Day 16 Cold Turkey Off Tramadol; The Devil Drug

Day 16 Cold Turkey Tramadol Withdrawal

Re; As Our Governator would say; "It's back."

(Ok so he said, "I'll be back." And he was playing the Terminator but w/d is a whole lot like the Terminator in certain ways.)

"I am a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty-two flavors and then some
And I'm beyond your peripheral vision
So you might want to turn your head
Cuz someday you're going to get hungry
And eat most of the words you just said"
-Ani DiFranco "32 Flavors"

You wouldn't believe the amount of Tramadol the Internet offers you when you type in "Tramadol withdrawal support." It's pretty amazing.

Yesterday I felt good for 3/4ths of the day. YAY!!!

At about 11pm, I got up way too fast and my right leg (which has S1 neuropathy) gave out, I slipped and fell. Twisting my left leg under me and then slamming the left side of my neck into my husbands oversized leather chair on the arm of it. Thank goodness it is cushioned.

I sat there for awhile kinda stunned that I had fallen. And trying to figure out if I'd damaged myself. The w/d makes me weaker and when I feel "normal" as in ... I'm not in any sort of pain and my stomach isn't in a knot I can tend to move a bit too fast.

So; I felt the way I feel when I fall. Like a clumsy idiot.

I've been down for most of today. Meaning I can feel my body trying to urge me to rest and ice. The urge to eat and drink is gone. As it has been since I started cold turkey. Freaky!

I iced the beejeebus out of my neck last night. I did sleep for 8 hours. Which is remarkable. And there was no heating pad involved either.

My husband just went out to a club to see a band we know play. He asked me if I wanted to go. I did want to go. But there's no way my body will go. And I don't have one of those new fangled bodies with the snap out brain!! Darn it! Oh yes, i want to do everything I was doing before I decided to let the pills vanish. Of course nothing could be as bad as Days 1-4 when frankly ... i was so sick I wouldn't even be able to express this anyhow.

I can't predict what my body will do physically right now. The frustration of that is Intense. I HATE (a strong word) that. This is part of the problem. I've always, always been able to do anything I wanted to do. When I got injured (or get injured) I am extremely bad at that. I'm not good at being unable to do what I want to do physically. It's frustrating and so we're back where we started again.

They say (who are these people these "They" These "THEM?" I'd like a word or two with Them or their superiors! ... ) Anyhow they say you get the same lesson again and again and again UNTIL YOU LEARN IT.

So if you ask me the lesson here is about CONTROL.

I like the illusion of control. I like to think that I have some sort of control. Surrender? You're kidding!? LOL. So sweet though isn't it; when you realize how much bigger "The withdrawal" or the life situation or ____________ is that your "will." Your Ego.

Surrender. Give up the Fight! Win the War!! AA-isms. But they happen to be true in this case. I can only be thankful that my life is not completely ruined (yet) by the drugs. I can rest until Tuesday and that is a very long time when you are on the special extended version of time that withdrawal puts you into.

Today is not good. The pain has returned. All day long headache. The sprinklers next door? Somene needs to turn down the volume on them! That is wayyyy too loud.

But the thing is; I know it could switch on me at any second. Like popping in and out of my own body it is. Tramadol withdrawal is nasty. It doesn't play fair, in fact I think it's playing Twister and I'm playing Monopoly? You can see how confusing that could be!

Ok. So. It takes as long as it takes. Patience. Breathe. Have Faith. Even *this* being curled around a heating pad feeling like I might hurl is better than continuing to take what was in the giant pill drawer.

The worst is over.  

Who was it who said Pain is weakness leaving the body?

I like the perspective on that.

Love and healing to all,
Emily



Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
Rumi