This trend proceeded every 5-30 minutes until 12 o’clock this afternoon. By the third time, I didn’t have anything in my stomach, so it was just wrenching pain, egg-yolk like bile, and blood for the remainder of the night/morning. I think McDonald’s gave me food poisoning. I highly doubt Methadone withdrawal is going to start over a week after I stopped taking them…

I didn’t sleep at all. I finally dozed off around 1 until 2:30ish, but I woke up with my whole body in spasms and the worst indigestion I’ve ever had in my life. I was supposed to take a shower and get ready to go to the store and the bar with Lover tonight, but I lied back town for two hours instead. I can’t stand up long enough to take a shower, honestly. I feel so gross.

Thankfully Lover is super understanding. He keeps asking how I’m doing and said that after we go to the store, he’d rather just come back and cook me dinner. I told him I wasn’t ready for food yet, and he said we’ll just come back here and figure out what we want to do for the rest of the night instead. I asked if he was going to be upset with me for ruining plans, to which he replied, “Oh, please.” Heh.

So I made my way into some of my ‘fat jeans’ (they’re most comfy) and a big t-shirt, and I threw my hair up in a hairband. Now I’m just waiting for Lover to get here so we can run to the store, even though I really don’t feel like it. I have to, though. Romeo is out of food and kitty litter. I don’t know if we’ll end up doing anything afterward – I’m kind of torn whether I want to or not. I can’t lie in bed and get comfortable with my whole body in spasms, but I feel like complete crap and don’t want to be out in public.

I stopped taking it, cold-turkey, on Saturday. I went to a Halloween party (pictures soon) and didn’t think it was a good idea to take Methadone and drink alcohol, so I didn’t take it for the whole day before I went, or the rest of the day after. When I got home on Sunday, I thought about taking it, but realized that I’d gone a whole day without it and figured I’d test myself and see how long I could go.

It’s Tuesday, and I still haven’t taken any. (Woo!) I’m still in quite a lot of pain, but it makes me feel good that I don’t have to run to my mom and ask for this horrible drug to deal with it anymore. I’ve been waiting for this day to come for a couple of months and I’m super stoked that it’s here. I think this is finally it for my opiate addiction. I have high hopes that I can stop taking them completely and still be able to deal with the severe pain I go through daily.

I have to say, marijuana is a great help. I don’t think I’d be able to get through this without it. It’s helped to keep my brain leveled out so I’m not super anxious. It’s calmed me down and kept me from going crazy a couple times already, and I can only imagine how it’s going to be over the next few days.

I’m feeling pretty shitty. I didn’t want to move from my bed. I haven’t slept since Thursday, I think, and it’s all I want to do right now. I tried going to sleep from 10pm to 3pm on Sunday, and around 11 til 2 today, if memory serves me correctly. I’m feeling a little better today, but I still can’t eat anything – Every time I do, I get real nauseous. I feel like my chest is cramped and if I take a whole, deep breath in, my ribs are going to break out of my chest. My mind is running rapid – I can’t concentrate on a God damn thing. I’m shaking like a leaf in the wind and I can’t figure out what to do with myself.

It’s almost 9 o’clock and I was finally able to choke down a bowl of cereal. I think I’m going to go take a shower and try to wash some of these Funk Vibes away. After that, I think I’ve got a date with The Lost Symbol and Dispatch for the rest of the night. Some sleep would be nice, too.

This teacher used to be a major guitar player in a pretty well-known band. They went on tour and everything, but he decided to quit touring to teach. I think that’s incredible, and he’s always been someone I looked up to since High School, even though I didn’t actually have him as a teacher.

Since they seem to have been so well accepted, I wanted to share them with you guys, too. Their called ‘The Middle Crowd’ – I don’t know any of the members names except my cousin, Justin, who plays drums (and is basically the only other one shown in the videos other than the singer). They played two songs; the videos are behind the cut…

I was actually surprised by what I heard. I had a horrible feeling that they were going to be one of those tween screamo or death metal “bands”, but I was wrong. Their singer, like my aunt warned, does kind of suck, but the rest of the band did fantastically and I actually like their sound. My music taste has mellowed out a lot over the last couple of years – It’s not really something that I would usually find myself listening to anymore – But I have to say, and not just because my cousin is the drummer, if I had a CD filled with their music, I would definitely find myself listening to it quite often.

