Slowmoving's Journal

It seems as though I write one journal entry a month when I looked back, so since December is almost through I decided to write another entry. This has been an extremely rough month, one I hope and pray doesn't repeat itself, but I fear is.

At the beginning of the month, I went to my pain clinic and had another epidural. The upper part of my back was hurting to a point that I knew I had to do something. My oldest son, who lives with me with his girlfriend, took me to my appointment. I always have a rough time with the shots. In fact the Dr.s nurse said that she has never seen me come in and have a procedure without crying...He decided to move the epidural up, I had pains in my legs and upper back, since he couldn't increase the amount of medicine going in. My Son asked if he could be in the surgery room so that he could he see what they were doing. The Dr. agreed. About 3/4 of the way through my head started pounding, I couldn't move my eyes, and I couldn't hear for all the swooshing sounds. The Dr. immediately pulled the needle out and asked me to turn over. I couldn't move and it took him, the nurse, and my son to turn me over. I was dead weight. Then I couldn't track anything with my eyes. They took my BP and it had gone from 78/60 to 149/95. They told my son to leave the room. He was scared to death. After about 30 minutes my BP returned to normal. My poor Dr. said that I'm the only patient they have that everytime I come in something unusual happens. He has never had anyone respond to an epidural like that. So he gave me a script for dilaudid, 20 pills. I usually have extreme pain at the injection site for 2-3 days.

When we arrived back home, I went to bed with my ice pack and my son went and got my prescription filled. He brought me a glass of water and one dilaudid. I took it and about 30 minutes later I was still in extreme pain so I got up and went to the kitchen to get another pill. I looked in the bottle and thought that it sure looked empty. So I counted out the pills - there were 15 in the bottle. At that moment I knew where all my meds had been going...I walked into my son's room and told him to go back to pharmacy and get the pills that they had shorted me, knowing that he had taken them. I needed for him to admit it. Of course he refused to go to the pharmacy, but I persisted in my charade. Finally he said "I took them." I asked for them back, but then he said "no, I took them." He had taken 4 dilaudids and was still sitting up watching TV. I quietly said pack your bags and then closed his door. About 5 minutes later he came into my room crying. He said "I'm a addict and I need help." I never knew your heart could break like that. I stayed calm and told him that he needed to go to rehab. He said he wasn't leaving me to go to rehab. So I said you can't stay here unless you can come up with a plan to get clean. He agreed to go to see my therapist's husband. My son had lost his job about a month prior so he had no insurance and I'm just barely surviving on disability. I called my therapist's office and they said bring him in and they wouldn't charge us. So with my painful back we went to his office. My son saw him for about 30 minutes and then I went in afterwards. I wanted to know what I should and shouldn't do. He said "I can't help Joseph, he is too far into this. He needs intense treatment." I wanted to throw up at that point. He gave me several names of treatment centers, so we came home. I told Joseph that I would not make any more calls for him as this was a journey he would have to make on his own. He called all of the places and the cheapest one wanted $4,500.00 up front. There was no way I could come up with that kind of money, so I asked the woman on the phone where my son could get help. She gave us the name of a Dr. here in town that treats addicts. We called and they said to come in at 5:30. Remember this is still the same day that I had my epidural.  So again we went out and went to this new Dr. They had my son do a pee test, gave his script for Suboxone, and talked to us. The woman we saw called him late that night, twice the next day, and then on Friday he met with the Dr. again. The problem is that my son refuses to go to NA or any group. I have started going to al anon (my husband is an alcoholic) and narc anon. These 2 groups have been the best thing that has ever happened to me. I wish I had gone 10 years ago ( to al anon).

I have learned that I need to fix myself as I'm an enabler and codependent. What I'm worried about is that my son was doing great and Christmas came. This is the first year in my sons' lives that their father was not here. They did go to his house for lunch and he gave them gift certificates that he wrapped in tin foil. Now for the last several days, my son is "overly eager" to change my patch. I change it every 2 days instead of the normal 3. So I'm wondering if he is taking it off of me and then putting it on himself. I have learned that most addicts relapse very quickly. I need to decide what to do if he has relapsed. Do I kick him out of the house - knowing that he will have no where to go, or do I give him another chance with ultimatiums - he go to NA and go back on the Suboxone. 

The divorce hasn't been filed yet because my husband hired a lawyer to fight me on the alimony. Now I have no choice but to hire one and I've spent all the money that I've been saving on my son's treatment. We both have an appointment with a bankruptcy attorney on Monday. According to my husband's attorney, we need to file for bankruptcy before we get a divorce. I don't know if this is right, but I don't have an attorney to ask. In our area the only way a divorce lawyer will take your case pro bono is that you can prove in court that you  were abused. I never called the police when he hurt me, so I have nothing that I can use. I refuse to call my sons to the stand to testify against their father that he is an alcoholic and that he abused me.  It wouldn't be fair to them. They know he did and the older one witnessed it. That's when he started taking (stealing)  my meds. Then he started buying them elsewhere. If he hadn't lost his job, I wouldn't have discovered his use because he still would have had the money to buy it off the streets. He was just starting to use herion also.  (God works in mysterious ways). I can only hope that the new year brings us some relief....

If you stayed with this rambling story, thank you. Please keep Joseph and I in your prayers as I'm sure we are climbing an uphill battle - him with his addiction and me with the divorce and bankruptcy. My youngest son only speaks to his father if he needs money at school. His grades were horrible this semester and he dropped enough classes to that his hours were down to 9.

We will survive!