!"

I slumped a little, took a small breath, and let myself enjoy the taste of saying:

“I'm sorry, but when it comes to narcotics, I don't think a single person in this building has any idea what they're talking about. You seem to believe that opiates are intrinsically evil when, in fact, they saved each of us from death once or twice, I'd bet.

"I had an appendectomy -- what did you have?"

I stared into her eyes, mine half-closed in self-satisfaction like I had just ejaculated. There was no way I was getting any help whatsoever out of these people, and I had known that for quite a while.

But for a few hours a few people were my fibromyalgia -- and perfect proxies: ignorant, lemmings, eyes on the heels of Dear Center Director so they can follow in lockstep, and Dear Director does not believe in Evil Opioids because what good have they ever done...

...I tried to calm down by reminding myself that all of what I was experiencing is simply what happens when 40-year-old medical knowledge is applied to a disorder that is just starting to be misunderstood: My life gets completely and utterly ruined.

AND I AM SUPPOSED TO ACCEPT THIS.

GET WITH THE FUCKING PROGRAM.

...Of course, one may worry about the repercussions of one's actions -- fuck, “one” just spent four hours yelling at two different doctors, calling them nothing less than idiots (and being goddam spot-on).

So on the way home I called the Center and told the records department that I withdrew my HIPAA records-release as of that moment, and that the only person their records of my visit could legally go to are me. And, if they so much as think about sending them to anyone but me, they have to call me first.

Not even my GP is going to know what took place today. I'm just going to tell him they were only offering treatments I had already undergone -- which is exactly true. The bastards expected me to go to a hospital for two weeks and get the exact same treatments Dr 9 had given me with little success before he took off for vacation! Fucking freaks!

Goddam it I want Logic 101 to be fucking mandatory for everyone on this earth!

And, of course, there's Einstein: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." By his definition, I was in a house of motherfucking loons that plays at being a medical center. I used to think medicine was grounded in science, but now know better: It's mostly grounded in idiots and outdated knowledge.

I toyed with one of the doctors. I asked her to name a treatment and I would tell her if I had undergone it.

She stopped after four matches. And they were IV treatments. My god she thought she had me...

And I brought a bag full of medications I had previously taken which all doctors averted their eyes from as though the sun's incandescence itself lay inside. Every time I offered: "Don't you want to take down all the meds I've been on previously?"

"Just put that away, please," -- annoyed.

They knew I had them dead to rights, trapped in a goddam corner. I had already tried every single thing they wanted me to try -- a-fucking-gain. And they thought it perfectly sensible.

It was the strangest thing... They didn't act human when it came to this matter. They acted like very simple robots who had been given the wrong input and the only thing going through their brain-like-structures was DOES NOT COMPUTE! DOESNOTCOMPUTE! I saw them try to think of why they though why they did... In the end one doctor simply had to leave the room, with me saying,

"Hey, thanks so much for helping out a 29-year-old who has to use a goddam cane!"

"You know, it's your choice to use it."

"IT'S MY CHOICE?! I hope you die soon!"

The door snapped shut. I had jumped to my feet in a microsecond, and I believe she thought I was coming after her, armed with the cane I chose to carry just in case I wanted to beat the shit out of a woman.

Why else would I carry it?

Then the other doctor came to sit by me and said "Maybe this isn't the place for you; all you want is drugs."

I grabbed my head like I was trying to tear my hair out: "Are you kidding me? You two are talking about pumping every drug under the sun into my veins for a period of two freaking weeks, and I only want one simple bottle of pills -- only one drug -- and you think I'm the one who wants me to be whacked out on drugs?

"I realize this is going to end our session, so I have to say it: Anyone who doesn't think all of you are totally insane is insane themselves. Everything you and the other woman have said has been either a personal insult or an insult to logic. I'd ask you for a referral to the Anesthesia Pain Treatment Clinic or whatever it's called, but I know you won't give me one because they might give me those fucking evil narcotics and actually decrease my pain those assholes.

"Merry fucking Christmas."

Then I left.

...Anyway, when/if Dr 9 asks me about my appointment there I'll ask him why the fuck he sent me there.

Then I'll politely ask:

“And how was your vacation?

After he tells me how great Wherever The Fuck was, it will be my turn:

"Me? I've been great, of course! Thanks so much for leaving me high and dry, with absolutely no way to get any relief from my pain whatsoever! The weather in Hell has been fucking fantastic!”

...But I'd actually love for the Center to breach HIPAA and for Dr 9 to know all about what went down at the Center for Lobotomized Doctors. Then, besides having told MDs that they're not smart enough to velcro their kids' shoes I could get them fired and make off with some money, too.

It would almost be justice...

But who cares about justice anyway? Be honest with yourself one goddam second and realize it's vengeance that really gets your saliva going.

...And now I must apologize for this spotty account of this wretched, putrified day. I wanted to get down what I could as quickly as possible... But holy god I could tell this one a million ways a million times.

Until next, I say Viva Hate Forever because it's days like these when Hate is all I have. And I'm lucky that I can hate deeply and thoroughly enough to sustain myself.

But to you, blogfriends and fibromyalgians, love and kittens (especially if you somehow read this far!).

Mixx it!

PAIN, ANXIETY OFF THE CHARTS!

"Today I really struggle[d] with my fibromyalgia..."

And that's after taking (so far today):

200mg Ultram (does nothing, hoping for placebo effect... Anything, somehow...)

4mg Klonopin, can't take any more today, so I'm up Shit Creek without a flotation device.

150mg Vistaril, something my quack shrink, Dr Douchebag, gave me when he took away 2mg Klonopin daily (knocked me down from 6mg to 4mg on my first visit, practically as a way of saying hello). I think it's a fucking antihistamine. Christ...

8mg Zanaflex, just taken out of desperation. Zanaflex is supposed to reduce muscle spasticity. Joyous drug...

All this to try to tolerate being alive on this foul day as I have no doc to go to -- Dr 9 is on vacation, so I can't go in for a shot of Demerol or even an IV of Benadryl... Goddam it I'd take anything to sleep or be in less pain or... Christ, not be the thing I am now.

Anxious about the What if the Pain Center doesn't help me this Friday? I'll be totally, completely fucked.

And the pain, I cannot stress enough, is unbearable. I can't think of anything else and it's the one thing I don't want to think about...

Now I can't write any more. Too much being upright for today.

I hope to post tomorrow and the next -- off Friday for the Center appt. -- and then to write Saturday with great news. Hopefully of an oxycodone script large enough to kill a horse, but simply make my daily life bearable.

Viva hate...

Mixx it!