Yesterday was Pain Doc Day and I was as prepared for it as usual. That's to say that I was exhausted from a lack of sleep, worn down by the car ride and feeling on edge because of so many potential irritants. The one thing I was sure about was what medicines I was out of or nearly so. That's because I was out of nearly everything to the point of being on the verge of withdrawal symptoms.
In my previous appointment, I got the pain doc to put his finger on the panic button without pressing it. I was nearly sick to death with all of my coping mechanisms failing. Something had to change and change needed to come quickly. The first option in all of this change talk was my Ocean City vacation. Pent up stress had to be a big part of my problems because so many of the uncontrolled symptoms were triggered by stress in the first place. I was leaving at the end of the week following my previous appointment. If I had no significant improvement before the next appointment, all bets were off. We were going to figure out a whole new treatment plan.
Therefore, I showed up for this appointment a little nervous. I had gotten the expected improvement only to give some of it away since my return. I wanted to show the pain doc the improvement and get his finger off the panic button but I have some scary short term injuries/illnesses. As expected, he did a certain amount of fretting over the short term stuff but left me with his medical opinion - I should see a physician more qualified to deal with wounds and/or burns - to do with it as I chose.
I expected this and already had a plan in place to act should the pace of healing slow or should I suffer setbacks. What I didn't expect was a discussion about the (many times over) damned drug tests. Somehow, my pain patch medication was not showing up in the tests. I had been told by a qualified third party that their testing was clearly flawed and that I shouldn't worry about it. The tests were just meant to cover asses in the face of absurdly draconian drug laws. For some reason or other, I didn't expect my pain doc to defend them as strongly as he did. To be honest, I was a bit insulting but it was because my symptoms were raging on.
Of course, the "confrontation" never really happened. The doctor's concern was a practical matter. How was it that this medicine was failing to get into my system properly? My reply was equally practical. If it's clear that the medicine isn't getting into my system, I had no problem with them weaning me off it. We had a very brief discussion about how I could use the patches more efficiently and he decided that I was on such a high dosage that they had to be doing something. Also, I was reporting improvement so there was no sense disrupting a good thing.
It all went back to a policy that I repeated at the beginning of the appointment. I will disclose everything with complete honesty and I expect the same from them. Starting from such an honest point, we could compromise on specifics. I have to accept the reality that the office requires blood pressure checks even though they hurt with pain that lingers for hours. Taking the pain and my history of healthy blood pressure into account, we could compromise on how often the checks would actually happen. Taking my history of honesty into account, they look for less likely reasons why drug tests might not have the proper results.
The improvements were noted and the doctor told me that I needed more vacations. Melissa and I are waiting for these burns to heal before we search out ways to bring Ocean City effects back to Delaware. Any little bit will help, of course.
My symptoms went berserk before we even left the office this time. Melissa took me home and set me up in her chair which is less broken than mine. From there, she went and got my meds while Maddie the cat napped me as best she could. Melissa came home and spent the rest of the day by my side. She made us lunch and dinner while we watched a "MASH" DVD. I can't be sure but I think she might have repeated one episode three times while I napped because I have trouble sleeping for fear of missing something. I treasure moments spent with Melissa and the little things she does when I may or may not be too out of it to notice.
At the end of the night, I started to come apart. All of the little doubts added up only to combine with completely unrelated ones. It was a sign of pure exhaustion and there's no cure for it but sleep. Sleep never comes easy for me even when I'm too exhausted to function. I may fall asleep 30 times in an hour but that means waking up just as many times. Eventually, I did sleep and crashed for about 14 hours. That meant waking up at almost 5:30 PM!
What's that regular sleep schedule thing again? I had it going in Ocean City.
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