I started using percocet to stave off the head pains in late November last year. The neurosurgeons kept saying "this kind of tumor grows really, really slowly." I suspect they'd reached that point of knowledge saturation whereby new information gets ignored; whatever this "kind" of tumor normally does, THIS tumor wasn't growing nearly as slowly as they expected. My eye went from troubled to useless in a couple of months, and then the pain behind the eye got unbearable.
Thank heaven for Dr. Crow at the Nephi VA Clinic, who had mercy on me and gave me some oxycodone with acetaminophen. Thank heaven for that stash of morphine left over from my herniated lumbar discs, that got me through til the percs arrived.
Now it's been about seven weeks since the docs spent 16 hours combing trigeminal schwanoma out of the nerves on the lower right side of my brain, and the steady aches that gave way to stabbing pains have mostly gone away, so long as I keep my fingers off the unadhered bones that still wobble and squeak in my skull. But getting off oxycodone is no picnic. It took me two months to get off the massive morphine and percs I was taking with the back; fortunately the pain wasn't as severe with my head. But the dysphoria of withdrawals is awful.
Here is today's comment on the matter:
3 comments:
Preston, I'm sorry to hear just how serious things have been going for you. I just had a routine checkup from my doctor, and was told I am a machine, more healthy than some of her patients 20 years younger. If I could share some of my robust health with you, I would. I really would.
I'm currently reading the Master and Commander series of novels (the books the Russell Crowe movie by the same name was based upon) about the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. Following naval battles, the wounded would frequently be forced to endure amputations without benefit of anesthesia. At these times, all theer shipmates could do was encourage them to "hold fast"!
Hold fast, Preston.
Preston, I do have some empathy. I take a non-narcotic for my peripheral neuropathy. It provides no buzz but dulls the chronic pain a little. Occasionally I try to stop taking it and the pain dictates keep taking it.
Preston, I do have some empathy. I take a non-narcotic for my peripheral neuropathy. It provides no buzz but dulls the chronic pain a little. Occasionally I try to stop taking it and the pain dictates keep taking it.
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