- from Repo Men, 2010. Song - Moloko - Sing It Back

Gotta love it... Over break, eye was the recipient of a LOVELY abscess on m'eye thigh. It started out as pain, then to hardness, then to discoloration (pink, purple, yellow, green) over about 1/3 the front of m'eye thigh. Then the discoloration faded away and it just turned into a big, regular abscess. It actually came up quite quickly, up to the point where the layer of skin covering it was very thin. It was obnoxious throughout the whole process, from before eye was sure what it would become, through the stage of it "becoming," as an abscess, cutting it open, packing and cleaning it every day, all the way up to stitching - every day walking, getting up, being in certain positions - all painful. Angel had to cut a three-inch long opening. It ended up being an inch deep (he didn't cut THAT far down, eye think half an inch or so, but the infection itself made it that deep) and half an inch wide. Night after night, squeezing m'eye nails into the side of m'eye thigh as a distraction, harder depending on what he was doing - packing in gauze is the worst, by the way. After the infection was cleared out, which took about a week or so, he stitched me up. These are the first stitches eye've ever had. Eye watched this scene of Repo Men on the last night of cleaning and then stitching, eye wish eye'd thought of it earlier. And it would be lovely to have some kind of material that automatically seals wounds, like they have in this scene.

The same night he started the thigh abscess process, he said he wanted to "just check" the one on m'eye hand, to see how far down it went, he was going to make "just a tiny cut." Trickery! He made the cut, then said, "Oh, it's farther down than eye thought." Cut more, then started squeezing. Squeezing an abscess on a bony area feels completely different than a fatty area. Then he cleaned it up and bandaged it. We haven't done anything else with it, but it appears to need one more cut and squeeze session. There was a tiny one on m'eye arm that had opened on its own and occasionally leaked out in two spots, and he squeezed out that one, too. One of m'eye friends decided to start calling me Spongebob because of all of the holes in me.

This morning while running across the street to catch the bus, eye slipped and fell on the ground. M'eye water and juice bottle spilled out of their side pockets of m'eye backpack and rolled away. There was a car in a different lane, and they stopped for me, even though eye wasn't in front of them. Eye'm lucky that the road was pretty clear of cars, but it was terrifying, imagining some car not seeing me and just running over me. Eye have a scraped knee, elbows, and palms, but the stitches are intact.

Eye'm liking school, eye seem to have remembered more of Spanish from last semester than eye would have expected. Our last in-class assignment that involved formulating and answering questions in Spanish, involving the material we had just learned, plus how to formulate sentences and vocabulary from last semester - we had to do it with a partner, then the professor went around the class asking us each for an example. We both thought that we didn't do well, but we did it just as we were supposed to do. We have an upcoming Anthropology assignment that amuses me - we have to ride a hotel elevator for about half an hour and observe "the customs of riding an elevator in Vegas."

Well, eye have about half an hour before eye have to head toward class, so eye'm going to attempt to catch up on blogs.

*P.S. - Sorry if comments aren't showing up... something's up with this site on this computer.  

Back to the Swing of Things

Yeah it's been a while.  Busy with school, then a lazy week of dope, Dilaudid, and sleeping pills, then school computers were closed as eye curled up sick in bed or ran around attempting to make money.  Eye DID on and off keep up with most people's blogs, but cannot comment to them by phone, and if eye log into m'eye own blog on the phone, it shuts the stupid thing off.

School started today, appeal went through, obviously.  Eye did... decently.  Last semester gave me three B's and an A, though eye spent the last weeks of the semester freaking out that eye'd fail everything, which eye usually think.  The times eye didn't think that were back when eye was fucking off school & thought eye could fix it all with the finals.  Tuesdays and Thursdays, eye get to sleep in, then go take care of an online class, and have an in-person class at 5:30.  Mondays and Wednesdays, first class is at 10:00, then eye have an hour and a half in-between, and another class at 1:00.  Anthropology, Logic, Philosophy, and the one that makes me nervous is second-semester Spanish.

Angel found his biological father.  He found the phone number and address online a year ago, but was too scared to call him.  He finally did, right around the end of the semester.  It wasn't at all the joyous reunion he'd hoped for.  His father's wife listened in, Angel was someone she wanted to pretend doesn't exist because at the time he was born, his wife was pregnant - he was in the military and the two were separated at the time, the father and Angel's mom were "shacking up" at the time on the military base, and at the same time, she was married too, but living away from home.  Fun stuff.  Anyway, his father kept asking/telling him about child support, asking if he's SURE that's not the reason he's calling, and saying that he had nothing to give.  What he wants is a father figure, not some dude's money, and eye doubt someone can get child support back-payments long after they're an adult, anyway.

