Just a short message to let you all know I'm ok..well...not really ok, but I'm still alive. I popped another disk in my back and have spent the past few days immobile on the sofa.
Lots of people here making sure I eat and get the things I need, so please don't worry.
I'll be back when my back is back...er...you know what I mean.
Love you all!
Pye

I want to thank everyone who has sent me messages asking if I'm ok. Other than my natural inclination to go to sleep in January and wake up in May, I'm fine. Well..fine is a subjective word. If it weren't for the daily news, I would be fine. The headlines have really been a giant pea under my mattress and I find myself fretting way too much of the time. The attendant feeling of helplessness which accompanies the news makes me believe there is not an anti-depressant strong enough to soothe the nerves of the peaceful. I think the reason there are so many depressed people is because they feel they have no power over their own lives...and I can totally relate to that. Finding that power is my number one priority for 2007, if I can stay awake long enough to search for it.
Ciao for now, hope everyone is doing ok and hanging in there!
Warmest regards,
Pye

Pye is not the sort of person to become addicted, to anything. Moderation in all things has been my motto since youth. Yesterdays' ride into sleeplessness turned out to be more than just a fitfull night. By 3 am, I was feeling so ill that I felt compelled to call for help. Anyone who has experienced restless leg syndrome knows how impossible it is to achieve sleep under those circumstances; well last night my entire body felt that way.
It suddenly occured to me that the reason for this extreme discomfort was due to the fact I'd run out of one of my medications. I felt like such a weenie calling 911, but I was out of control and thinking about facing hours and hours of that was just not possible.
As fate would have it, I knew the people manning the rescue unit last night. Cindy was happy but worried to see me of course, and a blood pressure of 212 over 113 wasn't helping matters. It was decided I needed to be looked at so at 4 am Pye was riding in the back of an ambulance.
Folks, I had no idea! Having never experienced addiction, I was totally unprepared for what was happening to my body. As a result of what I went through last night, I feel I must warn people about these drugs even if they are being administered by a medical professional.
I don't like pills, but I like pain even less so I felt comfortable in following my doctors' advice in pain management. Had I known what happens in absence of those drugs, I don't think I would have touched them with a ten foot poll.
At the ER, my problem was seen as an unfortunate mixup and the answer of course, was to administer more drugs! At that point, I wasn't about to argue; but it is very clear to me now that I must start investigating other ways of managing pain and also how to manage the new fear I have in regards to getting off this drug; which by the way, is oxycodone. I have also gained a whole new point of view on people who become addicted to these things. Never thought I'd feel compassion for Rush Limbaugh, but after last night I now understand what people face when they have, by physicians prescription, become dependent on drugs. It was truly one of the worst experiences of my life! Last night I lived the song "Cold Turkey" for just a few short hours and now I could never wish that on my worst enemy.
My enquiry and concern over the danger of these substances was met with a "whadyagonnado" attitude in the ER. Yes, they are addictive, but there isn't anything else that eliminates pain so thoroughly. I don't believe that. I know I can find a better way...and at this point am willing to try just about anything if it will eliminate this drug from my life. It is painfully obvious to me that I will have to undergo some sort of drug rehab which really scares the willies out of me. My fear in going through that unbearable feeling again is of course the very thing that creates addicts! I'm afraid; but like so many times in my life, see the path that must be taken all too clearly.
So the next time you are faced with a person who has fallen into this hole, please don't judge them too harshly. It is a living hell - one I could not even fathom until last night. I would also warn you to avoid these narcotics at all costs, even for powerful, debilitating pain. Find another way; investigate ALL options before allowing yourself to be put in harms way under the guise of medical necessity. I use to think "what difference does it make?" If people are in that much pain, addiction to a drug is a less evil choice than the pain. I'm not at all certain I feel that way anymore. What happens if there is no way to get the drug? What would happen say, in a town where a certain percentage of the population is on prescribed narcotics, and the grid goes down? Emergency services will be overwhelmed by people who are bloody well out of their minds! It is no surprize to me, after what I went through, why some people would chose suicide over breaking addiction~ it's that bad...and I'm not one of those people who are crushing up the pills and injecting it into their bodies!! I am on a low maintenance dosage and I NEVER abuse it. Whoa Nellie, let me tell ya...learn to live with pain if there is any way you can...the alternative is so much worse. There is literally no contest now if I am faced with the choice of the "pain in my neck" or addiction to narcotics. I will learn to live with pain and God help me ~ eliminate oxycodone from my existence.
Pray for those addicted.
Pye

