OxyContin was a drug I had the chance to try, back in 2013, when my friend Curt had cancer. He told me it was as good as morphine but the visuals he got from it were a hell of a lot better. He offered to give me one of the pills, and I declined. I was still working in an environment where a urinalysis test was a possibility. I wasn’t tested on a regular basis, but any sort of workplace accident would bring one on. There was little reward for getting stoned and throwing away twenty years of work.

When I was in the hospital for diverticulitis, they cut me open, cut out a piece of intestine, and they sewed be back up again, then hit me with OxyContin.

It was one of the most pleasurable experiences of my entire life.

When I closed my eyes, I saw waves of colors and patterns and all sorts of fun things. It was like being on some really clean LSD that put a projector in my mind. At some point, there was this huge black, scaled dune, that rolled towards me. It was blacker than black, no shine to it at all, but like an emptiness with a shape, that moved. That was the most awesome thing I have not really seen in my entire life.

My body felt totally clean of any pain. There wasn’t anything that didn’t feel good, because I couldn’t feel anything at all. Those people who spoke with me during this time told me I was very nearly, almost lucid, when I talked about how good this drug was.

After two days of bliss, the doctor did two things; the first was he removed the catheter. That caused a spike in the pain. It also meant I had to get up to pee. The next thing he did was take me off OxyContin, which meant when I got up, I sure as hell felt it.

The next four days I fought hard to get to my feet, and it hurt like hell every time I stood up.

After my discharge from the hospital, the doctor wrote me a prescription for OxyContin. When I got home, I threw it into the trashcan, never to be seen again. One thing I am certain about in this life, is that pain is a useful tool to tell you what not to do, and what is damaged because of something that you did, or something that happened to you.

One thing I know for a certainty about myself, is I have an addictive personality. I get hooked easy on things I like a lot, and I go back to those things often.

So away it went. Even the possibility that some drug like that might be in my life was too much. I rather deal with the sharp stabbing pain of standing up, and the realization it was not as bad as the day before, than be numb to this experience. I knew what was helping because of pain. I knew what not to push because of pain. I knew when I was getting better because the pain was going away.

Do people with cancer need this drug? Without a doubt. Do people need it after surgery? Hell yes. But does everyone need the same level of pain killer, all the time, for all things? No. Sometimes we need the pain to tell us what we need to hear, whether we like it or not.

Take Care,
Mike

Mike writes regularly at his site:  The Hickory Head Hermit. Opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the management of this site.