JOURNAL

Last night, while further cleaning out and organizing after my last kid moved out I found a buncha different medications. A good number of them were no big deal - antibiotics and shit like that. Some, however, turned out to be pretty powerful pain meds that I forgot I had been prescribed over the years for a number of reasons. Chronic pain, work injuries, and so on. Most of them some level of hydrocodone.

Most of these medications are still around becuase I'm never sure what to do with them, in terms of throwing them away or whatever. And I only concern myself with that because, historically, pharma pain meds and I don't get along. I feel uncomfortable in my own skin. So I typically only take them if pain is truly unbearable. And I have a pretty high tolerance for pain, hence a good deal of these meds left in the medicine cabinet drawers until last night.

I fucked up and didn't get to the store to level up on a new weed cart or alcohol, so only had like two puffs from my blinker, a single nip from the Evan Williams, and two single tallboys. And yesterday was a particularly tough day, in terms of everything that's been going on with my kids, work, family, and living arrangement. Additionally, yesterday I did the most physically demanding work that I've done in close to five years. I was spent. I was sore. I was angry. I was sad. I wanted to numb myself and I couldn't, at least to the degree I wanted and hoped for after the day I had.

As I looked at the bottom of my last can of beer after the last nip and pull had happened I got real anxious. And somehow remembered all the meds I found and typically can't stand. And I ate the recommended dosage for pain management. And waited. About 45 minutes later my back and legs didn't hurt so much, but my head and my heart still did. I continued to eat hydrocodone pills about every half hour. Until I found myself literally falling asleep at the computer and having difficulty climbing the stairs - up or down - to go have a smoke.

I ended up throwing up a very little before bed and then I went and passed the fuck out and had the best, deepest, hardest sleep I've had in ages.

I woke up felt particularly loopy, however. Even a full eight hours later, I was still well under the thumb of hydrocodone.

About an hour after waking up I went to do some more cleaning and organizing and in an instant felt flush with heat and sweat, so much so that the only thing I could think to do was go outside and stand in the -11F° air. It helped, for certain, I was concerned I was going to pass out and the shock of cold air offset that, I think. I went back inside and down the stairs to the basement and without warning I had to throw up. And I did. A lot. All liquid. Four good expulsions, probably like 40-50 ounces worth of liquid and bile.

Afterwards, from both the hot flash and the vomit, I was just simply exhausted. Which I struggled with accepting because I had slept so well. But ultimately, I gave in and laid down back in bed and took an early morning nap to the tune of three hours - flush with the weirdest and most surreal fever dreams I've ever had.

After I awoke and felt relatively normal, I looked up just how much hydrocodone I had ingested, because truthfully I hadn't bothered to look or calculate in the moment. I just wanted to not feel and I wanted the brain and heart to just turn off. Turns out I ate a typically lethal dose. Typical lethal hydrocoone dose is 0.47 mg/L (median is , 0.38 mg/L). I ate over 0.60 mg/L. My blog post from last night clearly shows where I was, but at the time I sincerely did not understand how much of this poison I was ingesting.

Life still sucks, but grateful to be here.