Winter break wasn't too pleasant.  School library - closed.  Angel - gone to his mom's out of state.  Me - at first had extra Dilaudid, but stupidly decided BINGE, not Save!  He owed me $80 and anyway, and was expecting Christmas money from his grandparents, which they send to his mom every year.  Eye attempted to cash m'eye own money order which was for rent, would have spent the $80 he owed me, put the rest back in another rent money order with the landlord's name on it (which yes, eye could manage, eye DO have self control, DUH - last semester's drug stash lasted through the semester, and any time eye have jobs, eye can ration to get through til the next pay day.) That didn't work, so eye just sold off some gift cards, (which would've been next after that $80) but that doesn't last forever.  So, Christmas was spent huddled in the back bedroom, alone, half dose for the day.  Day after Christmas, had a Suboxone, half worked.  Lived off of old cottons for a couple of days, which kept me from vomiting everywhere, but still felt rather crappy.  Ended up with another gift card to sell.  New Year's was a repeat of the time around Christmas.  Ended up seeing the landlord while in quite an insane sleep-deprived state.  Edges of poster and wall moving, flashes of light and mini-hallucinations, flight of thought and ideas that ranged from actual good ideas to just silly and impossible.  Sensory overload - eye could hear the TV volume loud & clear on level 1, ther back neighbor who'd moved out - eye still heard him taking a bath every day, and with the phone on silent, eye could still hear a CLICK every time a text came in.  Eye let one of our tweeker "friends" run off to sell a card for me, and never saw him again, but hell - desperation.  "You can run a junkie around everywhere and they'll do anything, long as they think dope's coming at the end."  During the first encounter with detox in his absence, quite the lovely suicide note was written, but obviously eye didn't bother buying a nice big blade.  Angel's mom HATES me, she didn't give him cash to make sure nothing was going to me, she went with him to buy stuff for himself, instead, listened to all of our phone conversations, etc.  So - nothing from him.  Barely eeking by included two credits, which eye had to pay back double to get, and a bit of.... compromise here and there.  Dying veins and impatience led to the lovely experience of hitting an artery, and two horrible abscesses, which we're getting rid of later tonight.  The night before he came back, eye had a nightmare that a friend took me to a cabin, eye overslept til noon, so didn't end up getting back in time to pick him up from the bus station at 7am.   Awake, sick, and in the tub, eye turned on the dying cell phone to a text message from him saying he knows about this and that, thanks for not picking him up, don't bother coming home.  Woke up to a call from him saying he'd be home in about an hour, get up and go to meet him, we're getting loaded.  Nightmare over, the dream and the living one from when he was gone.

We have a new neighbor, who may be bipolar, or may be a tweeker or something.  Eye heard him moving around back there (his back wall is attached to our back bedroom - the house was a three bedroom house that the landlord converted to a studio and two-bedroom) at all hours for days and days, and then all of the sudden - nothing for an entire day or so, and then started hearing him again yesterday.  He moved in about four or five days before Angel got back.

Well, now bills and such for this while semester are pre-bought, eye have money orders already made out to the people they need to go to, eye have MORE than enough set aside for school books, and eye'm set for three months drug-wise, and have other money for things like cat food, cigarettes, etc.  Eye have pretty much a guaranteed summer job, where eye've worked before and we parted on good terms.  What eye need to figure out in between school and then, is a source of income to set myself up for rainy days, the bad times ALWAYS come eventually, and eye don't want to go through anything like Christmas break unless eye choose to at some point.

Well, it's off to go do a price-check on school books.  Nice as SOME of the vacation was (like the very beginning and the final six days), it's nice to be back in the "swing of things."

Backfire!

Last night, oh around 3am, still not asleep and needing to be, eye decided that it would be fine to have an extra shot, after all, hadn't done extra in a couple days & can every once in a while, plus it would be easier to go relax, right?

HAHA!  Yeah, right!  Instead, it turned into a 2-hour vein hunt, during which Angel woke up and pretty much just made some snide comments and then ignored me.  Half of shot went to an area that APPEARED to be sort of working, but was not.  So now there's a bloody-shot miss right under an abscess (yeah he's right it was a dumb move to even attempt there but ah well.) The rest went nowhere because soon as it was settled, clog!  If eye'd left the ol' arms alone for another day, something probably would have worked fine, but NO eye have to poke around even when eye know nothing's going to happen (like this morning for example, what the hell?)  Also a stupid result of last night, poor Melody got about 5 messages from me about the entire event.  Just what everyone wants to wake up to, a whole lot of complaining, right?

This morning, after obligatory attempts, just flat out asked him to help me instead of dropping hints.  Eye totally forget sometimes how men think, like either they won't get the hint, or they get mad at you because you just didn't come out and say it.  Saying "would" instead of "could" you help with something is important, too.  So yeah, now wrist and the "little" one's bruised area hurt terribly.  Probably should go, get home, because who knows how long it'll take to map out a different area, retire the arms a while for sure.

So, had eye chosen to just go to bed without any "help," eye probably would have gotten to sleep a lot earlier.  That's cute.

Having a HELL of a time getting up in the morning this week.  This is the reason eye don't like winter.  And with daylight savings time, how it gets dark so early?  Goodness, it still messes with me.

Public Service Announcement

So many mistakes are made when it comes to using heroin or other opiates (this targets injected opiates), so here are some suggestions and warnings for people.

