So super brief recap - stupid accident a long time ago, misdiagnosis, worsened condition, lots of pain medication -codeine, vicodin, valium, oxycodone, oxycontin, neurontin, morphine, methadone... on a very, very long term basis. I was a barely walking zombie, falling asleep in conversations and unable to care for myself. I fought the morphine implant and the life-long narcotic treatment, refused to accept the sentences imposed by the every changing array of diagnoses and have found a way to live drug free and regain my mental faculties, independence, and my life. This struggle took over 10 years of my life.
My condition hasn't really changed - I can still walk back in to the doctor and ask for most of what I've had before, ask for the therapies they've prescribed, and medically it would be as appropriate now as it was then. What's changed is the way I choose to live my life - the way I choose to handle things - the fact that I see a choice.... that's what's changed.
That's what led me to Prague - a challenge of my own choosing, one where I would be forced to make my own way and stretch myself in living... not surviving as an automaton, but living out a fully flushed life.
And now I have this lung thing. I've been sick with a version of it on and off for a year and a half. It's aggravating. I started testing last summer and have finished it up this week. The results? Yes, I've had pneumonia - a few times, have developed asthma and any number of respiratory and sinus infections, my acute bronchitis - while still experiencing it in an acute phase - is now considered to be chronic bronchitis.... and the weeks and weeks on antibiotics have killed whatever nasty germs were inside me - and the good ones too. Am I better? Not really. Why?
It's the freakin air! The air here is making me sick. That's it. The pollution. My lungs don't like it. I cough a lot and they hurt, constantly. And now they're hurting from coughing. So - the solution? Codeine. It's a cough suppressant. I'm supposed to start a daily regimen of codeine and spend some time in the salt caves, try to get outside of the city on the weekends and visit the sea side. Until any of the change of location stuff takes place, and until the pain goes away and I can breathe freely, I'm to continue with the codeine.
Quite honestly this has brought me to tears. I am so frustrated right now, I can't begin to describe it. I feel like I've fought and fought to get healthy and find myself - a happy awake and aware version of myself, able to participate in the world around me - and now, based upon where I've chosen to be, I'm not healthy, again. It's not pain, it's not my body deteriorating in the same way, I don't have tremors, I'm not losing my vision... it's my breathing. This one isn't something to mess about with - I can do without use of an arm or sensation in half my body, but I can't really do without my lungs and I'd really rather not jeopardize their health. (I'm struggling to breathe as I write this.)
That - and I hate the fact that the most effective cough suppressant is a pain killer. Seriously? It really feels like a FML moment. In so many ways, I'm none too pleased.
No comments:
Post a Comment