Sunday started off pleasantly enough with a cup of average to bad coffee and a sliced apple. Melissa had gone to a tiny supermarket Saturday night that had little to no coffee selection so I ended up with Folgers. I woke up at 7:30 AM after waking up no more than twice in the night. My first thought was attacking the day. This is one of those concepts that I use differently from a lot of others. The attacking part involves getting out of bed and getting into the shower as soon as humanly possible or drinking coffee at home to keep the shower available for Melissa.
This was a glorious shower where I was sure that I had all the time I needed and I wasn't paying for the water. I didn't exactly linger since water isn't something you waste but not having to pay for it directly was a burden off my mind. Coffee and my apple tasted wonderful on the balcony although some nearby construction and the sun chased me inside by 8 AM. (My dislike of direct sunlight will come into play at the end of the week.) It was time to dispense my pills for the week.
I didn't panic when I came up short on pain pills. Obviously, there was an easy explanation involving how I screwed it up. Perhaps I had put my hands on a surplus that even I had forgotten as I came so close to running out. On the other hand, the bottle was dated for the correct date. I tried to suppress my choking sense of panic as it came on. Melissa works for the pharmacy company, after all, but just not in the pharmacy. She would know what to do.
By the time she woke up less than an hour later, I was fighting off my panic with a purely defensive rage. When I get angry, I can hold off my anxiety related symptoms for a little while. Obviously, I had no real reason to be angry until it was proven to be something other than an honest mistake. When Melissa got up, she tried to call the pharmacy that had my meds and had been allowed to fill them under the emergency circumstances. (I have a contract with the pain doc that limits me to a single pharmacy in a single location due to the controlled nature of narcotics medicines.) The fact that we had no house phone and her cell phone coverage was terrible complicated this to the point where I was near panic again.
We decided that we were going to use connections and ask the local pharmacy to allow us to call the one in Delaware. There was no store for the company in Ocean City much to our surprise. Therefore, we went off on a trek to find Berlin, Maryland, the day after making the long drive. I thought my head was going to explode and I discovered that I had used my keychain supply of the medicine while trying not to run out. Therefore, I was in a great mood as we searched for the Berlin pharmacy.
It turned out that Berlin was less than 15 minutes from Ocean City to our good fortune. Melissa identified herself and backed it up with formal identification to the store manager who gave us essentially unlimited access to the phone. (Obviously, we didn't decide to call Alaska for the hell of it anyway. Trust received is almost always rewarded.) The pharmacist on duty had not been there the night when the pills were filled but I was right about the inventory control. In an hour or so, my story was confirmed and I was told that the medicine would be waiting for me in Delaware. Since I almost certainly had enough for the week, I was perfectly happy about this.
In fact, I was ecstatic about the way we had been treated in the Berlin store. (I wish I could use the company name but I could be angry with them in the future. Other companies have retaliated against employees for 'net postings so I must err on the side of caution.) The store manager was not the only one to treat us well. We were allowed to sit in the pharmacy despite not being pharmacy customers for their store. When I pounced on a pharmacist to tell him the story, he took it with good grace despite the fact that I had my pained face on which looks a lot like an angry face and he had nothing to do with the problem. We took the time to do a little shopping for things we had forgotten and all the employees were friendly. Kudos to the Berlin store! I wish I could identify you.
When the pharmacist called back to confirm that he had my pills, I was in considerable pain even by home standards. I was considering skipping the lunch out that I had "extorted" from the all too willing Melissa. We had come to Ocean City for seafood but several rib restaurants caught my eye. We had what might have been our best meal of the whole week at "J.R.'s Ribs" just south of where we stayed on 138th Street.
First of all, this is very relevant to the whole pain blog theme because I arrived in agony. Secondly, it's relevant because "J.R.'s Ribs" might be the best restaurant ever from the point of accomodating special needs. There were few people there and so the hostess allowed me to pick the ideal table from the entire dining area. I had mentioned my criteria of muted lighting, a minimum of hustle and bustle plus having my back to the wall if possible. (There weren't even any Mafia jokes except from me to Melissa privately.) They actually dimmed the lighting in the area without me asking.
Then there was the food...oh, the food. We started off with warm bread and whipped butter which we decided could not be topped. Then our two appetizers arrived. One was onion loaf which looked like a bunch of onion rings that had gotten stuck together in the fryer somehow. I asked about the origin of this but no one could confirm or deny this except to agree that it looked very much like that. Obviously, that couldn't be topped until it was by an Ocean City specialty called crab toast. The simple description of this might be an unbreaded crab cake on a piece of toasted bread topped with cheese. That does not do it or the tartar sauce that comes on the side with it any justice. It is a small slice of heaven that I thought would be the meal's highlight except that I'm sure you're following the theme.
Since the restaurant was all but empty when we arrived, the entrees came out a little sooner than I would have liked but this was okay. I wanted to take the ribs home for dinner anyway. I ate my sides which were good but didn't compare to the rest of the meal but they were sides anyway. I just wanted to taste the one rib in case I didn't like it. I've had experiences with other restaurants where I've taken food home, looked forward to it for hours and then had it disappoint me.
The waitress and the manager both stopped by and seemed so genuinely interested in making us happy over having us spend money that I confided in them. Chances were that the ribs were just cold by my standards since I'm a fanatic about hot entrees. (At home, I've been known to reheat a good dinner in the microwave more than once to enjoy it at the desired temperature.) The waitress took my ribs back to the kitchen where they were reheated and I had another taste. All plans of taking these ribs "home" with me were abandoned. I ate every piece of meat off every bone to the point of checking particles set aside as likely bone, gristle or fat a second time. Most of those turned out to be edible and delicious as well. I do not understand how the ribs managed to have just the right amount of "heat" in the aftertaste without being tangy but they did. Just writing this is making me hungry. Needless to say, I think everyone (especially chronic pain sufferers) should visit "J.R.'s" in Ocean City. Melissa even got a free rose and a discount for Mother's Day.
Unfortunately, my escape from the pain ended with the meal. I was in a crisis when we returned to the condo and was miserable for the five minutes it took me to treat it like a crisis. Melissa made me my favorite herbal tea and then I settled down for a nap/meditation session in the bedroom. It was a success as the pain dropped back down to normal levels.
That night, I discovered something else on the balcony. The condo was literally about the ideal distance away from the main road and from the less traveled road just behind the oceanfront properties. Neither bothered me unless something else was already wrong. We took a little walk down to the beach before bed to see the majesty of the ocean. I enjoyed a bottle of an excellent Belgian white before heading to bed with Melissa. My eyes told me that I would fall asleep standing up if I tried to hold out any longer.
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