On or about 12-13-05 05:21, WAYNE CHIRNSIDE did engage JAMES BRADLEY

 ->  WC> Was a narcotics addict at age 8 without knowing what narcotics were.

 -> YOWZA! OTC narcs. Snake oil - the lot of them? 

 ->  WC> Severe repiratory problems I was prescribed terpin hydrate
 WC>                                                   (correction^^^)

 ->  WC> But that was prescribed by a general practitioner long before the war
 ->  WC> on drugs and anyway I wasn't expected to live for much of ten years.
 ->  WC> Thought I was insane coming off all that crud when my health improved
 ->  WC> as no-one told me about addiction or withdrawal.

 -> I asked a nurse if there was a pamphlet. 

 WC> I hadn't a clue having been medicated from out of the incubator in 1955
 WC> and in 1963 it wasn't a common topic.

Don't worry. The info available to me was just as scarce. I know I was a
minority by todays standards, but even ADAC wouldn't administer an Aspirin to
address my pain. Some training program must have instilled a "All drug users
are medicating a mental pain." attitude, and far be it for anyone to have a
legitimate need for the crap. Either their intake worker just wanted to be an
A-hole, or they changed their policy to accommodate people in our situation
***now!***.

Something also told me that the medical "team" in charge of my
care, were more
interested in their own agenda than my health. When I told this to a shrink,
his best diagnosis was "Perhaps, mildly paranoid." Ahhh... YA!!!
I was hoping
for something a little more tangible quite frankly.


 ->  WC> Kicked it all cold at 15.

 -> We do more before Five am... {-|[

 WC> I was tough.

I tapered for about three years. Then, from over 200mg to Codeine in less than
thirty days. I threw out my last Dilaudids, and had a Surgeon write me two T-4
RX's. I only used one of those, but I did spend thirty days on the maximum
daily allotment of Acetaminophen, plus Aspirin every now and again. My ears
were ringing on multiple frequencies for that!

 ->  ->  WC> times last year for prescription drug overdoses!
 ->  ->  WC> The 12th time he went straight to the morgue.
 ->  WC> I tried to talk him into sanity, no-one home :-(

He must have had a medical need?

 ->  ->  WC> [...] ->  WC> found he'd died Dec. 25, 2004.

 WC> Yet this guy had no trouble at all getting endless narcotics!!!



May he R.I.P. just the same.

 WC> A relative was hooked.
 WC> I had access, granted illegal but declined to access them.
 WC> Still doing fairly well defying my previous experience of some
 WC> years.

Like I said above, I still have a full RX of T4s under the mess somewhere, and
my last few Dilaudid... Trying to recall, I haven't the foggiest what I did
with them.

My bottom line, is, I had narcotic pain relievers *in my hand* and chose not to
take them. I'm in tears everyday because of pain, and I guarantee it isn't
mental pain. I just know how deluded I was on the dilaudid, and "We won't get
fooled again." 

I have a neighbour that has *insisted* I take some of her husbands Percaset. I
have another neighbour who has offered often. A friends wife almost held me
down to force some meds down my throat.

 ->  WC> I'd take them with extreme discretion, like when grocery shopping.

Someone told me, that our constricted blood vessels from pain keeps our body
from healing itself. The next study will likely parlay how the recovery
procedure *needs* to be longer. :-/

 -> Again, I'm trying not to live in a glass house, but I'd rather approach it
 -> straight. But that's just me. Like you, I don't want to
 -> punch that IV button,
 -> for fear it starts punchin' back.

 WC> Having been hooked in my youth I don't believe I could be again.
 WC> I'm wise to the tipping point, you medicate to feel somewhat normal
 WC> ( not to feel GOOD) and don't increase the dose developing tolerance.

See, my first physician INSISTED they weren't addictive. I was stupid enough to
trust him. Today, I couldn't afford to take an elevating dose, and I know
enough to stop physical activities before I have a dyer need for relief. Nor
would I be as easily persuaded into a regime like I was. 

 WC> Right now the back's fair and the arthritis is controlled with over the
 WC> counter anti-inflammatories.

Oh... You said a dirty word. Anti-inflammatories are like a jab in the eye with
a pointy stick for me. ...Which, I actually did to myself this summer. 