It's 1:30 am and I couldn't sleep. I got tired of lying in bed waiting to sleep, so I decided to get up and be busy until it finally comes...if it does.
I get to thinking some strange thoughts in the dark...like about knowledge. It occured to me that knowledge is really only pertinent in the moment and when you base a decision on "history", it's really about old knowledge. I use to wonder how people figured out things like what herbs to use in illnesses and what foods could be eaten safely, before there was a history to these things.
We modern people are disconnected from nature..and virtually all of our choices are based on past knowledge. If we need to know if something is safe, we just look it up. How did they know? Or did it take deaths for them to figure it out? Or, was something else happening? Perhaps they were connected to the "cosmic mind"...like the Native Americans were. If they needed rain, they spoke to Father Sky and asked for rain...they told their message of need to the frogs who relayed the message to the Rain for them...and then it rained. Maybe that same little voice that speaks quietly to me within myself and warns me of the deer about to jump in front of the car is the same voice that told them a particular herb or root was good for what ailed them...you see, it's always been my experience that things...talk to us. Like plants, and clouds and the Wind. Of course my first experience in relaying this to my elders was met with some fright..obviously I was insane or just brilliantly imaginative. But that wasn't it. I heard life speak to me, in so many ways and when I tried to discuss the knowledge I'd been told, the eyes facing mine grew rather large and incredulous. "Poor child, thinks trees talk to her..." Well, maybe it is my imagination, but I certainly can't even begin to wonder what life would be to me without that voice that speaks through all...the voice that always speaks of Oneness bound by Love. Okay...too deep?
Well, then I started thinking about BF "Hawkeye" Pierce..a character in a television show, but a character who seems to reflect myself back to me in odd beams and flashes. Funny...I don't see myself in Margaret, or Charles or BJ...or maybe just little bits in all of them, but Hawkeye is who I would be if I was a male doctor in a M*A*S*H unit in Korea during the last century...wow, during the last century...sigh. It's his irreverence and constant joking...yet he finds no joke in human suffering and is willing to put himself through equal or worse suffering for it...all the while poking fun at the ridiculasness of it all. He's a brave coward; a heckled heckler and feels just right in making his anger known...which is always about things he has no control over~ the war, the dying, the system...our own human frailty. I walk around in my house coat and slippers alot too...and though I don't own a still, I find ways to provide temporary escape from the madness, just long enough to work up the courage to go back out there again. Unlike my unhero, there are no bloodied bodies piling up around me...just wounded spirits. My frustration is is having no sutures to reseal their souls...no instruments with which to probe the gaping hole and remove the pain inside of them...only a gentle word and a hug to let them know I care. And I guess that's what I see in him that I feel in me...to care so deeply and so intensely that the body begins to quake and would come flying apart into molecules if it were not for that binding love. I have to steel myself to feel it...I have dull my mind occasionally, so I can feel it. I have to scream and cry and pound my fists sometimes...because I can't stop feeling it...and I know that if I were given the choice to continue caring so painfully or not feeling the pain and having no real awareness of it around me...well, I'd choose to feel, everytime. Why? I guess because it is in sharing that pain that I can join with others..and be one with them, if even for just a moment. I just wonder why it's easier to share their pain, than it is their love...I guess because we can't hold back our pain, and we do hold back our love...not only from each other, but from ourselves.
Well, it's been about an hour now and I guess I'll go try and convince Morpheus to take me. (Not that Morpheus..although I did swallow the red pill...)
Goodnight Mrs. Callabash, wherever you are.

The latest assault on the rights of Americans comes in the form of opening private mail without a warrant. Apparently the government feels it has the right to pry into the lives of everyone living in this country. At the same time, the AP is running a story about the White House blocking attempts of the people to read their 'guest books' to see who has been visiting their offices.
What I want to know is why is okay for the government to watch us like hawks, yet we have no right to watch them? Please, if anyone needs watching it's this administration.
Wouldn't you like to know what's going on behind the closed doors of the offices we pay the rent on? I'm not being paid to be a loyal American, yet these people are and how do we know if they are acting accordingly? If I were Dick Cheney, I'd be scared to let people know who I've been talking with...like the ongoing relationship he has with Halliburton. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all arrange government contracts that would increase our own personal weatlh. Why this relationship is not even being addressed is a mystery to me. Halliburton gets all the contracts to rebuild Iraq AND New Orleans but it has nothing to do with Cheney?? Do I look that stupid?? Are people even aware of the fact that when Dick took office and left Halliburton, he was awarded 31 million dollars..as what? a parting gift? Obviously it had nothing to do with business they might acquire while their former CEO plays Vice President...and pigs fly out my ass.