Chunder road

So, it's 5 a.m. and I stumble downstairs; I'm not in too much pain and I've been sleeping since midnight, which is great after two disheartening nights of pacing the floor. Still, I can tell the pain will grow and I'd like to sleep some more, and I haven't taken any pain meds all night. Yesterday I called the pain specialist and told him that not only is the new pill regime not working, but I feel nauseated, weak and generally yucky; he suggested going back to the Tylenol 3s (thereby upping my Tylenol intake again) and trying to keep tolerating the Elavil. The long-actor is to be taken every 8 hours -- I've chosen 7 a.m., 3 p.m. and 11 p.m. The original dose of Tylenol Extra Strength was every six hours, which was a little inconvenient, and the pure codeine was a top-up that could be taken within an hour of taking the long-actor. No matter what, I have to get up in the night to take something. Now, going back to the T3s, at every four to six hours, it takes some clever calculations to figure out how to make sure I don't take two T3s at the same time as the long-acting codeine. Confused? Try thinking about it in the middle of the night when you're on Elavil.

I've been careful to place the right pill bottles on top of the microwave and to put the wrong ones away, but in my stupor I take the long-acting codeine instead of the short, recording it incorrectly on my refrigerator chart, and then when I get up again at 7, I take 2 Tylenol 3s with codeine. At 7:30, after walking from the basement to my upstairs bedroom, I am so woozy I have to lie down. I get on the streetcar at 8 a.m. to go to Princess Margaret Hospital for my radiation treatment, and I feel a little hot and claustrophobic. When I get up to leave the car, I begin to sense I'm going to pass out; I manage to get across the street and have to sit down on one of the raised flowerbeds on the median in the middle of University Avenue. With my head between my knees, I throw up the smoothie I had for breakfast.

A nice man walks me to the hospital and I have my treatment, but after some more breakfast with a friend in the hospital Druxy's, I go back and see a nurse, who finds my vitals are OK and agrees that I've probably just OD'ed on codeine and that I'm taking so many strange drugs, my body is not faring really well. I've had a similar reaction to codeine a couple of times in the past (once when I took codeine pills for a hangover headache and probably still had quite a bit of alcohol in my liver).

But I've had two good evenings in a row, relatively pain-free, and a pretty good night, so I hope I'll have more of those.

The beautiful weather continues!