For years now I've been walking around in what I like to jokingly refer to as an "opiated haze" - numb to feelings and emotions, deadened to smells, sounds, tastes and sights. I was putting too many spices on my food to give it taste - ANY taste; I was burying my nose in things to detect the subtlety in aromas; I was turning my head left and right trying to detect sounds that others had no problem hearing; and I was blinded to the simple things that make life worthwhile.
As I've come off Morphine and Oxycodone, these senses have awakened with a vengeance! Suddenly coffee smelled so potent that I was unable to drink it, and my food began taking on tastes so foreign to me as to be virtually unpalatable. The phone and the alarm clock were painfully loud, and any light at all was too much light for my eyes. Soaps I'd used for years were suddenly overwhelming to my sense of smell. Music I'd loved became clamorous and jangling to my nerves. All in all, it was like living inside a odoriferous, sour, loud, light-filled Rubik's Cube - where every change and combination only served to heighten my discomfort.
Chris explained this all to me from a physiological point of view, telling me that my cells had built up an exceptional amount of ectoplasmic reticuli - or some damn thing - in an attempt to filter out the poisons I was ingesting each time I faithfully took my daily meds, and that this additional "ER" - as she called it - suddenly found itself without a job, and was making ALL of my cells crave toxins so the stalwart ER would have something to do - hence my heightened and jangled senses.
Needless to say, it's been less than fun, and more than challenging.
But here's some amazing things: I've found out that I have been DRAMATICALLY over-medicated all these years. (And here you thought I was just slow on the up-take!). I've discovered that one-quarter of an oxycodone - a lowly 7.5mg - works as well as 200mg of Morphine PLUS TWO (2) 30mg Oxycodones on top of it! I've discovered that a small handful of Ibuprofen (affectionately called "Vitamin I") and a hot shower do more to relieve stiffness than popping a Zanaflex, or a Flexeril. I've discovered that being exhausted from a long day of helping others is a much better sleeping pill than Tamazapam or Lunesta. And - forgive me in advance - I've found that using the bathroom doesn't require Senecot, Docalax, or Milk of Magnesia - and that going every single day is a NORMAL thing. (I asked you to forgive me already!)
On a different tack, I've also discovered that I REALLY can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Not that I recognized His strengthening hand in the midst of it all, but looking back on things, it's patently obvious. According to the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), an office within the US Department of Health and Human Services, and specifically, their Office of Applied Studies, opiate narcotics are the number ONE substance in drug related deaths in the United States. In 2007 alone, Salt Lake County - in our humble little white-bread Mormon outpost of a city - 19.3 deaths in every 100,000 people were directly attributed to opiate narcotics - be they accidental overdoses, suicides, or intentional poisonings! 1,067,722 people lived in Salt Lake County during 2007 - that means that 206 people died that year with opiates being the primary contributing cause. Statistics are sketchy on the number of them who died while in withdrawal, but a local center told me that the chances of experiencing a "life threatening emergency situation" during opiate narcotic withdrawal was "... more likely than not..." and that unattended withdrawal (meaning going cold turkey on your own), results in death "... more often than we'd like to admit."
Can I call my survival a miracle? Well, based on this information, I'd say that I was certainly strengthened throughout by Jesus Christ, and that His divine intervention may well be the only reason I'm here today. I'm reminded of Romans 8:28 which says, "And we know that all things work together for GOOD to those who love God and are called according to His purpose..." and I can certainly apply Jeremiah 29:11 which tells me that God's thoughts toward me are NOT for evil, but for a future and a hope. I think it may be overly dramatic to say that, "I'm lucky to be alive..." but when you speak those words in the face of reality, and of statistics, and of those 206 people who are NOT here to share - maybe it isn't so far fetched after all?
Life is certainly getting better. Coffee doesn't stink any more - Thank God! My hearing is pretty much back to normal, my eyes are as blind as they were before, and food has begun to taste - well, like food again. I have a beautiful wife, three amazing kids, a few pets, and air in my lungs. To quote Anthony Bordain - "life is clearly not sucking."
And the best part of it all? It's not sucking - without opiate narcotics.
It truly has been a journey.
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