"He's not always like this," I reminded myself.
I'm constantly reminding myself, when I feel my own frustration & discouragement rising.
The car was heavy with his all-to-familiar silent rage - percolating precariously close to the surface.
"Just a few more hours," I thought. "Just a few more hours & he'll have his refill.
I thought about this blog, and the posts that I found while scanning through the unpublished content this morning. Did he REALLY tell me to "Get the fuck out" during our first couple years? Did that really happen? It shocked me to read. God, so sad. I was so vulnerable. And it was so, so scary. I knew no one, had no where TO go to, and no money (around 5 bucks maybe, after spending my last 50 on the "gypsy cab" (which I'd never heard of) to his apartment - it should have cost more, but, the cabbie hugged me, asked me to dinner, and pushed to find other ways to "work it out". I was dazed, and so not in Hawaii anymore.
That was back when his temper was unchecked, and his emotional control at it's worst. I remember the time, so early on, (was it the first month?) that he lost his shit so completely, that he stopped the car and ordered me to get out. Indignant, I obliged. How dare he? I'd rather wander around lost & alone, for hours in the blazing New York Summer sun, wondering where I was, then get back in that car with a rage beast. I'd been through too much, and come too far in my life to go through that kind-of shit again. Never again! So, get the fuck out, I did. And had no idea what to do next. It was pre-GPS, and I didn't know where I was. Not even the name of the town. Do I find a police station and ask for help? Go inside this Target, and ask a customer service to find me a shelter? Or find a quiet corner to hide and sleep overnight? I don't think I even had a phone.
We've come so far since then. I'd say these days, we're pretty much equals, and the relationship & our personal development has evolved. But, it's been a long road, and still, I silently ponder, how much have I sugar-coated my perception of our relationship? Has this been denial, and if so, how deep and far reaching does that denial go?
The doctor wanted to know why there was only fentanyl in his system, and no dilaudid. After taking urine tests the past few visits, D was armed and ready. He expected this question, and told the doctor the truth. The pain is too bad, and he runs out of his pills too soon. By the end of the month he only has the pain patch. (Thus the excruciating ER visit last week, when he forgot to change his pain patch, and went into withdrawal. I called the ambulance while he rocked, and moaned in pain, and whimpered out like a wounded dying animal). There wasn't room behind curtains, so his cot was in the middle of the room pushed against the nurses desks. I while stroked his arm, and tried to fix his long, matted, greasy hair while struggling to not to burst out into tears. I didn't want them to judge or mistreat him. After staring at the huge digital clock on above the nurses heads for 20 excruciating minutes while he moaned, I thought I would explode with grief, and finally found a nurse that was willing to make eye contact with me.
"Excuse me. Do you know how long until he can see the doctor? Can't you just give him something? Please! He is in distress!"
"Just a few minutes, we have to wait for the doctor."
32 minutes later the the doctor finally showed up and brought him some relief in the form of oxycone & valium. His eyelids lowered, and he drifted into a brief and rare moment of peace. She was a person of color, which was an added relief. Less possibility of being branded & stereotyped & mistreated. More possibility of some humanity and care. Then KATG went live, which brought ME some relief. I typed feedback from his bed in the middle of the ER, by the nurses station that yes, doctors are crazy & the system is fucked. The synchronicity was awesome & wild & needed & made an awful moment better and bearable.
But his pain doctor, this man who D feels is his only true advocate, understood D's dilemma, "You must have developed a resistance to it." And switched D's oral pain prescription back to the oxycodone. We headed to the neighborhood pharmacist where I waited in the car and compulsively scanned social media, tried to take pictures of my incision to see how it looks, and tried to ignore my weird, jittery fatigue & nervousness.
A text popped up "HE'S REFUSING TO FILL MY PRESCRIPTION."
"What? Why!"
"After 21 years of being my pharmacist, he's refusing to fill it because he says the dose is too high. He says he doesn't like my doctor."
"Omg! Ok. Don't worry. Don't argue. Just come outside, we'll go to CVS. It's ok. Don't worry." I texted back.
