Lost in Transition

Day 1 (100mg Oxycontin 0mg Methadone)
The transition began today from taking 120mg of oxycontin daily for the past four months. After lunch, within a few hours of starting the Catapress patch I had to lay down but instead wrote a dramatic blog entry comparing cancer to medieval battle, without catapults. The strength of the patch washes over me in heavy waves. It's slightly intoxicating, causes mild drowsiness, and itches slightly. I'll take the Cymbalta tonight for the first time.

Day 2 (100mg Oxycontin 40mg Methadone)
This morning I took my first dose of methadone. Apparently it takes days to build up in your system to generate the desired effects. I woke up with chills and feeling a bit feverish. Haven't seen babies crawling on the ceiling yet. It's mid-afternoon and I definitely feel doped but oddly am a bit jumpy and amped up as well. The patch on my arm continues to itch.

Day 3 (100mg Oxycontin 40mg Methadone)
I think I might have taken a tranque dart to the jugular. I can barely adjust my focus on the keys, probably have the pulse of an elephant, and am rocking a serious case of continmouth. Going down hard for a nap...poot scoots style. At PT they thought the hand looked great. My fingers straightened quite a bit. Six months was a bluff. That was almost impossible to write... Late afternoon: feeling better...while eating some grapes, I opened the cabinet door to put back the mesh grape-washing thingy and realized I had stuck the bag of grapes in its place.

Day 4 (80mg Oxycontin 40mg Methadone)
Although I woke up feeling the least sick so far, I've reduced my morning dose (and the afternoon dose) of oxycontin by 10mg. In general, the pain is doing fine. Even with there being more pain in my forearm, this new cast doesn't have he sting of the last one. After waking up from falling asleep during lunch, I was slightly behind on my meds and felt a bit off. Other than chronic narcolepsy, I'm doing pretty good (or faily well, your choice).

Day 5 (80mg Oxycontin 40mg Methadone)
Day five was the easist day so far. With the introduction of caffine, the drowsiness was signifigantly decreased and the withdrawal symptoms were hardly noticable. Probably a good idea since I rode around the farm all afternoon on a Kawasaki Mule with a 2 year old and three year old riding shotgun. Just before going to bed, I fell asleep standing up in front of the TV. Rad PS Bret made his choice.

Day 6 (80mg Oxycontin 40mg Methadone)
Very similar to yesterday, except without the farm, Mule, caffine and small children to stimulate things. (Keep your mind out of the gutter. That's not what I meant about small children stimulting me) Ash and I were at Duke most of the day. Currently we are still waiting on the results from the CT chestscan.

Day 7 (40mg Oxycontin 40mg Methadone)
Chestscan clean. I could spend the whole day like John Belushi's last visit to Chateau Marmont and still feel great. Even with the dosage cut in half, I mde it through the day feeling pretty good and not overly drowsy. The six iced teas at lunch might have helped somewhat with the latter. Had a little trouble sitting still and watching a movie...kinda jumpy with no attention span. Could just be a bad movie.

Day 8 (40mg Oxycontin 40mg Methadone)
Felt great. Gave into drowsiness and took a nap after lunch, one before dinner, and went to bed at 9pm. Sleep rules!

Day 9 (40mg Oxycontin 40mg Methadone)
After nine hours of sleep, I woke up at 6am. I felt a bit off and couldn't rally focus my eyes. After a 9am acupuncture treatment, my head and eyes were totally clear. During the transition, Marc has focused my two a week treatments to help ease the transition. Dad and I double-dated a lunch meeting with a buddy of mine, Hooper, and his three year old. Very productive meeting... The rest of the day went well, nicely completed with Abbitt and assorted cheeses.

Day 10 (20mg Oxycontin 40mg Methadone)
I'm not sleeping well because of all the water I have to drink to avoid dry mouth and I'm pretty much always really tired. The pain is still OK and I'm not having any withdrawal symptoms at all from such a small dose. By the third casting my hand is really getting stretched out. It's close to straight.