I started looking around for something to mix my Bacardi Dragon Berry rum with, when I realized that I’ve been sipping on a V8 Wild Berry Smoothie for the last few days. I thought it would be a good idea to make a real smoothie out of it, and what could be better than a smoothie? An alcoholic smoothie!

I looked around my kitchen for possible ingredients, and here’s what I came up with:

8oz Bacardi Dragon Berry Rum

16oz V8 Wild Berry Smoothie (or more, to taste)

4 scoops Friendly’s Strawberry Banana Creme Ice cream

A bunch of ice cubes

I mixed everything in the blender and turned it on for about 30 seconds and it made about 6 drinks. My blender doesn’t have any settings, but if yours does I’d probably put it on a lower setting to make it thicker.

I thought it would be pretty good, but it’s absolutely delicious. I feel like a Smoothie Genius!

Saturday morning, I was woken up by him making the most horrible noise I’ve ever heard come out of a human before. He wasn’t breathing correctly – It sounded as if he was snoring in really quickly and loudly, and then half-growling/half-choking the air out. Once every 20-30 seconds. I tried nudging him and calling his name to wake him up and make him lay the right way, but he didn’t respond. I started shaking him harder and speaking louder, until I was straddling him and screaming his name. Nothing. I hauled off and slapped him as hard as I could, thinking that would definitely wake him up. He still just laid there making that awful sound.

I froze. I had no idea what to do. The only thing I could think of was to call Ben – He would definitely know what to do. He heard the sound he was making and could tell that he wasn’t breathing correctly. We both had the same thought at first, and he instructed me to find a certain kind of medicine and try giving it to him to see if that brought him out of it. I did as he told me and Ben called me back a half hour later to see if there was any progress. I was still trying to wake him up, and by this time my mother was in here screaming for him too.

Ben told me to call 911 at this point, noting that after not breathing correctly for so long, he could very likely have brain damage. I hung up with him and called 911, explaining that my fiance isn’t breathing correctly and is completely unresponsive. She kept asking if he was breathing at all, and I kept trying to explain what it is that he was doing. Finally the firemen got here, and the rest is kind of a blur.

They wouldn’t let me in the bedroom. I saw them pick him up out of the bed and him open his eyes before they kicked me out, so I knew at least that he was still alive. The EMT’s got there shortly after, along with the police, and everyone started asking me questions. I just kept asking if he was okay and if I could go with him to the hospital.

Once we got to the Emergency Room, he was awake but just barely. Very confused. He asked me what was going on about sixteen times over the weekend, and I’m still not sure he completely knows what went on. They came and did a chest X-Ray and A LOT of blood tests. They eventually concluded that he had Aspirated Pneumonia. In other words, when he eats, all of the food and liquid isn’t going down to his stomach; some of it is going down to his lungs and causing infection. They said that he probably coughed some of it up during the night and was choking on it, and if I had waited any longer to get him to the hospital, he probably wouldn’t have made it.

I called his grandmother and, as requested, told her that he simply had an anxiety attack and would call her back with any other news. She insisted on coming down to the hospital, and called his father who showed up soon after. I was glad to see his father, cause he’s the only person I could really tell what happened. Everyone decided that it’d be a good idea to call his mother, too… So she showed up a while later. Gramma left around 5 o’clock.

They had started him on antibiotics and fluids right away and decided to admit him to the Intensive Care Unit several hours later. His mother and father and I stayed until he got settled in his room, and at 7 o’clock when they kicked us out. They said we could come back at 8, and JJ asked if I’d come back and stay with him for the night.

I came home and ate a quick dinner, then went right back up to the hospital to stay as long as they would allow me to. I put my head down next to his and we both fell asleep for a while until they ended up kicking me out at 10, stating something about the ICU rules and patient-doctor privileges. I didn’t get it.

I went back to the hospital the next day at 11, finding out he had been moved to the Progressive Care Unit, which was good news. He seemed a lot better, but he was still pretty confused. His mother and father were there when I first arrived, but left a little while later. Visiting hours ended at 2, but started again at 4.