"Ok"
He stepped out of the heat and filled me in.... "What right does he have? It's a legal prescription." "What basis does he have not to like my doctor, is it because of his name?" (African) "He's making these judgement calls, and talking about it all in front of of all these people!" "I've been taking pain meds for a decade!"
I know this drill. It's the persecution of addiction. The never-ending cycle of condemnation and relief. The merciful and evil hand of medication. The relentless, harrowing life of pain.
The pharmacist suggested a different doctor, and gave him a name of of a man at the hospital a mile away. D was enraged. He called his doctor, "Tiwana, the pharmacist refused to fill my prescription. What can I do?" And she found him an alternate pharmacy that would agree to fill it, 30 minutes away, and we raced there before they closed at 7.
He got his pills.
He was irritated by the route I took home, and snapped at me. Driving makes him nauseous. "Why would the GPS take us this way?!" (Another reason why he won't go anywhere. Other than the pain doctor.) He won't even visit his elderly Grandma anymore, whom he loves more than life itself, because she's 45 minutes a way, and more often than not, we'd have to pull over on the highway so he could vomit. Awful.
"At least we get to see something new?" I offered, with probably too much enthusiasm.
"WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I WANT TO SEE SOMETHING NEW. I'VE LIVED HERE ALL MY LIFE. I'VE BEEN HERE A MILLION TIMES. I AM NAUSEOUS AND I WANT TO BE HOME."
The disgusted jab lingered. Not another word was said.
Until now. The other D is here. The talkative, happy D. Cheerful. Chatty D. The true D, I like to believe. The D I so rarely get to see. Telling me about the characters in the show he's watching. I try to be polite, but I don't know what he's talking about and I don't care. And also, I feel like a ball in a game of ping pong. I'm tired. And it's a lot to take in.
"Wow. You're so cheerful. Did you take the right amount of pills, or extra?"
"One extra," he smiled, sheepishly.
"Ah.... Ok... ....Do you want a Diet Coke?"
I'm constantly reminding myself, when I feel my own frustration & discouragement rising.
The car was heavy with his all-to-familiar silent rage - percolating precariously close to the surface.
"Just a few more hours," I thought. "Just a few more hours & he'll have his refill.
I thought about this blog, and the posts that I found while scanning through the unpublished content this morning. Did he REALLY tell me to "Get the fuck out" during our first couple years? Did that really happen? It shocked me to read. God, so sad. I was so vulnerable. And it was so, so scary. I knew no one, had no where TO go to, and no money (around 5 bucks maybe, after spending my last 50 on the "gypsy cab" (which I'd never heard of) to his apartment - it should have cost more, but, the cabbie hugged me, asked me to dinner, and pushed to find other ways to "work it out". I was dazed, and so not in Hawaii anymore.
That was back when his temper was unchecked, and his emotional control at it's worst. I remember the time, so early on, (was it the first month?) that he lost his shit so completely, that he stopped the car and ordered me to get out. Indignant, I obliged. How dare he? I'd rather wander around lost & alone, for hours in the blazing New York Summer sun, wondering where I was, then get back in that car with a rage beast. I'd been through too much, and come too far in my life to go through that kind-of shit again. Never again! So, get the fuck out, I did. And had no idea what to do next. It was pre-GPS, and I didn't know where I was. Not even the name of the town. Do I find a police station and ask for help? Go inside this Target, and ask a customer service to find me a shelter? Or find a quiet corner to hide and sleep overnight? I don't think I even had a phone.
We've come so far since then. I'd say these days, we're pretty much equals, and the relationship & our personal development has evolved. But, it's been a long road, and still, I silently ponder, how much have I sugar-coated my perception of our relationship? Has this been denial, and if so, how deep and far reaching does that denial go?
