Medicine

Medicine is a given when healing. You use it to manage the pain. To work past the pain so that you can progress. The ability to think and process past the pain helps to shorten recovery time, until you then find yourself having to recover from the medicine itself.

 

I have mulled over and revisited this post many times. I feel strongly it has to be said, but it leaves me feeling very vulnerable. Only my closest family knows what I went through.

I wanted to kill myself using my oxycodone.

There was a day when it would have been so easy to go to sleep and not wake up. The pain is unbearable some days. There are times it is so hard to feel of God's love. To believe that with the enormity of loss experienced that there is good coming. That there is a future.

That feeling of wanting to cease to exist had nothing to do with my family, my faith, or even myself. I just wanted it to be over. I was tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of hurting. Tired of grieving. The pills were there, enough for six per day, as needed. Refills available upon request.

Let me lay some ground work.

The surgery was intense. I stayed pretty heavily medicated in the hospital because the distress of the body can affect your brain function. I was on a minimum of two different pain killers. Taken at different times on different schedules. We had nicknames for my meds; "Flexi" and "Roxi". Innocuous. Simple. Safe sounding.

I don't like taking medication and have a high pain tolerance in most cases. Because of concerns for my brain function and healing potential, I didn't miss a dosage. I was sent home with a bottle of control pain killers. I took anywhere from four to six per day. One by my bedside to help me get up and function. One before riding in the car to cope with the visual stimulus. One to get up from my nap. One to go to sleep at night.

I met with my primary doctor after a few weeks and he was very concerned with my dosage. We worked to try to lessen the hold it had taken. I was taking a pain pill before every event to function at the most basic levels. One day it got to be too much.

I didn't do it. I don't know what stopped me, but I am grateful something did. In meeting with my doctor, he expressed fears that if this dosage continued I would complete recovery, only to find I had developed a strong addiction to Oxycodone. We planned that I could have three a day, then two, then one just to help me sleep at night.

The day I wanted to overdose was in the middle of trying to cut back. I was down to one or two per day. The emotional pain welled up and I was drowning. I saw it, that safe little bottle. Sitting so small on my counter top. I could take one and slow the pain so I could rest. Or I could take it all and stop hurting completely. So completely, I could just go to sleep and not wake up.

I still don't know what stopped me. I wish I could say I had some great revelation, I didn't. I just didn't do it. And I made an appointment to talk to my doctor. He was the first person I told. On his instruction the next person was my care taker, then my spouse.

That was humbling.

I had to face my strongest support and admit that I felt so weak. So vulnerable. So hopeless. The response was love. I could say that made it all better, it didn't, but it helped. Better came with time. Time I would not have had if I had given into the impulse to no longer feel.

I never took another dose of Oxycodone. I kept it on the counter to remember that pain changes like everything else. Taking away that opportunity never allows things to get better. Two weeks later I remarked to my husband that I really should get rid of it, I didn't want it in the house. He smiled and admitted he had emptied the bottle the day I told him about my struggle. He didn't want to risk us losing out on time together because of a bad day.

God is good. He is there is the quiet corners when we feel alone. He will surround us with the ones we need to face our demons and move past what is now, with hope for what can be.