It started with a pain in my groin. A constant and at times piercing ache.
I google “pain in the groin,” and find a nightmare of near-fatal diseases and physical aberrations; testicular cancer, osteoarthritis, testicular torsion, diverticulitis, even appendicitis.
My first thought was it’s a pulled muscle. Just ignore it. It’ll go away. I ride my bike ten miles up a mountain, return home, and all is fine. The next day I can’t walk.
A week later our bed falls apart. I’m lifting it up while Jenn reattaches one of the supports, and I feel the pain slip across my abdomen and poke into the other side of my groin. It hurts so bad. I’m shaking, and covered in sweat. I almost throw up.
My health insurance is set-up so I have to go through my primary doctor for everything, and then, if they deem the situation warrants, get a referral. I make an appointment with my doctor. She sees about two thousand other patients. I can’t get into see her for over a month.
Meanwhile, I’m convinced my “testicular cancer” is growing, and that’s why it spread to the other-side.
“You have a bilateral hernia,” my doctor says as she pokes me in my groin. “Want to see if I can push it back in?”
As much as I’d like to make her happy (and with tears in my eyes from the pain), I say, “no.” And then enquire as to what comes next.
“I’m referring you to surgery. They’ll call you.”
Another month and half later I’m seeing the surgeon.
“It’s very common,” says the surgeon. “Many people just live with the discomfort, rather than have surgery.”
“Many people have low IQs,” I respond. “When can we schedule surgery?”
“I’ll have to consult the OR and schedule the robot.”
“The robot?”
“Yes, it’s all robotic now.” The surgeon goes into a detailed step-by-step of the procedure, until I stop him.
“Look, I don’t want to know what you’re going to do. I just want the pain to stop.”
Apparently, the robot is very busy. The surgeon books the next available date. Two months away.
“Don’t do anything strenuous,” he says.
I’m gathering that means no breathing as it hurts every time I suck in air.
Two weeks out, I come down with Covid. Word on the street is it’s making a major-comeback in SoCal. Some woman sitting next to me at a meeting was hacking all over the place, slimed me and few other folks. Three days later I feel like shit, took a home test. Voila, positive for the coronavirus.
“We’ll have to reschedule,” says the surgeon.
His nurse calls me back, “we’re looking at around Christmas.”
“No ‘we’re’ not,” I tell her. “I’m in pain, bump someone else, get me in with the robot. Do it now. I swear to fuckin’ god, I’m about to lose my shit.”
Another wait. Another phone call. “November 19th?” she nervously whispers. That’s still almost three months away, but at least it isn’t five months and two holidays.
I’m kind of like what someone would call active. I ride my bike four times a week, twelve plus miles. Walk four miles on the days I don’t ride, and even hit the gym on the odd occasion. But not lately. I’ve missed summer, prime biking weather. If I do too much on the weekend, meaning I go to the grocery store, or maybe the farmer’s market, hit a few thrift stores or an estate sale or two, I’m stiff for the following week.
Daily exercise helps keep my depression at bay. The resulting endorphins pump up my serotonin, a natural antidepressant. Now that I can’t exercise, my depression is at an all-time low. I’m gaining weight and finding little pleasure in anything. A constant cloud of despair surrounds me as the days slowly tick off.
This sitting around waiting, is soul crushing.
My work, because they refuse to hire another full-time clinician, every time any of us is sick, or one of their kids are sick, or one of us takes time off, we all scramble to cover each-other’s load. This has been going on for years. It’s not sustainable, but hey, I’m not running the place.
The surgeon says I need two weeks off, post-surgery, for my physical recovery (probably from the damage the robot does). At work, I run groups that no one else wants to run, evening treatment, aftercare (again in the evening), all my clients are substance use disorder (SUD). Getting coverage is a pain in everyone else’s ass.
The 19th rolls around and I just want this day to be over with. I have no love for being in a hospital. The inefficient bureaucracy. The impersonal demoralization by the staff to distant themselves from your anxiety, pain, and fears.
