Christ how scary the start of this week was.  I was under the impression that my w/d just re-appeared.  I never heard of that happening.  I started to cry because a) the pain again  and b) am i going to have w/d pain this bad forever?  c)who the HELL will believe a 24 year old calling the doc or hospital saying "i stopped drugs a while ago, and now w/d symptoms just arrived.  right.  can anyone say drug seeker?  I knew my doc would believe me, but his new reception is horrible.  You can tell by their voices that they didnt give a **** and my story sounded like i wanted to get more drugs from my doc.  It took over 48 hours, 2 faxes, 5 phone calls, just to talk to him.  By then i had it figured out.  
My best friend from grade school has finished med school, so i call him sometimes to get some pointers (and i help him with his electronics)  After the w/d, i was still achy on day 16.  I was dumb enough to accept some suboxones and 2 mg of that every other day was fantastic!  My friend had thought that taking that little suboxone was virtually inexistent, so i was congratulated, clean, and done.  Though i had the same daily aches, it was minimal.  Morning head aches were easing.  life was GREAT.  Some time later, BAM, full w/d again.  So the suboxones f***ed me.  Now i gotta do this one more time.  The pain today is pretty low.  Though i slept terribly.  Guess it's good its the weekend.  I'd say today feels like day 6 from last time.  Still pain that wont let you forget its there, but the yawning and tearing is WAY better.  If there is anything i learned it's just to take the pain in its entirety.  There are no short cuts.  Winners don't quit and Quitters don't win.  I think i have another 2 days of the w/d cycle before it starts to get better and better, which may take up to 21 days.  The advantage i think i have is that though yea, a fist full of oxycodone would be nice.  I've run short on pills so many times that i've done maybe 8 single week w/d over the last years.  The prospect of not needing those pills, the ability to think again, it's beautiful. I always deny it, but my body has been hit by a train these last years.  If a man scared of shots and pain can go into heart surgery with a smile on his face and tears from his fathers, If i can sit in the same chair my late mother sat in during her chemo and receive my own, if i can fight back and get my kidneys to work again, if i can just cold turkey hard narcotics, if i can accept LP after LP, trachea scopes, hourly blood draws, and the psychological outcome of 1000 days of the only social interaction i get is from doctors saying "Well the tests show you're f***ed, take some more meds.", I know i can handle whatever it takes to be off narcotics.  I don't want them.  My life has been on pause for three years, i want to hit the world. yes.

Well i must say that i am doing much better then expected.  Quite possibly because i expected the pain of day 5 to last for weeks.  This was hardly the case.  I am still experiencing the weaker of the w/d symptoms, but nothing serious.  Eyes tearing (mainly from excessive yawning) , restless sleep, light RLS, and some body aching.  It was funn the other day i went out to lunch with my friend and when i shared with her my progress, she stopped for a second and then asked "... so, are you in pain right now?"  I guess it must have been the inflection in my voice and how i answered, "oh, yea!"  she found it quite amusing.  Perhaps the ability to joke and laugh through an ordeal such as this?  She has known me well before i got lupus in college.  It becomes easier and easier to dissassociate myself from the present situations and see where i have been, where i am, and where i want to be.  It's odd that all three can be increased simultaneously.  Looking back, i recognize that i almost died, many times.  I needed those narcotics to get through it all.  This releases my guilt for starting narcotics.  Looking at all the independence i have regained, how much more strength i have, how much stamina, though still not where i used to be before it all, it is a phenomenal jump from where i was even 6 months ago.  Knowing my past helps me guruantee results in my future.  I know i once could, therefore the survivalist in me has pushed aside the ungratefeul and lost self and took control of me.  You would be suprised how hard it is to integrate from one  to the other.  There are checks and balances.  Rules, new ways of life, new behaviours, new routines, etc.  Its almost as intense a difference if gravity shifted 45 degrees, how thw world would change if we all walked crooked.  That's how i feel.  In a world full of crooked walkers, i'm the only one standing the way i am.
As an engineering student, i never ever believed in human emotions relating in any way to the world around us.  Therefore i would never have thought the opioiod battle would have anything to do with strong will, its simply a physical reaction regarding chemicals and "stuff" in your brain.  But the best way i can think to persuade a skeptic as i once was is knowing that the emotions is just like a nav system to our thoughts.  It's easy to come up with 10,000 things you don't want in life.  It's harder to pick one thing and stick with it.  This is what i know i must do.  But if i can keep this up, i'll have exercised more restraint and discipline then even the most positive image i can create in my mind.  How surreal the coming year will be.  

Wow, it can be done.  And there are so many things i uncover each day that is a benefit to being non-dependent to opoioids.  Family didn't even really notice, so either they are used to seeing me miserable, or i've got the only observant genes in the family.  
Christmas eve i knew was the last chance to pull off the holiday on this side of the year, so i lost the sweats, cleaned up in a nice suit and hit the stores.  Though thinking was a slow process that day, i did it.  My first excursion from being at home hurting for so long.  And i even lost my car in a damn parking lot, i'm an idiot.  I thought i was going to die, i just wanted my tylenol and phone.  
I even have some suboxones, but i'm happy to feel that i do not want them.  I never woud have belived that the feeling of comfort and happiness while without narcotics is just about as blissful as a fist full of Percs.  I'm so proud of myself.  Yes.

Before it all: July '04 Lupus pops in my system, destroyed heart valve and some, open heart surgery, kidney disease.  the disease was causing my body to retain water.  Went from 160 to 210.  That was horrible pain.  I guess that was when it started.  I was taking oxycontin, morphine, percocets, you name it.  It's a hard road to get past multiple diseases and organ failures.  And whats the obvious solution?  DRUGS!  I tried to go back to engineering school very soon after heart surgery, but on my drugs i was lucky to understand gravity let alone the contextual subjects being taught.  From this point, though i don't think i admitted it to myself, i knew i could never regain what i lost while on narcotics.  A year later, i dropped from 80mg oxycontin per day down to 6 5/325 percocets.  I was so proud, for withdrawals on those is something i would never wish on my worse enemy.  My doctor now is very insistent on tapering my dose to get me off.  My problem is that its been half a year on 4 percs a day, and the last 2 months i have gone to go to 6 per day!  This last dose i received 150 pills for 30 days.  i went through them in 2 1/2 weeks.  Big slap in the face here, i need to stop.  So Monday the 17th was my last pill.  I've been through hell with lupus, years of pain.  I am confident that i can wait it out.  The physical pain is starting to be controllable, but psychologically i'm falling apart.  And i choose to dry out before i go Christmas shopping.  Smart move.  Any advice wisdom or support would be appreciated.
--Adam