IF YOU DON'T WANT to hear about drugs, scabs, oozings and associated pussing; just scroll one post down to yesterday's leaping lambs:~ far more Positive Thinking...Right: you have been warned!
I WOKE UP into a classic tailspin last night. Have you ever done that?... well surely we've all done it once or twice; but have you done it lately? Y'know when you go "oh my life is ruined boo-hoo-hoooo..." etc etc... Then I slept through deeply until the Vanessa show on BBC London radio at 9am sharp. Vanessa always cheers me up.
MY WOUNDED LEG is healing nicely. It reduced from (at its worst) treble the size of my palm. One palm of blistering ("2nd degree burns") another palm of horrific bright red, dead white, deep purple, orange, pink and every burning psychedelic colour in between... ("1st degree burns")... and one palm more of patchy purple bruising... NONE of this infected; all the result of ONE single injection of literally half a millilitre (ie about a thousanth of a pint or a two thousanth of a litre) of yukky street heroin....
Well anyway (to recap the story) after my trip to casualty, my consultant's review a couple of days later and being properly dressed (not just me: I mean the wound was "dressed" too...) and being put on the strongest horse-pill antibiotics merely as a preventative measure...
I went to the local drugs service where they gave me a "dressing" with no padding. Of course it stuck on the top and pulled the top off all my blisters (how was I to know any better? Instructions said "dressing: put dressing on wound" so I did put it directly on top. So blood and gunge running everywhere, nothing to do but fold up a table napkin and stick that on top. Of course this stuck too and pulled my wound open yet again. (I think I spared y'all these details at the time as I'd stressed enough people out with my medical upheavals by this stage...) In the end, the remaining dead skin, which was lying atop this wound like sluggish, slack clingfilm I just peeled off, knowing the whole thing would just scab over... and sure enough with three hours of exposure to open air it duly did.
The only trouble is (and this happened to the little one on my arm which HAS duly healed)... the scab is loose in parts (and I'm NOT picking it), oozy and wet in others, intensely painful at one end. In short NOT the supersealed natural dressing it's meant to be, probably because the damage occured underneath and is rising up and out... yesterday in frustration I sat and squeezed it all out, all the blood and runny "pus" (blister-juice from under the scab) and saw that it is indeed healing even though not as gracefully as I'd hoped it would. About a week ago it was a large capital i shape with stalk and upper and lower bars two inches long... it is shrinking.
So that's my leg update! No more limping. No more nights of agony (and it really DID hurt: just like a severe blistering burn at worst)... it was more like a tropical spider-bite than an ordinary "wound"... the way the blisters kept spreading and blazing pain at me literally a week and more later. How ridiculous. Whatever Afghan or Turk put whatever rubbish in that "gear" deserves to be shot. Oh and it came back from the test as "benzodiazepines" not "barbiturates" which scuppers the blisters theory (barbiturates cause blistering as a standard symptom of overdose: benzos (Valium/Rohypnol-type drugs) are totally unrelated chemically to the (1950s, 1960s sleeping pills) barbiturates (phenobarbitone/phenobarbital, Seconal, Amytal, Tuinal are famous barbs but the dose is in the 50s, 100s of milligrams); benzodiazepines are less dangerous (unlikely to kill you in overdose) but many times stronger per milligram. E.g. Seconal came in 50 and 100mg capsules; Valium comes in 5 and 10mg... considering how out of it I was on this adulterated heroin I would surely have taken double or treble a "medicinal" dose of whatever adulterant found its way in there. Rohypnol (yes the infamous date rape drug) is willfully abused by junkies when they can get it. It causes memory loss (in a patchy type of way, not a total blackout)... the standard nighttime dose is ONE milligram... so my questions about what on earth this stuff that burned the hell out of my leg, practically had me walking into lamp-posts (Mother Hubbs, incidentally blames that gear on her near-"stroke" type occurance: she stood up and when BANG! down on the floor... but I wasn't there. Next day she did look to me like she'd had a stroke: face fallen, totally doped up (but not in any drugs-type of way I've ever seen...)... a £20 bag of heroin weighs minimum 400mg (ie 0.4g), whatever adulterant found its way in I'd suspect was pa small dose by weight but potent... (sorry is this boring you I'm puzzling aloud what on earth it could have been...)... well I'll stop babbling. If I did have barbs it wasn't within three days of the urine test I asked for... whatever damaged my "soft tissue" is still mystery. If you're young, depressed, lost and thinking heroin is the answer: take note and beware! Maybe one person really will read my tribulations and be put off and that, as the cliche goes, "really will make it all worthwhile"..!
