perception

After less than two days on Methadone I have decided, possibly premature, to stop using the medication as I cannot get over the stigma that I have in my mind, the clear picture ( but the wrong and false picture) of Methadone being a street drug only provided to junkies in the free clinics. I look at the bottle and I think heroine and I have never seen heroine nor have I experienced its high except through a documentary on public television.

I cannot get the image association out of my mind, the association heroine to methadone, the association that made me re-think my options for pain management and at the expense of feeling more pain, I will continue with morphine and fentanyl. However prepared I thought I was to explore methadone as a pain reliever, I was not ready to explore ME as a recipient of the wonders methadone has brought to pain management, especially those with end stage cancers, more specifically, the bone.

At a later date, if I feel a true sense of need, I will re-explore the issue, with team consent and opinion, with a conclusion possibly similar or more likely different than tonight. And it is not whether I re-address
Methadone
it is what I am willing to take for pain management, physical pain but also important, my perception of the medication to choose from.

peace over shadow

I had a visit from my physician today, one of the many that are consultants on my case, but the PCP who specializes in care giving, more specifically hospice. We made a decision to alter my medicine and this alteration is significant for I will abstaining from some quite powerful class II narcotics for
Methadone
which immediately conjures an image, positive or negative in one's mind. And although the decision was one that was thought medically to be the best choice for pain management as my internal systems decay it also has ramifications for me as far as perception and what I have always thought methadone to be verses what it truly is. Methadone is currently being used as one of the most effective drugs to treat chronic and severe pain. I assumed it was used for strictly heroine withdrawal.

The end result is further comfort and preservation of dignity and I listened intently as the doctor spoke to me, aside from the others present and I knew he was asking my spiritual readiness to make such a switch.

I immediately sensed that to entertain Methadone I was understanding the finality of my terminal state and the fact that my life could be calculated now in days, possibly months but certainly no more years in his opinion.

And I felt at peace with my decision, knowing I still hold hope and cling to borrowed time but often see shadows that are not part of this 'life'.

staggered start

Through self discovery or possibly something as complex as trying to sleep while my thoughts, some concrete and some so completely irrational that the thought of the thought scares me more than the actual thought, I learned of my need for a staggered start.

Instead of multi-tasking and multi everything else, I forced myself to slow down, especially in the morning and allow it to continue over the course of hours rather than a few minutes, possibly a little longer if I had nothing planned mid-morning.

The calm it brings to my physical body is soothing. The mental, a sense of false, but wanted, control, over what is me entirely and the spirit just hovers above, around and sometimes flies afar teaching me peace and tranquility when I call their names.

The concept is simple:
a staggered start and the rewards are too great to mention but the need to 'just be' and 'just do' is much easier said than done. It has and continues to take practice, conscious thought and a desire as I still am tempted to fight my own philosophy of being clinically and pharmaceutically ZEN. I am able to allow what is left working, work and give what needs rest, rest and express what is important, allowing the remainder time to absorb.

If I stagger start my medication by dosage and type, I am so much more likely to notice the effectiveness whereas; When I take all of my morning medication, as labeled in the morning, the initial hours while each is absorbed and does as it is prescribed with the correct neurotransmitter and organ can be a time of intense anxiety, emotional and physical rushes that eventually calm, but never appear when the same 'portfolio' is administered under a staggered start because I am allowing absorption to take place.

My beginning, my body and my ending are altered and I like the result. It may take me a little longer to 'get there' than I am accustomed to, but I still get there and the things I have seen along the way are more defined, remembered and simply enjoyed and since I seldom can remember what it felt like to really 'feel good', any indication of that feeling is welcomed, unconditionally.

If I stagger start a meal, concentrating on the preparation, the taste and the texture over a period of prep, cook and eat, I am more likely to appreciate the wholeness, concentrate on my bites and lesson the attack a full meal has on my internal organs. I feel better and therefore it tastes better which makes me want or even suggest a dessert and when I am full, I have some left for later grazing, about the time my body is craving a left-over or I am slumped over in pain from all left to absorb.