When I got back at 4, he asked me to run down to the cafeteria because he was hungry. On my way back up to his room, Gramma was getting her guest pass. She followed me up to his room and stayed until 5:45. That’s all I’ll say about that. I got kicked out at 6, but was allowed back at 8.

I went back and as the shift was changing, the new nurse came into the room asking what he was still doing there. He said he was wondering the same thing, as they had come in and taken his IV out but didn’t tell him anything else. She said that the doctor had ordered him to be released after having a chest X-ray, but he doesn’t remember seeing a doctor at all. She went to get his file to prove it, and ordered a chest X-ray at around 9 o’clock. They came to get him a little while later, and he was released at 10.

JJ decided that since Tommy was probably already downstairs waiting for me, and he lives about 20 minutes away, he would come back to my house and go to bed for the night, and call his grandmother in the morning. I set the alarm for 9am. He, of course, didn’t wake up. I was rudely awaken by The Crackhead around 10, saying that JJ’s grandmother and mother were downstairs and they wanted to take JJ home.

I’ve talked to him a few times since, and he’s sounding better and better every time. He was able to leave the house to run errands today, but wasn’t allowed to come over here. Hopefully I’ll be able to see him tomorrow; I’d like to see for myself how he’s doing, instead of hearing words over the telephone. I’m so glad that he’s okay, though. I really thought that I was going to lose him for a while, there, and I don’t know what I would do if that had happened.

That boy is my world, the reason I exist. I can’t imagine my life without him. I always tell him that we’re not allowed to die until we’ve been married for at least 80 years, and that dream was almost taken away. I’m so grateful that I was there to call the ambulance and get him to the hospital in time, cause I know if he had been anywhere else, the situation probably wouldn’t have gotten the attention it needed. More than anything, I’m grateful that he’s still here and that we still have our chance to be married for 80 years and grow old and crusty together.

I love you so much, JJ. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.

Let’s start with Vibes: I went to a festival in Bridgeport, CT called Gathering of the Vibes from July 23-26 and had a bittersweet time. Everything that could have gone wrong, did: It rained for three of the four days. Our car almost got flooded out. We had to sleep in the car, instead of the tent, all weekend. I was walking around on a broken ankle for the entire weekend. I was puking my brains out the entire night before we left, and one whole day while we were there. My fiancé’s money and cell phone got stolen. We bought fake drugs. And the worst part – We woke up Sunday to a coroner’s van outside our window. Someone was murdered not too far from our tent.

I began my return to normal life on the 27th, when I returned to work and all that fun stuff, but on August 8th, all hell broke loose.

I woke up with a horrible pain in the lower right side of my stomach. It was the most horrible pain I’ve ever felt in my life. I got up to go to the bathroom and only made it as far as the kitchen table before passing out and falling to the floor. I was screaming in pain but refusing to go to the hospital because I have no insurance and can’t afford to pay medical bills on my income. I decided to just go back to bed, and hope that the pain would get better.

When I lied down in bed, I couldn’t lie still, but every position I moved into hurt worse than the last. Finally after 15 minutes of screaming, I asked Crackhead to call the ambulance.

That was a whole fiasco on it’s own: They tried to put me in a stair chair but it hurt too bad to sit up straight, so I ended up having to walk all the way out of my apartment, down the stairs, and climb into the stretcher. Once in the stretcher, they tried getting me into the ambulance but it wouldn’t latch, so they were bashing me against the walls, making the pain a million times worse.

As soon as I got into the ER, they started me on pain killers and antibiotics to fight the poisons that my appendix was leaking into my body, and five hours from the time I got there, I was having emergency surgery to have my appendix taken out. The doctor said that when I passed out, that was the point that my appendix exploded and if I had waited any longer to get to the hospital, I likely would have died.

I’ve been out of commission ever since. There were 11 stitches holding three incisions in my stomach together. It was super disgusting. The doctor put me on strict bed rest, and I was unable to sit up straight, so I have lost touch with the Internet world completely. I just got my staples out on Tuesday, and I’m just getting back into the Internet scene.

Much to my amazement, my grandmother actually left me a small amount of money in her will. My father called to let me know today. When he receives the rest of the papers, we all have to go sign them and get them notarized, then send them back in. Once they receive them, the money should be distributed accordingly.

