Trainspotting (or a bit of a cock-up by me)

You know your life is a bit sad when you manage an almighty medication cock-up and see the immediate silver lining as being “well at least I have a blog post for next week”. Such were my first coherent words to my husband this morning after a night of sheer hell. All because I fell asleep ridiculously early and then forgot to take my medications, one of which is morphine.

I take morphine twice a day as a 12 hour slow release tablet. Before morphine I couldn’t get out of bed and had been stuck there for the majority of the time for several months. This was thanks to a dr who decided it would be a fantastic idea to have me walk the length of a hospital corridor. Whilst I managed it and may have seemed ok to her, the following day the repercussions were felt throughout my body. I had a flare up of bursitis in both hips, plantar fasciitis in both feet, my knees throbbed and my back felt like I had been trampled by a horse. I worked my way through every other non opiate painkiller before both my doctor and I conceded defeat, there were no options left. At 37 I wasn’t prepared to spend what will hopefully be a very long life in that amount of pain on a daily basis.

In all the years I have been taking morphine (for the pain caused by having EDS and the early onset arthritis that I developed because of it) I have never missed a dose. Over the last 6 years I have on occasion been a few hours late with no problems. I have always attempted to educate those who read my blog (if they don’t understand) the difference between addiction and dependence. An addict uses drugs to get high, someone who is physically dependent on morphine is using it to relieve pain. I have never got high and if you bumped into me in the street you wouldn’t know I took morphine.

However the results are the same for the addict and those physically dependent on a drug, if they miss a dose. The body goes into withdrawal. I am now 12 hours past the time I realised I had gone into withdrawal and I still feel like shit despite taking my morning meds. I am hoping tomorrow I feel better and my body will be more settled. Let me also tell you this, as long as there is breath in my body I will never miss a dose again.

I wrote in last week’s blog post that I went to the doctors, I was exhausted for the rest of the day. At 18:30 (yes I do know how rock and roll I am) I went to bed. It was too early to take my night time medications which I take between 19:00 -20:00, so I thought to myself, “no worries I will take it later”. I then promptly went to sleep, which I never expected to do. I thought I would listen to the radio and then take my tablets after The Archers had finished at 19:15. I didn’t hear The Archers, in fact I don’t remember hearing much of anything I just conked straight out.

I woke up at 21:30 drenched in sweat, now there is nothing unusual in that, I can suffer from reactive hypoglycemia. I even worked out in my head that the night sweat would be in line with it happening within 4 hours of eating. I was so tired I just rolled over and went back to sleep again. I then proceeded to wake up at 22:30, 23:30 00:15 01:30, 02:15 and then finally at 03:00am. Each time I woke up I was absolutely drenched in sweat feeling both boiling hot and freezing cold at the same time. On each awakening I was also feeling more agitated, panicky and nauseous. I thought I was coming down with the flu or something. I had also had to change my pyjamas 3 times and turn my duvet over twice as it was soaked through. I was still at this point blaming reactive hypoglycemia but knowing in my head that the time frame for this to occur had passed.

It wasn’t until around 03:20 when Willow knocked my pill-mate (box that divides pills into days/ mornings/lunch/ tea/ evenings) off the bedside cabinet and I turned the bedroom light on to put it back, that I realised Wednesday evenings pills were still sat in their compartment. I checked my mobile phone to see what day it was. My first thought was “shit, no wonder I feel so awful” then it was “what the hell do I do?” I was 8 hours past the normal time of taking them but 4 hours away from when they should be taken. I really didn’t want to mess up the times I take my meds. So I opted to take 10mg/5ml Oramorph and 10mg slow release (from a larger dose) out of my morning meds, to see if it would stop the withdrawal I was experiencing.

I tried to go back to sleep but I was still hot and cold at the same time and dripping with sweat. I decided to get up and have a cup of tea in the hope it would make me feel better. As in the half hour I had been tossing and turning I’d had to get up twice for a dump. (I know I am such a lady but that’s what opiate withdrawal does to you and it’s not pretty.) Jay was up when I got downstairs and I was in such a state I could barely speak. I was feeling really nauseous, agitated and angry. I was just praying that at some point the morphine would take the edge off. But as luck would have it my stomach was on a go slow and absorbing my medication really slowly.

At 6am I felt like I had the full-blown flu, I was sweating buckets and still feeling like I was burning up whilst be freezing cold at the same time. The nausea was getting worse and I was convinced I was just going to puke all over the lounge floor. I was counting down the minutes until 7am when I would be able to take my morning tablets. It took until 10am for me to feel anything like human again, even then though my pain levels were really high and I was exhausted.

For the remainder of the day I felt pretty grim, body aches, no energy, I felt really tearful and out of sorts. All day long all I could hear in my head was the song from the film Trainspotting Lust for life by Iggy Pop, which did make me giggle. Especially when I would catch myself singing it every now and again. I went to bed really early again but set an alarm on my phone to remind me. I was so determined not to go through the same thing again I couldn’t sleep until I knew I had taken my pills.

I have a set routine normally when it comes to taking my meds, normally if I go to bed early I set the alarm on my phone so it wakes me up. That night I was so tired I couldn’t even think straight. Also I am good at setting the alarm on my phone and then just turning it off when it sounds and not taking my meds. That is what normally happens when I fall asleep early and this is what has happened all the times I have taken them late. Jay would normally come in and check that I have taken them but he was also shattered that night and forgot. He also hates waking me up as I can be thoroughly evil when woken. Thrashing around thinking I have been attacked or being verbally abusive due to being semi conscious. So it’s hardly a nice thing for him to have to do.

I am now forcing myself to stay downstairs until just before 19:00 so that I don’t fall asleep before I take my pills. I never, ever want to end up in that situation again . Even attempting to put into words what my body felt like doesn’t even come close. It took 24 hours for me to feel fully back to normal and for my pain levels to come down to normal. Mixed in with feeling shitty was also the anger at myself for forgetting to take them in the first place. I don’t mind if I make myself sicker than normal for a few days due to enjoying myself but to make myself sick through something entirely preventable made me seethe. The old negative self talk really kicked in, I didn’t have a nice word to say about myself. It was just so incredibly frustrating.

So I shall leave you with the track that has haunted me ever since Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life