It's Nixon, By A Nose!

Have you all forgotten me? No, sweet ones, you haven’t. I wish I could. No such luck. Damn. The oxy saga finally comes to a flaccid ending. (If endings can be such. Well, they can now. You wanna argue with an extremely pissy, ill, menopausal woman? Are you crazy?)

I never felt comfortable using the oxy as my “anti-suicide pill” or as my “mood enhancer” though it performed the latter function with aplomb. My mother, of all people, was so happy to see her usually miserable daughter so gregarious, so social, so relaxed. I suppose, if my choice were that or nothing, depending on my mood, I might as well go for the narcotic that would quickly have me addicted and wanting more. Not a good look.

My psychopharmacologist missed last Thursday’s phone appointment to solve my conundrum: misery or not giving a shit, salut! What the fuck was that all about? Chip thought I didn’t want the appointment rescheduled, didn’t reschedule it assuming that everyone agreed that oxycodone was everyone’s drug of choice. I knew that was no solution, and I was shocked that Ira (the psychopharmacologist) would go along with this. We had our belated appointment yesterday. I was only taking the oxy when my back was not happy and was yammering for a hit of something, thank you very much. And that’s what I did.

Ira thinks that last week’s walk to the very edge of the precipice may have been partly caused by withdrawal from those few measly pills I’d taken, I thought, so prudently. So I thought. I’ve since gathered, best to take it regularly, on a schedule, for as long as necessary, and them wean yourself off the stuff by cutting your dose little by little. I know this shit. I just haven’t had to deal with this all that often in my life.

Yes, I know you can’t go cold turkey on psychotropic drugs, as my internist so lovingly refers to them. I’ve been weaned off those before. I know the drill. But getting weaned off anything is pretty unusual these days. It feels to me that I just keep adding drugs and upping dosages. Nothing fun, mind you. But perhaps life saving, so I shouldn’t complain that they don’t have me doing the hula, cannula, tubing and all, in my living room. Though wouldn’t that be fun if I had the urge? Hmmmm. Oxy, oxy, oxy.

Resolved after my appointment with Ira, Effexor has been upped by fifty percent. (Effexor just kills sex drive. Whoopee. One more thing to look forward to.) That’s a whole lot of Effexor. I should know in a day or two if I can tolerate that high a dose. If so, I’ll need some time to see if I hop back from that precipice and contemplate dancing the hula. (Sorry, y’all, that’s the best I can do.) If I spent last week being proverbially kicked in the nuts from oxycodone withdrawal, I’d really not like to go there again.

I’m no longer in excruciating pain. That’s one reason I can be so blasé about dropping the oxy. Slowly, achingly, my back improves. Maybe, I can get by with Alleve. (Glass half full.)

I can’t catch a break. Just when I think its safe to go back in the water…(Actually, I wonder when that might be. I love the ocean. I even love swimming pools. Being wheeled along Long Island’s gorgeous beaches comes in second, though just by a rather large and eminently caricature-able nose, to Richard Nixon walking along the beach in a suit and wing tips. I’d be ridiculous. (Though he wins the ridiculous contest, no question. Certainly not in my mind.) And impossible to push along- at least on the dry sand. What a nightmare.

No today, and it has been happening since the heat has poured out of our radiators, my throat and sinuses are filled with a glue-like mucous (Nasty but healthy mucous. No funky colors. When that happens, no if that happens, then I’ll be up shit’s creek.) I can’t get the crap out without ever more violent coughing. I was coughing like that when I first came out of the hospital. That’s when coughing was responsible for two fractured ribs. Albeit hairline cracks, but cracks just the same. That’s not normal. That’s fucked up. This time around, my hearty pecs protect my ribs and allow me to breathe through the scarred wreckage that are my lungs. (Yes, I worked on the pecs some, but they really appeared without any conscious help from me. Amazing what the body can do when forced to. I love those damned pecs. They’re seriously multi-purpose. They also keep my sagging middle-aged breasts a bit less saggy than they would if left to their own devices.)

So I’m coughing again. Instead of cracking ribs, these coughs mostly throw my back out of joint. The clavicles are a nice easy target that my coughs toy with regularly. I also get lumps on my back just about anywhere you slice it, and I point them out to Rachel, my very fine masseuse, as if she’d miss them on her own. Oy.

Today, I had finished stretching my neck when I was overcome with Coughs From Hell. Those are the ones that fail to move much of anything, go on for what feels like an eternity, and make it impossible for me to catch my breath. Oh shit. I can’t catch my breath. I panic, because besides making me a fine set of pecs, my body panics all on it’s own with no help from me. During a tiny respite, I take my four o’clock pills twenty minutes early, because that batch contains a Klonopin. I thought that was clever of me to do that, don’t you? Too late, I was already in the thick of it.

The best cough suppressant is oxycodone. I swear. If I hadn’t quit Brownies I’d make a Brownies promise to you all. Just when I thought I had this one figured out, no more oxy, the insidious drug calls out, “Wait for me!” (“ Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.”) I have to wait and see. If this fucking cough is what I have to look forward to all winter, it’ll be…long time no see, Mr. Codone!

Marijuana Toast

As promised, today was psychopharmacologist day. Given that oxycodone, if it hasn’t rid me of pain (the stuff dulls it down some), has given me a life back, the rest of my drugs will remain as is. What’s really funny is that I had no life to begin with. I guess the good news is that I’m out of the minus column. (You know, I’m afraid I’m really going to regret saying that.)