If I stagger start a conversation with a person, we each play the role of active listener and often talk longer about issues of quality and substance instead of losing air time to talk of the weather and trying so desperately to remember what was said. I look forward to future conversations as I see the last as full of quality and commitment, not judged or juried but accepted.

Staggered starts have given me a 'go with the flo mentality' and force me to concentrate on my 'agenda' and that of anothers without manifestations of negative self images and gloom hovering about me and those that currently stand beside me in person or otherwise.

Easier said than done, I practice staggered starts as the alternative has proved overwhelming, often times complicating that which is too complicated from onset. The benefits I receive are worth slowing down for and the rest, their is no time to worry over non-spilt milk.

losing religion

I am not sure where or how I had the profound thought that religion was going to have to be addressed during this 'phase' of my life, hoping by some miracle that I would be avoiding the issue altogether but knowing that humanism would show itself time and time again making the idea of not talking religion or much philosophy 'for that matter', a no-brainer.

The bottom line, I am a deeply spiritual being and have always believed myself to be such without fancy titles, stained glass windows, bible study and tiding. And as my illness advances I lean on my spiritual to help explain that which is too surreal, too unimaginable for me to comprehend and the fact that I have had spiritual conversations with those that matter most, me and my G-D, only solidifies my belief in the something out there is greater and energy does not die mentality.

The foreshadowing of the bright lights, the paths of an unknown origin and my daily ability to cope have not even entered into my conviction, my spiritual conviction. However, my dealing with people and often human beings having a spiritual experience and not the reverse brings religion to the fore front of my thinking as I am disturbed (out of a lack for another word or words) at the number that continue to 'push' religious thought and teaching, their understanding as the only truth, the only path I should follow. The fact that their beliefs, meant well, but are different than my own, does not STOP them from speaking their chosen words or giving me their favorite religious book, saying or otherwise, it only increases in frequency and one reason I try to avoid religion in my conversation.

I have witnessed a number, and the count is greater than first imagined, define my illness by their G-D like attitude, their RELIGION, leaving nothing for chance in a world that I believe is SPIRITUAL. My mind cannot be altered and the topic of religion on Sunday, closed for discussion and understandably so, even more in the here and now, does little to comfort me and my soul. It becomes another opportunity for others to try to re-affirm their religious conviction with me, around me and about me, as the only way, the TRUTH and I find the conversation more irritating than soothing, the props and a few acts not random kindness, but rather their selfless or selfish attempt to gain attention of a higher power, making sure that I am CONVERTED on their terms and their terms only, set by the laws that they believe to be true and factual.

And although stories have been shared of others they know having experienced a terminal illness, those beliefs now tossed my direction, were once tossed the direction of those 'others' and did not keep the others from death and dying and will not keep me from death and dying either.

Instead, they are able to re-affirm their religious posture, look at mortality and try to define its meaning through man-made words crafted to be those of G-D. This allows them to try to understand something that I fully do not and they do not either, terminal illness. It is comforting to believe that one is in 'G-Ds hands' and preferably, their G-D, not the G-D of the one who has passed or is nearing the end of life. We believe what we understand and accept as truth. We share our truth with another, hoping they will validate our truth. Religion is something that although deeply personal, is often questioned and needs validation through the spreading of a gospel, the word of G-D.

Amazingly on this day, as all others in the past that I can remember, each person has a different interpretation of the word of G-D, a message taught by man and woman and by spreading that word, one is able to better accept and deal, even understand a part of life, a part that I believe is spiritual and sacred to be left up to individual thought and interpretation and pondered not always as fact, but as a way of viewing 'things', symbolically, metaphorically, self expressed to comfort the mind of those left behind, not those who's energy has changed form through already having experienced death.

I will continue to listen and accept with kindness, words and tokens and symbols of another's religious experience. I will be a spiritual being through human experience and realize that a human being through a spiritual experience is different and too often seen as 'the way', many times, the 'only way', or religion.