A Dream Within A Dream

Okay.  I’m at four doses of 2.5 of methadone and today I change the patch and should drop to three doses.  But yesterday was very tough; it was 70 degrees outside and I had on sweatpants, two sweatshirts and was under a blanket.  Shivering.  Withdrawal, no doubt.  I understand there is a flu bug going around; got a flu shot yesterday.  But I’m going to assume its withdrawal.  I spoke with my nurse and she said if it continues to be bad today, don’t drop it until Saturday….I usually do it the day after I change the patch, which would mean Friday.  I’ll see how I feel at the end of the day.   I want to tough it out because eventually, I’ll have to.  She told me my body is emptying the last of the methadone and that’s why it’s tough right now.  I just want this junk out of my body.

Of course, she keeps pushing me to take the diladid and I’m talking two or three a day, which is a huge increase for me.   Knowing it’s withdrawal makes me LESS panicky because I’m aware of what it is and not some unknown thing.

Still, my bowels have gone back to being difficult, after a week respite.  I think my body recognized the lack of methadone, but now that it is lower doses, it’s adjusting to that.  Or it’s the diladid.  Or it’s who knows what or why.

My appetite fluctuates and there are times I just can’t think about food.  And when I do feel a twinge of hunger, I eat.  Not a lot, but then, I lay around all day so I don’t need a lot.  My sister was telling me how much I need to eat to gain weight, but her measurements were based on an active person.  I’m not losing weight, so that’s good enough for me right now.

People don’t understand many things about chronic pain, especially the demonic, non-stop incredible agony pain that nothing seems to help.  It takes away your appetite, you enjoyment of anything, and yes, your will to live.  But I fight it all.  And try not to compare.  I was comparing myself to Aimee Copeland, the young woman who lost a leg, the foot on the other leg and both her hands to a flesh eating disease.  She’s actually WALKING now, with a walker a prosthetic and determination most people don’t have.   But it’s ridiculous for me to do that.  Our situations are vastly different.  Pain lives on its own planet and it’s a disease in and of itself.  And until the medical community gets that, we shall continue to be in pain.

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And in parting from you now,
Thus much let  me avow -
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore;
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creejp
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep-while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a lighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
Once from the pitless wave?
Is all that we seem or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Edgar Allen Poe