Tricks and Treats!
This was not a normal Halloween.
First, as Fundamentalists, we don't celebrate the traditional Halloween-go-door-to-door-in-evil-inspired-costumes. We have a "Fall Family Fellowship" where we serve lots-o-food (we're Baptists and we love FOOD) and make our children do strange things like eating doughnuts dangling from strings without using their hands. It's similar to the traditional pie-eating-contest except it's less sticky and more powered-sugary!
That was at night. My tricks started early Friday morning when I woke up in tremendous pain.
About one o'clock my eyes open with an audible "poing" and that feeling in my gut tells me my old friend is back. Mr. Stone comes to stay in my kidneys every 10 years or so and he isn't a nice guest.
I quietly get out of bed and go downstairs to surf the web and wait for it all to go away. In times past the pain comes in waves which actually makes it more better than writhing in pain constantly for hours on end. At least you can take a rest, catch your breath, and brace yourself for the next onslaught. I mean, who wants to go through gut wrenching torture for several hours?
Apparently I do because it just won't stop. Not even a little bit. And there's nothing you can do to get comfortable. You think if you just sit THIS way or lean THAT way that maybe you'll find some way of making it hurt just a little bit less.
You can't. It's another trick.
About an hour and a half of this and I'm done. I wake Melissa and we go to the emergency room. We wake her dad (did I tell you my In-Laws' were up visiting this week? Trick.) pack the baby, and drive off into the dark.
It's a long drive to the hospital. Ouchy.
"Oh no!" I say as we're driving. "I forgot something."
"You want me to turn around? What did you forget?"
"I forgot clean underwear." So being in pain doesn't help my sense of humor. Just don't tell my mom. She'd be horrified.
So that's the trick I received for Halloween. The treat? I got to try opium derivatives for the first time. They gave me 3 shots of morphine before I noticed any real change and even then it didn't cut the pain so much as it let me relax and fall asleep. So in between ugly guy nurses (another cheap trick) checking my blood pressure every so often I stayed in my blissful, drug induced sleep.
I wasn't so out of it that I didn't want to slap one fellow who came in knowing I was drugged and in pain and said to me "Are you out of it? You look out of it. Are you out of it?" What was THAT all about? Of course I'm out of it. I'm on opium!
But in the end I was able to go home with a bottle of opium derivatives (treat!). And a strainer (trick). If you don't know what the strainer is for, just imagine how one might catch something produced in the kidney as it exits the body. 'Nuf said.
I've had friends tell me all sorts of stories of the medicines they've received and all the fun side effects so I must admit I was somewhat looking forward to finding out what they were talking about. I didn't (trick!). No funky feelings, no tasting colors. What I did have, however, were some very vivid dreams. As I'm dozing I'd have a conversation with Melissa and continue the topic in my dream. I'd then wake up saying something like "...and then we'll have to..." and realize I'm basically talking in my sleep. I did that 3 or 4 times and each time I became aware of the difference between sleeping and waking in the time it took to say about 5 words.
In the end I stopped taking opium by that evening and went to the Fall Family Fellowship where only a few people knew what had happened during the day. I had great fun telling the story and the only person who noticed something was wrong is an EMT and deals with druggies all the time. My eyes were teenie- tiny pin pricks and apparently I was shlurring mah speesh just a little bit.
And yes, on Sunday during our "Praises and Testimony" time I announced that I had "kicked my opium habit" which did NOT amuse the pastor. I did explain the real story so everything's OK.
First, as Fundamentalists, we don't celebrate the traditional Halloween-go-door-to-door-in-evil-inspired-costumes. We have a "Fall Family Fellowship" where we serve lots-o-food (we're Baptists and we love FOOD) and make our children do strange things like eating doughnuts dangling from strings without using their hands. It's similar to the traditional pie-eating-contest except it's less sticky and more powered-sugary!
That was at night. My tricks started early Friday morning when I woke up in tremendous pain.
About one o'clock my eyes open with an audible "poing" and that feeling in my gut tells me my old friend is back. Mr. Stone comes to stay in my kidneys every 10 years or so and he isn't a nice guest.
I quietly get out of bed and go downstairs to surf the web and wait for it all to go away. In times past the pain comes in waves which actually makes it more better than writhing in pain constantly for hours on end. At least you can take a rest, catch your breath, and brace yourself for the next onslaught. I mean, who wants to go through gut wrenching torture for several hours?
Apparently I do because it just won't stop. Not even a little bit. And there's nothing you can do to get comfortable. You think if you just sit THIS way or lean THAT way that maybe you'll find some way of making it hurt just a little bit less.
You can't. It's another trick.
About an hour and a half of this and I'm done. I wake Melissa and we go to the emergency room. We wake her dad (did I tell you my In-Laws' were up visiting this week? Trick.) pack the baby, and drive off into the dark.
It's a long drive to the hospital. Ouchy.
"Oh no!" I say as we're driving. "I forgot something."
"You want me to turn around? What did you forget?"
"I forgot clean underwear." So being in pain doesn't help my sense of humor. Just don't tell my mom. She'd be horrified.
So that's the trick I received for Halloween. The treat? I got to try opium derivatives for the first time. They gave me 3 shots of morphine before I noticed any real change and even then it didn't cut the pain so much as it let me relax and fall asleep. So in between ugly guy nurses (another cheap trick) checking my blood pressure every so often I stayed in my blissful, drug induced sleep.
I wasn't so out of it that I didn't want to slap one fellow who came in knowing I was drugged and in pain and said to me "Are you out of it? You look out of it. Are you out of it?" What was THAT all about? Of course I'm out of it. I'm on opium!
But in the end I was able to go home with a bottle of opium derivatives (treat!). And a strainer (trick). If you don't know what the strainer is for, just imagine how one might catch something produced in the kidney as it exits the body. 'Nuf said.
I've had friends tell me all sorts of stories of the medicines they've received and all the fun side effects so I must admit I was somewhat looking forward to finding out what they were talking about. I didn't (trick!). No funky feelings, no tasting colors. What I did have, however, were some very vivid dreams. As I'm dozing I'd have a conversation with Melissa and continue the topic in my dream. I'd then wake up saying something like "...and then we'll have to..." and realize I'm basically talking in my sleep. I did that 3 or 4 times and each time I became aware of the difference between sleeping and waking in the time it took to say about 5 words.
In the end I stopped taking opium by that evening and went to the Fall Family Fellowship where only a few people knew what had happened during the day. I had great fun telling the story and the only person who noticed something was wrong is an EMT and deals with druggies all the time. My eyes were teenie- tiny pin pricks and apparently I was shlurring mah speesh just a little bit.
And yes, on Sunday during our "Praises and Testimony" time I announced that I had "kicked my opium habit" which did NOT amuse the pastor. I did explain the real story so everything's OK.
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