Better Living through Pharmaceuticals

In general, I hate medication.  I hate taking Tylenol - would rather endure the headache or muscle ache than put drugs into my body.  I don't like Nyquil or Dayquil or porcupine quills for that matter - if I have a cold I tend to just suck it up and let it run its course (I might whine a little, but not much).  I don't head to the doctor for every ache and pain, even when I probably need antibiotics or a shot in my butt.  My GP often gets a kick out of the fact that I have not taken any prescription medication in many, many years and finds my outright refusal to do so contrary to many of his patients' expectations.  I prefer to try and manage something without medication when possible.

Four years ago I fell down the stairs and broke my wrist in several places.  Putting Humpty Dumpty back together again required surgery, pins and a plate - and some pretty heavy-duty pain meds.  I'd never taken Oxycontin nor Percocet before - and I got to take both, at the same time, for days after the surgery.  I then switched to Vicodin, and learned fairly quickly that I have a high tolerance for pain medication.  Where one or two 500 mg pills will work wonderfully for most, I was swallowing 4 pills every six hours.  Every day.  For a month.  Eventually I realized I needed to back off, to slow down, to wean myself off the pain meds because I could no longer function, work, drive, think.  I had never been so glad to throw out a bottle of medicine in my life.

In that time period I've avoided meds like the plague - I might have taken a couple of Motrin after a particularly difficult run - but in general I shy away from pills.

Now, of course, I have a pharmacy on my bedside table, a little line of pretty bottles with child-safety caps and a variety of shapes and sizes and colors inside.  I have anti-anxiety meds and steroids and sleeping pills and allergy meds and heartburn meds and...

...pain meds.  Again.  Dammit.

I have been repeatedly told that Taxol does not cause pain.  I hear this from my doctors and NPs and professionals around me.  I do not, however, hear that from other BC patients taking Taxol, because so many of them are experiencing pain, particularly those of us doing dose-dense treatment.  After my first treatment, when I landed in bed for several days because of the pain, my MO suggested Tylenol or Motrin.  I laughed outloud, then cried, then said, "You've got to be kidding."  The next day my friendly clinical trial coordinator secured me a script for Vicodin - just enough to get me through about four days of really good pain.  I worked hard to make them last an entire week because, well, I hurt for an entire week.  I refilled the script and used it again to get me through the second treatment.  And then they were gone.

When I went in for my third treatment last week we talked about the pain again.  I indicated it is getting progressively worse; the cumulative effects are starting earlier and lasting longer (and this week has been proof of that, in spades).  I expect the pain now so it's not a surprise, which makes it that much easier to deal with.  But my legs sometimes fail to work, and the pain in my hips and back make it impossible to stand up straight enough to walk.  My ankles feel like they're bearing the weight of the world, and the neuropathy has affected my feet so that walking just plain frickin' hurts.  Regardless, I make sure I do something, every day, to keep myself moving, even when it hurts and I really don't want to.  Even if I walk up and down the driveway, I have to move - I know, in some way, that it helps.

I asked for a refill on my pain medication last week, and my NP was genuinely surprised.  "You had a refill" she reminded me - and I told her I had already used it.  Again - surprise.  As they started pumping me full of toxins the nurse brought me a script with one refill, and it was pretty clear that this was to last me through the next four treatments.  Which isn't going to happen, so we'll be having another talk sometime soon.

I am not a junkie.  This is not drug-seeking behavior.  I'm not making this up because I love getting high on pain meds.  All I want to do is manage the pain I have.  And yet, pain management is not a topic of discussion with my medical staff unless I bring it up, and I push for it, and I demand care.  I contend that I never felt healthier than I did the day I was diagnosed, and it has been downhill from there.  For me, right now, treatment is what hurts the most.

I can live with pain - it doesn't bother me that the neuropathy in my fingers means they are simultaneously numb and painful, or that my eyes and ears and mouth are overly-sensitive to anything they connect to, or that my skin often feels like it's on fire.  But I'm being pumped full of chemicals that are meant to seek out and destroy pieces/parts of my body, and that's gonna hurt.  I shouldn't have to live with pain that truly makes life in general unbearable...and I shouldn't have to feel like a junkie for asking for help.