The way that my grandmother divided everything is completely unfair: Some people got $1,000; some got $500; some got absolutely nothing, and one got everything that was left. I think if she was going to give something to one of her children, she should have given the same to the others; if she gave something to one grandchild, she should have given the same to all of them. I can’t control it, though. She was never a pleasant or fair woman.

I’m one of the ones lucky enough to receive something. As soon as my father told me, I knew exactly what I was going to do with it. If I were ’smart’, I’d put it in the bank and let it accrue interest. If we weren’t planning on moving in the not-too-distant future, I’d buy things to make my room feel like a real bedroom.

Instead, I’m being responsible and buying a new laptop to use for work. :buckteeth: I’ve been dying for a new laptop since mine died, and I really need one for the work that I do. Not to mention my mother has been harping on me since I started working to get my own computer. :rolleyes:

I think it’s a responsible decision because:
a) My mother doesn’t want me using her computer to do work because it’s going to “wear the computer out,”
b) The computer I’m using is not at all conducive to my work, and
c) I need a computer of my own: I have clients’ information that needs to be kept private and I can’t chance anyone else getting a hold of it.

I loved my old laptop more than any computer I’ve ever had, so I’m going with Dell again. They may not be the best quality computers on the market, or the best choice for my line of work, but they’re cheap and highly customizable and the way that I’ve set mine up will be pretty damn perfect. :yay:

It’s a “Promise Pink” [2] Dell Studio 15 Notebook. It’s got a 15.6″ HD Display with TrueLife and a camera. It comes with Windows Vista Business Edition SP1, and an available downgrade to Windows XP Professional SP3. (I like XP better. Vista is a pain in the booty. :hehe: It’s got an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor (2.1GHz) and 3GB RAM. The video card is a 512MB ATI Radeon HD and the hard drive is 250GB. It’s got a CD/DVD+RW drive and HD audio. I also got a combination laptop lock for extra security and a Belkin cooling stand to prevent this one from overheating like the last.

 
All together, it comes to $1,049, but with taxes it’s $1,134.23. I need to wait for the checks to be dispersed, obviously, and I have to raise an extra $135 before I can actually place the order, but once I’m able to get back to my regular schedule and start working again, I’ll be sure to work my ass off so that I can have my sweet pink baby in my hands in no time. I’m so stoked! :boogie:

This ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would be. I was going to write a separate post about the Hell I went through last Saturday but I think that’s going to have to wait until I’m feeling frisky enough to sit at the computer for a while again. It hurts a lot to do so.

Footnotes:
1.  My appendix burst last Saturday (8/8) and I had to have emergency surgery to have it removed. The doctor gave me strict orders to stay. in. bed. for 10-14 days. Boo! ↑
2.  Dell will donate $5 to a Breast Cancer charity with every purchase of a “Promise Pink” colored computer.↑

So, I got through Day 12 without the help of Suboxone, and I was super proud of myself. Yesterday would’ve been Day 13 – Today would’ve been 14 – had I not taken something to ease the pain in my face. I went as long as I could without it, but I couldn’t take it anymore. The good part: It wasn’t Methadone. The bad part: It was still an opiate. So I guess I cheated. Or relapsed. Or something.

I really don’t think it’s fair that it’s considered fucking up when I genuinely need the medication. I had an anxiety attack before I took it because I felt like I was cheating or doing something wrong. Now I don’t even want to go to the dentist to get the tooth pulled, cause they’ll give me medication afterward that I’ll feel too guilty to take.

This shit sucks. What the hell am I supposed to do?

I haven’t taken any Methadone in 10 days. Today is Day 11. I ran out of the other pain killers I was given a few days ago, so I’m on day 3 or 4 of no pain killers at all. I’m still in terrible pain and the withdrawals are terrible – I’ve been crawling out of my skin, horrible migraine, chills and hot flashes and sweating and puking and everything horrible.

I spent a couple days in bed before Lover was finally able to find me Suboxone, and I’ve been taking that for the last couple days. I feel a lot better – It’s like a breath of fresh air; It’s the only thing that’s been able to keep me going over the past few days. My brain is a lot clearer, I feel less zombie-like, and I’ve been super into creating things.

