Hazy with a Chance of Thunderstorms

In an effort to wean myself away from at least some of the multiple drugs I take, I have decided to stop taking any pain medications. After the craniotomy, they gave me nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, which I thought were working pretty well. One of the big side effects was erectile dysfunction. Not something I had to worry about. But after the stroke, all the NSAIDs had to go. Something about causing death. Higher dose NSAIDs increase the risk of stroke, which is not ideal if you are already at increased risk of stroke. My doctors thought dying would not be in my best interest. Enter the opioids.

Opioids have no political stigma around here like they do in the United States. Doctors prescribe drugs based on what they do, not how they are talked about on the evening news. Even so, I hated them right away. I felt the NSAIDs worked better, but as soon as you tell a doctor that, they just want to monkey around with different drugs and doses. No one ever says, “Hey, remember when you guys were giving me new drugs every week and trying to figure out which was best? Those were good times.” The risk of erectile dysfunction was quickly replaced with the very real side effect of itching.

Ask any man whether he would rather scratch himself or lose the ability to get an erection and you can pretty much guess his answer before he tells you. I don't know how it feels to be a man, but I would probably agree. I think about erections far less than most men, and they love to scratch themselves anyway.. Itching, however, is something I think about every day. It might sound like a minor annoyance, but I cannot think of any benefit to having an overwhelming urge to scratch yourself all the time. And there is no good reason for it.

After they cut your skull open and sew everything back together, nerve endings grow back. The sharp, stabbing pain quickly turns to itching. The skin on your scalp also itches as it heals. It is a pain in the ass, but temporary. All of that itching gradually fades away. Itching from opioids does not, at least for me. It is not a case of an itch indicating that something is healing. It is the drugs making random body parts, mostly arms, legs and head, itch for no reason.

Against medical advice, I stopped taking any opioids. I feel like shit. My current headache is nothing to write home about. After you have had your brain cut open and a stroke, most headaches feel like a walk on the beach. Instead of stabbing knives, it is more like someone hit me with a rubber mallet. Still not ideal, but preferable. I feel like I'm swimming in mud. The lethargy is nothing new, but now I am lethargic but unable to sleep. I tried to take a nap, but kept thinking the same thing over and over. It was not even anything good. It was a line of dialogue from something I have yet to write. The worst part is, it is not even a good line. This is like watching a bad movie that you can't get out of your head when there are so many good movies to think about instead.

For whatever reason, a haiku just crossed my mind.

My body aflame
It itches like a mother
I'd prefer limp dick

As soon as I put on a sweater because I'm cold, I have to take it off because I'm hot. If this is what menopause will look like, I am not looking forward to it. I'm a little nauseous, but that might be because I have not eaten anything today. I might want to work on that.

The kicker, the icing on la pièce de résistance, is that I still itch. I dumped the itching drugs because they made me itch, and now I am going through withdrawals and itching.

I don't know about anyone else, but when I feel like shit, my first thought is never, “Maybe I should type a blog post.” But I want to record how I feel in this moment. I will probably not post it publicly, but I will keep it here for future reference. I want to remember how I feel right now, but I don't feel like writing any detail about how I feel. And I have to stop typing every 30 seconds to scratch myself.

Maybe I do know how it feels to be a man.