Being addicted is quite unpleasant when it comes to withdrawal.  (See previous post.)  If you're going to use in the first place, do not use more often than 8 hours of a day, and wait at least 72 hours until you use again.  (Sources - heroin helper, other users & addicts.)  That takes care of the physical part.  But watch out for "mental" addiction that makes it easier to forgo the rule.  If your clean days seem less worthwhile than the day you use, a problem is developing.  (Source - Gledwood's old blog.)  Consider cutting down your frequency, or stopping altogether.

Do not share not only needles, but equipment as well (cottons, cookers, etc.)  Be very wary of getting "clean" needles from other people - look for it coming out of a sealed package, with the cap sealed on, ensure it does not have a little spot of blood, and in the United States at least here - a clean needle's plunger is not pressed all the way to the bottom, it has about 5 units or so of space/air in it.  Better to just get your own.  And if other people are injecting in your house, WATCH what they do with their needles, so they are not confused with yours.  Do not underestimate the potential for disease, do not trust that people would not infect you on purpose.  (Source - http://memoiresofaheroinhead.blogspot.com/2011/10/killing-fields.html)

Abscesses are terrible!  They come from impurities (little pieces of dirt, cut in the dope, pill fragments, etc.) Filter, filter, filter!  Then LOOK at the needle to see if there is a little piece of cotton on it, pull it off, wash the needle in full-blast water. (*Cotton fever can aslo be avoided this way.)  Wash it even if you don't see anything.  Then, keep the cap on until you are about to inject.  Whenever possible, clean off the spot you're going to use for injection, preferably with an alcohol wipe.  Avoid intramuscular injection and skin-popping if possible, and if you get blood in the syringe, avoid putting it back into anywhere but a vein.  If it starts clogging/coagulating, it's best to dump it back into a cooker, add water, re-cook, re-filter.  While injecting into a vein, if it starts to hurt, pull back and check if you're still in the vein, and re-register if necessary.  (Sources - other addicts/users, bluelight, heroin helper.)

Veins, for some people, can be extremely hard to come by.  If a person uses for long enough, even the people who started out with "ropes" very well may have vein issues.  Avoid the whole "track mark" thing - injecting into one spot til it stops working, then following that vein all the way up til the whole thing is dead.  Rotate injection sites as often as you can.  If/when you begin to get to the point your veins are dying out, avoid "pointless" shots.  Don't do cotton/filters/rinses unless there are no other options & you're ill.  Don't shoot up just for the hell of it, and there's no reason to shoot up 8 + times a day - pretty much anything after 5 or 6, you barely even feel it.  Purchase needles frequently, use fresh ones whenever possible, and switch needles if you've made several attempts to do one injection.  Dull & barbed needles do further damage to veins.  (Sources - other addicts & users, bluelight, own dying veins that were small & difficult to begin with!)

Eye don't have the absolute best answer for China White, but at least when it comes to tar - COOK your dope.  Some people say that it shouldn't be cooked because "Heroin is water-soluble and cooking it makes the impurities break down & can also get in your mixture."  Well, bacteria's pretty tiny, too, and can easily get into your needle.  Heat can kill bacteria.  Think some Mexicans haven't rolled an actual piece of FECES into an extremely big block of heroin, in their middle-fingered spiteful salute to Americans?  Ha!  Think again (source - someone who's been there for an instance like this.)  (And before the comments just fly in about "how can you still use it, knowing a story like that - disgusting!  Well...first off, there's that whole heat killing bacteria thing.  And think you've never been served food after someone hasn't washed their hands?  It's more common than you think.  People spitting in food does also happen.  Do you still go out to eat?)  This bacteria can lead to tissue or blood poisoning.  This can be fatal.  (Source - the hooker who used to come over to beg for free cottons off of me, which eye willingly provided, last year eye was 100% disease free which is still true unless someone slipped me something during sleep or switched a needle while eye wasn't looking, and eye DO watch - which is possible but unlikely...  but she also didn't care & was under the mistaken impression that "once AIDS hits air, it dies." You could not tell her differently.  She boiled down cottons, but eye never saw her cook actual dope.  She died of MRSA, an infection she developed from uncooked dope, about six weeks ago.)

Be very wary of letting someone go off to score drugs for you if you do not know them.  Especially when they are an addict, especially to a different drug!  It's especially suspect if they say they'll do it for free or $5 or less.  (Source - own, embarrassing! stupidity.) It tends to be less likely to happen if it's someone like say, your long-term neighborhood homeless person with whom you have shared previous conversations, and you offer to get them a bag.  After all, you see them pretty often, they're unlikely to run off somewhere, and if they're getting something too, there's no real reason to screw you.  Eye hear you can also make similar offers to people at methadone clinics, but have never attempted it, myself.

Um... don't drive or operate heavy machinery while nodding out.  (Source - common sense.)

"Drugs are bad, m'kay?"  (South Park)

And now, back to your regularly scheduled program.