I started a new painting yesterday that I’m going to give Lover for his birthday — It’s a Super Mario Brothers theme, and so far it’s really freaking cool. I can’t wait to finish it. It’s perfect timing; Everyone says these withdrawals are going to take about two weeks, and I have like, 8 days left to finish the painting.

Hopefully by the time it’s finished, I’ll be done with withdrawals and my ankle will be healed enough to be able to tolerate the pain better — Or maybe it’ll even be gone! (Yea right). Not having anything for the pain is awful. I don’t know what to do anymore.

I fell while hiking and, as a result, fractured my ankle and tore the ligament away from the bone. (read: avulsion fracture) The medicine the doctor prescribed me (Percocet, which might as well be Pez) didn’t work because I have a history of chronic pain and have built up a tremendous tolerance to most medications. I tried explaining this to him, but he automatically assumed that I’m a drug addict and was just searching for my next high. Because of this, I went without any relief from the pain. After a few days, I couldn’t take it any longer. I wanted to put a bullet in my brain.

The Annoyance has been taking Methadone for several years due to back problems, and for some God awful reason, she felt it was a good idea to start giving me her Methadone for the pain. The medication barely takes the edge off, but even that is a God-send. Unfortunately, though, the medication is also horribly addictive and, after taking between 60 and 80 milligrams every day for the past two months, I have acquired both a tolerance and an addiction to it.

For the past two weeks or so, if I even went an extra hour before taking my next dose, I started going into withdrawal. I get super nauseous, a terrible migraine, very irritable. I go from hot to cold and back again in no-time-flat, but I sweat profusely no matter what my body temperature is.

I absolutely need to get off of this shit. I just need something to help make the pain manageable until it’s tolerable without having to take medicine at all, at which point I can start taking Suboxone to help curb the withdrawal the rest of the way.

I took my last dose of Methadone yesterday around 10am. Although everyone tells me that I should be weaning myself off of it, I don’t want it in my body anymore and am trying to just get off it ‘Cold Turkey‘.

The migraine started around 5 o’clock yesterday evening, and by 7pm I wanted to die. Someone gave me different pain medication (Oxycontin and Roxicodone) in an effort to help get me off the Methadone, and I took my first dose of Oxycontin at around 10:30. I wasn’t able to fall asleep until around 4am, and I woke back up at 6:30 with a migraine from hell.

I went as long as I could today without taking anything. At 1pm, I couldn’t take it anymore. I gave in and took half of an Oxycontin. I waited until 3:30 and still didn’t feel any better, so I took the other half. I still felt like dying at 6:30, so I took half of a Roxicodone and a Klonopin. It’s now 9:03 and I still have the migraine from hell. I’m still going from hot to cold and back again, and I’m still sweating like a prostitute in church. I’m over-sensitive. Everything anyone has said to me today has made me feel 2 inches tall and I can’t help but burst into tears. I’m about to take the other half of the Roxicodone.

I haven’t been able to eat anything at all today. I’ve been trying to drink as much as possible, but even that is a chore. I’ve mostly stayed in bed all day, trying to sleep through it as much as I can.

I hope that reading this, you don’t think that I’m just a junkie. That’s not it at all! I’m trying to get off of an evil drug and, unfortunately, have to use something different in the meantime to manage pain. Even with these different medications, I’m still going through awful withdrawal, which is both scary and confusing. (I’m withdrawing from opiates – I thought taking different opiates would take place of the Methadone and lessen the withdrawal symptoms, but apparently I was wrong.)

It’s important to me to write down what I’m going through because I know that I’m not the only person in the world with an opiate addiction, nor the only one going through withdrawal, but I also know that when it’s happening, you can’t help but feel like you are the only one in the world going through it. I need to document my experience (the good, the bad, and the ugly) for all those who are too embarrassed or ashamed to admit that they have a problem or are too afraid to ask for help. I know that it’s going to be hard; probably one of the hardest things I (or you) have ever had to endure, but it’s going to be so worth it in the end.

For anyone else going through this with me, I want you to know that I’m right here with you. I know you can do it – I know you will do it, if you really set your mind to it. If you need some support along the way, I will always be here. It’s not easy to go through alone, and I don’t want you to ever feel that you have to. You are more than welcome to send me an email or an IM any time you need to.