I sign away all my rights to sue if the surgery (or the robot) goes south. Say goodbye to Jenn, and get led into the bowels of a warren of beds, beeping machines, too bright lights, and nurses and orderlies seemingly wandering around as lost as I am.
“You’re diabetic?” asks the nurse. Which sounds more like a statement than a question and immediately makes me nervous—do they think I’m another patient? Am I getting the right surgery?
“No.”
“We’ll have to take a blood test.”
She then lists off my medications and asks if I am taking them. When I was a drug addict, I knew the names and values of every drug out there. I was a walking PDR (Physician’s Desk Reference). But these days I don’t really care. I get prescribed a drug. I take it (or I don’t). But I don’t pay attention to the names.
“Hey there.” A guy in scrubs suddenly appears. “I’m the anesthesiologist.”
Finally, someone I can relate to.
“Can I get something for my nerves? This is stressing me the fuck out.” I had hoped this would not sound “drug seeking.” The term used by doctors and nurses for addicts that try and wrangle narcotics at every opportune medical procedure.
“Ah, yeah.” He says, eyeing me suspiciously. “We’ll get to that. Hmmm, says here you have Hep C and B. You know there’s medicine for that?”
I contracted Hep C thirty-five years ago. When I stopped drinking, shooting dope, and everything else. It went away. All on its own. The doctors tell me they can only see I was exposed to it, to which strain they have no idea, and it’s a non-issue that legally needs to be in my chart. Hep B, twenty-seven years ago, there’s no medication for it after one has been infected. Why this yahoo anesthesiologist is gig-hopping into someone else’s territory amazes me. I wave him off, hoping I haven’t insulted the waiter before my food arrives.
But then he says, “time to go,” and starts wheeling my bed down the hall. What kind of anesthesiologist does the job of an orderly? They must be really hurting at this hospital.
In the OR another guy in scrubs says, “hi, I’m your anesthesiologist. Here’s something for your nerves.”
Which is confusing. But who am I to argue?
The drugs are cold as they go up my arm through the IV in my hand (about the only place I still have usable veins). The surgeon is talking to me, the robot looming behind him, with four sets of arms sticking out. Whatever they gave me is good. A warm tingling numb throughout my body.
I get lifted onto the surgery gurney. The anesthesiologist is back with another shot, “Fentanyl” he whispers.
I never get to fully enjoy this part. As an opiate addict in recovery these “opportunities” are known as freebies. Fleeting moments of an opiate nod, but given as an anesthesiologic dose. Teetering on the edge of overdose. Just enough to put you out. They used to say, “count backwards from 100.” I’d be around 97 when I passed out. Now with Fentanyl they don’t even waste the time.
As someone that shot dope for eighteen years, and hasn’t for twenty-four, this is about as close as I ever get to the old days. Which to tell the truth is about as close as I want to get.
***
Coming to in the recovery ward is never a pleasant experience. There are the annoying beeping monitors. The aforementioned bright lights. A loud hum of the constant AC, mixed with the humming of the drugs they administered as they leave your brain.
A nurse shows up and immediately starts getting me up and ready to leave. They must need the bed. Gone are the days of recovering in the hospital. Now they just want you out and away from all the staph infections and their responsibility.
“Want a cup of coffee?” He asks.
“Yeah,” I say, hoping the pounding in my head is from caffeine withdrawal.
I pull back the covers. Two large gauze balls are pressing into my groin, held with what looks like a jock strap. Unexplainably my first thought is, who put this on me? Not like, why is it here? More like the shame of being dressed in a lily-white jockstrap while naked and bleeding.
Across my mid abdomen are three bandaged areas in a crooked horizontal line. Three spots where the robot went in. They couldn’t find a ruler, straighten this shit out?
I’m suddenly in a lot of pain.
The nurse appears with my coffee. “Want something for the pain.”
Oh yes, I do. Such a lovely idea. “Yes, please.” So polite.
The cold races up my arm again (hospital’s keep their drugs refrigerated). Opiate-esque and warm to the brain. Comes on strong and then fades. That’s the problem with pharmaceutical drugs. They’re too clean. They’re here to do a job. Numb you. Not get you high.