With a paint-brush in hand, and a pail in the other, I twisted while standing
up. A Lilac tree branch was exactly in the wrong place for my eyeball, and I
broke the tip of the branch off between the lid and the ball.

Because I was thoroughly exhausted at the time, and the hip was distracting me
enough for me to do more serious damage to myself, it turned out to be a
blessing in disguise. That was the most 'relief' I had had in some years. 

 ->  WC> I'm practicing limiting my motion to limit the mind numbing pain.
 ->  WC> Doing fairly well just at the moment.

 -> That's all great, but I suppose you and I are creatures of motion, not
 -> creatures of rest.

 WC> That has had to change, dramatically so :-(

Our lot, is we got old fast. Maybe one day... I suspect you are a better
candidate for surgery than I am, where my current hopes seems to revolve around
deadening my whole leg to all nerve stimuli. 

Well, for the time, that seems to be my last resort. If I hadn't improved so
much this summer, that's what we would be considering. 

 WC> I used to thrive on working 66 hours a week more often than not
 WC> getting only five hours sleep a night.

We all used to be younger than we are right now, Wayne. 

 ->  WC> Perhaps some scar tissue has built up between my discs
 ->  WC> as the surgeon who did the discectomy suggested relieving some
 ->  WC> pressure on the nerves?
 ->  WC> Who knows, feels better anyway.

 -> Wow... Good for you! They didn't fuse you, then?

 WC> I begged the surgeon to, he refused citing a 5 percent morbidity rate.

That translates to a 95% survival. BRING IT ON!!! <-;

 WC> Back then I was having good days and hoped to arrest the injury there.
 WC> Unfortunately my funding source only had a pick of three approved
 WC> surgeons and the one I'd previously used and trusted wasn't on the list
 WC> :-(
 WC> I'd have taken the shot at a 1/3 morbidity rate at the time and told
 WC> the surgeon this at the time.
 WC> Back then I could have stood the time on the table, today I doubt
 WC> I'd last two hours at best.

I think you'd be asleep at the time. When anaesthetized, I think our smiles
alone could take us through quite a bit.

 WC> There's a drug they can detox you on while asleep for 24 hours
 WC> but it doesn't stop you from picking up the habit again if
 WC> you still desire the "buzz."
 WC> Jeff was of this type, no use.

Oh, why am I not surprised to hear about the lack of this drug in our doctors'
arsenal? Shoot... The ones I walked out on, had nothing but morphine on the
plater! Friggin IDIOTS! Smart people, but total ass-holes. (Forgive the
English?)

 WC> Hey I quit cigarettes cold turkey too and I swear that
 WC> was tougher than the narcotics, much tougher.

That's not the way I remember it.

 WC> It appears I'm rather resistent to the DT's and have only a very
 WC> passing aquaintance, for me the mental aspect of walking away from
 WC> addiction was the challenge.
 WC> But then I hated anything controlling me or _owning_ me thus
 WC> I always managed to kick be it narcotics or cigarettes.

 WC> Took me two years back in the 80's to kick the cigarette
 WC> habit and that's far and away longer than kicking anything else
 WC> for me.

I guess I'm still puffin', so I can't speak too loudly. I did quite for months
at various times though.

For me, the narcotics were started with huge resistance from me, and all the
while, I tried to find a facility that would try other therapies, and not
depend on the elevating doses solely. By the time I told my old codger to "Have
a good God-damn year!" I phoned them regularly for a detox RX, or to have them
admit me to a facility... ... ...

I found a physician to take me on as a regular patient, until he talked to the
A-hole. Then my gloves came off. After seven years of pleading for them to cut
my leg off, often in tears, and the butt-head withholding treatments like the
one you mentioned above... 

I made him flinch at my next visit, so I did have many laughs at that. I was
having heart fibrillations, and with naturally low blood pressure, mixed with
my tapering codeine, I needed to encourage blood circulation. Right there in
his office, with him a good ten feet away, I swung my arm out *away* from him
to get some blood there. Little friggin' weenie! I called the next day, and
told reception that, "I won't be there to have the good doctor examine my
sphincter... Ever."

Something that they stacked my records with, prevented every doctor for a solid
year from taking me on as a regular patient. "...Perhaps, mildly paranoid."
INDEED! 


... James
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