Once I got home from the hospital real hell began to settle in, I was overcome with entire body withdrawals. I flopped, twitched, and tremored from every facial muscle to the tips of my toes. My face took on a new disfigured look I am still recovering from which will sadly never been entirely normal again. My symmetric face which I took for granted is long gone as are my bright blue eyes which have been replaced with sometimes faint blue but mostly hazy gray eyes I do not recognize in the mirror.
The mirror which I once spent so much happy time in front of is no longer my friend and the same can be said for the camera which I usually avoid at all costs.
The first weeks or more exactly the first couple of long, never ending months were consumed with the full body withdrawals I just mentioned along with daily deeper and more facial disfigurement that I thought would never stop.
I was initially under the care of visiting nurses, and the only thing I did every day was crawl out of bed for my early morning weekday recovery meeting less than a mile down the road from my house. Of course I was unable to walk to the meeting so I took a cab every day back and forth. Once the meeting was over I staggered outside and took a cab the mile back to my house, Then I would get into bed for the rest of the day and night and writhe in pain and uncontrollable convulsions that began each day around 10:30 am and continued until I found a few hours of sleep in the early evening.. The visiting nurses arrived daily around 3:00 pm and checked my blood pressure and managed my medication but did nothing else to help me and my excruciating discomfort,
This scenario continued for a good four months without an ounce of relief. The only aspect that changed were my physical disabilities, which just continued to escalate and worsen. Everyday I spent hours on my shaking legs in the mirror, stating in horror as I watched myself morph daily with age and disfigurement. I still have acute PTSD over this time in my life as I was lead to believe I was on the road to well as my body and mind hung on by mere thread that only gained reprieve with my daily early morning recovery meetings. If it wasn't for these meetings I NEVER would have made it to see this very day
At about my fourth month of recovery I was able, miraculously, to take my first real half-breath. I found myself as July marked the calendar, able to make a plan and a promise to myself, to give myself an entire year from July 1st, to continue to recover and work on my recovery. It was the first time I could feel progress in the right direction in my recovery and acknowledge both physically and mentally the slightest bit of improvement since I entered the hospital and embarked on my medical detox.
It was a LONG stretch of time from the muddle of March to the first of July to suffer as badly as I did. I read my words in front of me and they do not do justice to the pain and suffering I endured. I pray the more I write about this time in my life the more the words will began to match my lived experience.
With the beginning of July I started my slow ascent back to what has become my new normal. No, my new normal isn't very close to my old normal I so took for granted, even disrespected with my inability to embrace "gifts" that now just live in memories and in pictures. What has been the greatest gift in my recovery is my spiritual condition and my clear mindedness, which allows me a life worth living I never realized was possible or that I wanted to actively participate in prior to all this mayhem of my epic recovery "speedsplatt" MOMENT. .
Corey
BLOGS FROM THE ILLNESS OF MY DISCONTENT-2K18
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