The nurse tells me Jenn is getting my medication at the pharmacy and will be here soon to pick me up. Inside I start to panic. I don’t want to leave. This is where they have intravenous drugs. The meds Jenn is getting are pills, there’s no rush, and they suck. All my old junkie-ness is coming to the surface. Five hours ago, none of this was even a concern. Now I’ve degenerated back twenty-four years to before I stopped using.
The nurse misjudges my panic and gives me another shot of Demerol, right before I’m wheeled out the door. I thank the orderly profusely and nod in and out of reality on the ride home.
I take an Oxy the minute I hobble in the door. Be ahead of the pain, not behind it. Fall into bed and pass out.
My dreams are insane. I’m using drugs, running with felons (most of whom are dead), dodging family (most of whom are also dead), and generally running amok like when I was using. Six hours on the dot I wake with an intense pain throughout my torso. I take another Oxy and some Tylenol. The combo kicks me down one notch on the “describe your pain, ten being the worst ever, and one being not at all.” I’m still hovering at a seven.
I’m lying in bed and the craving starts.
Thoughts of that last shot of Demerol.
The tingling warmth.
I need more.
Five hours, forty-five minutes until my next Oxy.
Fuck that. They don’t do shit.
Five hours, thirty-three minutes.
Maybe I should take them all and maybe feel something.
Five hours, two minutes.
I need to call the surgeon. Tell him I lost my meds. Get more.
Four hours, and fifty-three minutes.
Am I in pain?
Three hours.
I’m definitely in pain.
Two hours, twenty-two minutes.
Take it now.
One hour, fifteen minutes.
It’s only one hour, who cares?
Seven minutes.
Fuck it, I’m taking it.
And on, and on, and on.
Day three. I’m out of Oxys.
Having been through surgery before, I asked for only two days-worth of pain meds. I hate the mental gymnastics of “am I in pain” on the third day. Last time I wasn’t even sure, took the meds, and felt like I had lied to myself.
I alternate Tylenol and Ibuprofen every four hours. I’m uncomfortable, but it’s do-able. I’m no longer a slave to watching the clock. My brain begins to clear from the narcotic haze.
But I’m still craving the shots of Demerol. The euphoric recall of the cold narcotics creeping up my arm. The warm opiate rush splashing over me.
I’m lying in bed, the TV is on, and my mind is in that recovery room.
“Want something for the pain.”
This is all so brutal. With previous surgeries I’ve had similar versions of this play out. But for some reason, the urge to use is worse than ever before.
It’s not like I’m going to go score Heroin off the streets. But the beast has been awoken. The little junkie monster that lives inside of me. The one I’ve beaten back for years. Is now driving the bus.
I want more.
I want more.
I want more.
Shut the fuck up!
I white knuckle my way through it all. I don’t tell Jenn. She’ll just suggest doing all the things I don’t want to do. I’m not looking for solutions here. I just want someone to listen. But I don’t know how to say that to her.
I call a friend. Admit what’s going on. It’s no longer a secret.
I see my therapist. We process it, and move on.
The cravings are minimal now.
A week later, I’m in a meeting. A woman celebrates a fifteen-year anniversary after a relapse on pain meds took her out. Another addict had thirty-nine years, and he’s here as a newcomer, after relapsing on pain meds.
I hadn’t planned on sharing, but how can I not after they both honestly bared their souls.
I tell my sordid tale of woe. And realize what’s really going on is my confidence has been badly shaken. I have twenty-four years clean off drugs. I work in treatment. I’m a drug and alcohol counselor. How am I supposed to counsel addicts and alcoholics if I’m one Oxy away from relapsing.
But I didn’t relapse.
I worked my program.
Was it to the best of my ability?
Probably not.
But I’m still here to tell the tale.
Two days later I walk into work, and nothing has changed. Except maybe me, with more of an understanding of my addiction and giving myself the needed grace to get through it all.
