Who gave you YOUR medical degree?

I am in recovery. I have been continually clean for more than a quarter of a century.
Yes, I attend 12-step programs regularly.

I have blogging buddies who drink.
I have blogging buddies who use street drugs.
I have blogging buddies who do both.
I have blogging buddies who do neither.
I like them for who they are just fine.

I take pysch drugs as prescribed by one doctor filled by one pharmacy with no apologies to anyone.
If you are not one of my medical doctors, you don't get to tell me not to take them.
I was at a meeting once where well-meaning people told my friend to flush her psych meds down the toilet.
I was the one who took her to the emergency room sometime later to be admitted to the nutward.
Bad advice.

Pain meds are a necessity, period.
I used to work in a nursing home.
An older woman was dieing. She had leukemia.
She had refused all pain meds from the beginning of her illness.
She was screaming in pain.
The nurse tried to get her to accept a shot to ease her pain.
She would not do it.
She died screaming.

The kindest thing any health care professional can do for me on my deathbed
when my body is wracked with pain is to administer a morphine drip.
Other people are welcome to die screaming in pain.
I prefer not to, thank you very very much.

Cancer is painful.
Chemo is full of pain drugs.
Crohns's Disease is painful.
So is Degenerative Joint Arthritis as it progresses.
Guess what?
If I get one of those, I will take the pain meds.
I am not a martyr.

When I had my appendix out, I got put under.
When I had my severely impacted wisdom teeth out, the oral surgeon put me under.
when I got my nose fracture repaired, you can bet there was no way that I was going to consent to stay awake for that.
Medicine has come a very long way since using leeches for blood-letting.
And I am glad of it.
Five hundred years or so ago, appendicitis was a death sentence.

I am in recovery.
I have a few blogging buddies who are in recovery.
I have blogging buddies who aren't.
That is just the way I like it.
I celebrate diversity.

The highest insult that I can give another human being is to attempt to mold them into my image.

spike q.