The doctor wanted to know why there was only fentanyl in his system, and no dilaudid. After taking urine tests the past few visits, D was armed and ready. He expected this question, and told the doctor the truth. The pain is too bad, and he runs out of his pills too soon. By the end of the month he only has the pain patch. (Thus the excruciating ER visit last week, when he forgot to change his pain patch, and went into withdrawal. I called the ambulance while he rocked, and moaned in pain, and whimpered out like a wounded dying animal). There wasn't room behind curtains, so his cot was in the middle of the room pushed against the nurses desks. I while stroked his arm, and tried to fix his long, matted, greasy hair while struggling to not to burst out into tears. I didn't want them to judge or mistreat him. After staring at the huge digital clock on above the nurses heads for 20 excruciating minutes while he moaned, I thought I would explode with grief, and finally found a nurse that was willing to make eye contact with me.
"Excuse me. Do you know how long until he can see the doctor? Can't you just give him something? Please! He is in distress!"
"Just a few minutes, we have to wait for the doctor."
32 minutes later the the doctor finally showed up and brought him some relief in the form of oxycone & valium. His eyelids lowered, and he drifted into a brief and rare moment of peace. She was a person of color, which was an added relief. Less possibility of being branded & stereotyped & mistreated. More possibility of some humanity and care. Then KATG went live, which brought ME some relief. I typed feedback from his bed in the middle of the ER, by the nurses station that yes, doctors are crazy & the system is fucked. The synchronicity was awesome & wild & needed & made an awful moment better and bearable.
But his pain doctor, this man who D feels is his only true advocate, understood D's dilemma, "You must have developed a resistance to it." And switched D's oral pain prescription back to the oxycodone. We headed to the neighborhood pharmacist where I waited in the car and compulsively scanned social media, tried to take pictures of my incision to see how it looks, and tried to ignore my weird, jittery fatigue & nervousness.
A text popped up "HE'S REFUSING TO FILL MY PRESCRIPTION."
"What? Why!"
"After 21 years of being my pharmacist, he's refusing to fill it because he says the dose is too high. He says he doesn't like my doctor."
"Omg! Ok. Don't worry. Don't argue. Just come outside, we'll go to CVS. It's ok. Don't worry." I texted back.
"Ok"
He stepped out of the heat and filled me in.... "What right does he have? It's a legal prescription." "What basis does he have not to like my doctor, is it because of his name?" (African) "He's making these judgement calls, and talking about it all in front of of all these people!" "I've been taking pain meds for a decade!"
I know this drill. It's the persecution of addiction. The never-ending cycle of condemnation and relief. The merciful and evil hand of medication. The relentless, harrowing life of pain.
The pharmacist suggested a different doctor, and gave him a name of of a man at the hospital a mile away. D was enraged. He called his doctor, "Tiwana, the pharmacist refused to fill my prescription. What can I do?" And she found him an alternate pharmacy that would agree to fill it, 30 minutes away, and we raced there before they closed at 7.
He got his pills.
He was irritated by the route I took home, and snapped at me. Driving makes him nauseous. "Why would the GPS take us this way?!" (Another reason why he won't go anywhere. Other than the pain doctor.) He won't even visit his elderly Grandma anymore, whom he loves more than life itself, because she's 45 minutes a way, and more often than not, we'd have to pull over on the highway so he could vomit. Awful.
"At least we get to see something new?" I offered, with probably too much enthusiasm.
"WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I WANT TO SEE SOMETHING NEW. I'VE LIVED HERE ALL MY LIFE. I'VE BEEN HERE A MILLION TIMES. I AM NAUSEOUS AND I WANT TO BE HOME."
The disgusted jab lingered. Not another word was said.
Until now. The other D is here. The talkative, happy D. Cheerful. Chatty D. The true D, I like to believe. The D I so rarely get to see. Telling me about the characters in the show he's watching. I try to be polite, but I don't know what he's talking about and I don't care. And also, I feel like a ball in a game of ping pong. I'm tired. And it's a lot to take in.
"Wow. You're so cheerful. Did you take the right amount of pills, or extra?"
"One extra," he smiled, sheepishly.
"Ah.... Ok... ....Do you want a Diet Coke?"
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