I didn’t want to fuck with what works. I’m way too close to suicidal to be stupid and try and wean myself off some of this crap now. (And there’s a lot of it.) No, sweethearts, I’m not feeling the least bit suicidal and haven’t since I emotionally recovered from my recent upper respiratory infection. (Put me face to face with death, why suffer longer than you have to blah, blah, blah?) Also, going into the winter is a bad time for me to screw around with mood-altering drugs because, if you all remember I suffer from S.A.D- Seasonal Affective Disorder along with Anxiety, Depression and PTSD. (Knowing that I suffered most of my life from S.A.D. explains so much the crud of my painful adolescence. I understand behavior that otherwise remained inexplicable to me. I feel like I should always have slapped on my person huge gummy red letters, “How ‘bout that!” Not quite To Sir With Love, but that’s as close as I’m ever going to get.) Now, I just sit in front of a light box, and I remain stable. I sure wish I had it back then. (The light box. But come to think of it, the huge gummy letters would have been cool.)

Oh, why huge gummy, red letters?

I don’t know. They just popped up into my head. They feel right. Let’s try and explicate them, shall we? There’s no Bocarde around to tell me my stream of consciousness is all wrong. Which it may very well be. But I’m sorry Mr. Bocarde, you can’t make that determination. Well, you can, but who would listen? Certainly not I. What’s even lovelier (than those big, fat sticky letters) is that I don’t give a shit. And odd man that he is (was? I hope not), he’d probably like that. I think he would also enjoy like this foul blog. (“Foul” was one of my darling Suzanne’s favorite words.) Bocarde loved Suzanne.

How could he not? She ripped apart everything he had us read. Those precious works he found so important and special that he wished to share them with us. He always gave her an A+ because she shred every single point he made about any of these beloved works- like Portrait of an Artist…one rip at a time.

He ate that shit up. Bizarre as you were, you, sir, you were one of the only interesting teachers in the whole goddamned school system. But let’s not speak of such things now.

Huge, gummy red letters. Ahh! They’re so perfectly clumsy, awkward, bizarre, and impossible to miss. The adolescent me knew only a few who what went on in my fevered, little brain. (Sorry to say, it’s not all that different from the crap you’ve been reading. Except I confess my tough-guy countenance is pure fantasy. Well not exactly. I hang my head in shame. I’m actually a very sweet person. No one would ever think so from reading this damned blog, but I confess. It’s kind of true. But no matter. This time, I’d be noticed all right. I think that’s kind of cool. Hey, it’s a helluva lot better than a zit the size of Mount Vesuvius. Oh, I’d sure wear my letters with pride. Yo, I don’t consider this humiliating. I find it liberating. My scarlet letters. You know, that is kind of sweet. Warped perhaps, but sweet.

Back to teachers in the Port Washington Union Free School District. One day Mrs. El Kadi who, for those who didn’t have the pleasure of her acquaintance, was a mad woman. Flat-out bonkers. One class she announces, “Don’t you find it interesting that the smartest person in the room has the smallest forehead?” I slump in my seat. Shit. The class is looking around. Obviously, they can’t discern forehead size like Mrs. El Kadi. Finally, she breaks the suspense and points to the back of the room. At me. No one in the room gives a shit. But I’m mortified. What was this woman thinking? Who said she was qualified to teach anyone anything ever? Good old Port giving the enfeebled or just plain mad a chance to live a normal life.

Back to me and the present. After the visit with the psychopharmalocogist, Chip made an appointment at my behest with the Heebie Jeebie Lady chiropractor. Oh how soon they forget! My goilfriend the doctor recommended her because she was “a good practitioner” and right in the neighborhood. My beloved chiropractor is in Washington Heights. Among weekly visits from Tamar, the best P.T. on the planet, Rachel, the fine masseuse, and Kristen my angel, my therapist who comes twice a week, I’m physically unable to make the trip up to Washington Heights to Laurie, my darling chiropractor. (It ends up about an hour each way.) I do miss her terribly.

Besides the screwed up back (which I actually think is responding to all the attention paid to it), my head and neck decided to get in on the fun and flip out too. Sons-of-bitches. Here’s where the Heebie Jeebie Lady comes in. Since she stopped coloring her hair, she doesn’t give me those same heebie-jeebies she had years ago when first saw her. I knew I needed to see a chiropractor and fast. I really was desperate. ) With each passing moment, it became more and more difficult to turn my head left or right. (Besides being rather restricting, it was painful as all bloody hell.) C’mon, don’t I already have enough on my “plate” to contend with? It doesn’t work that way, does it?

But as she was on all my past visits, she is a fine practitioner. She’s good too. I have a head and neck back. You really don’t know how much you’d miss them if they flat-out went cuckoo on you. Not crazy. Loony tunes I know intimately. No, that they just don’t work. (I can’t even imagine what stroke patients go though.) Let’s just say you miss them an awful lot. Now, they’re behaving themselves, and I know have a chiropractor in the hood if I need her again. I think she has a new name. From now on, she’s “The Good Practitioner.”

Flattery will get you everywhere, even when you’re dealing with lumps of flesh. Oh they know. Yes they do. They just remain impassive as always. Slowly, but surely, they poke up their little invisible antennae and if you coo just right, they’ll cut you a break and stop leaving you in agony. It’s a subtle cross between love and diplomacy. Difficult. But left in the right hands, they’ll- the lumps of horrifically painful flesh - eventually cut you a break. And the oxycodone sure doesn’t hurt.

Even if it may be making me queasy. (Damnit!) Hello marijuana toast! (A most beautiful and often necessary invention.)