On this note I'd better go. Take care everyone..!
PS Calling New York: I'm trying to get talk radio online from New York City... can anybody local please tell me the names of the local stations... what's 77 WABC like? Further Information Please!¬
PPS This was my message to Rush Limbaugh:
Hi Rush this is London calling. Found you online. Please don't let that faux-Martin Luther King impostor Obama get in... Hillary please. Us rest of the world are fed up of George W Bush and don't trust your Republicans that much. But more to the point I wanna see Bill Clinton as America's first ladyboy and a madam president. We survived Margaret Thatcher. You can ride out 8 years of Hillary! All the best from Gledwood in London Town, UK.
ps go to my blog if you want entertainment: http://gledwood2.blogspot.com "hamsters and heroin"
{I kept a copy in case my transatlantic message gets lots... ? lost? or lost lots. whatever...}
Glad there is some progress, gledwood. Picking and squeezing is sooooo tempting, isn't it?!
ReplyDeleteNow be careful what you stick in yourself in future, young man!! (I'm doing my schoolmarm bit.)
I will, Miss!
ReplyDeleteThis thing really doesn't want pickin' or squeezin'... it's red raw underneath :-<...
All because of a teensy bit of heroine ... *sigh* - you know if you'd been a good Gledwood, it would never have happened ;) - this might be an interesting read, a bit late, but interesting :)http://www.clearhavencenter.com/addictions-research/heroin-addiction/
ReplyDeleteI'd just finished my beef and onion pasty, chips abd mushy peas when I read this post! Fortunately I'm not squeamish.
ReplyDeleteGood luck, Gledwood!
Just keep an eye on that wound honey. I"m sorry that happened to you and Mother Hubb
ReplyDeleteWell, my first wish is that somehow you quit--but barring that, by all means start looking for a new source!
ReplyDeleteLuckily I haven't had breakfast yet. Good you're on the mend and hope you solve that mystery! Perhaps the dodgy supplier can shed some light on the didgy gear Sherlock Gledwood?
ReplyDeleteHhehheee, maybe it IS didgy and NOT dodgy, whatever that means ...
ReplyDeleteI don't listen to 'talk radio' much. There's a local station in NJ called NJ 101.5 and I like Dennis and Judy on there. Otherwise, it's music stations... some pretty good ones in Philly... or my iPod.
ReplyDeleteI listened to a little of the one you mentioned with Limbaugh on it but I can't take him for more than like 30 seconds. He's a big mouth, has been married like 4 or 5 times, and leans right christian repub.
While I haven't voted for Obama yet... if he gets the nomination for the Dems... I will vote for him then.
Okay.... I checked... he was divorced 3 times. But 4 or 5 is probably inevitable..... lol
ReplyDeleteI don't think I'd need more than reading that post to keep me away from that junk.
ReplyDeleteTruly Blech!
picking and squeezing.
ReplyDeleteyeuch
:o/
hope you are ok gledders, try to take care of yourself
america's first ladyboy, excellent, that made me laugh.
and the lambs made me go aaawwwwww.
so - yeuch, lol, aaawwwww.
what more could i ask for?
Rush Limbaugh?! Listening to him would make me create something to pick at!!
ReplyDeleteKeep healing!
Last I knew you were on some methadone program - or was is suboxone? I'm not endorsing either - AT ALL.
ReplyDeleteI did the whole NA thing and I truly believe they helped me to begin with but it's been almost ten years clean now and - I came up with many doubts about NA, and/or any 12 step program so I can't speak to that but I can speak to the addict who wants to quit - are you one who does?
P'rhaps it's best not discussed here - or maybe it is - dunno.
All I know it is takes one bad shot of whatever and folks wind up dead. Wouldn't wanna see that for you. I care, truly.
I guess that's what I wanna say - that stuff can and does kill. It's not necessarily some forienger cutting this stuff - it's the guy down the street, or the one they get it from or ...whoever. And it doesn't matter to them what they cut it with - if it kills you, so what seems to the their thinking.
I'm wishing you some peace, some healing and some hope. We can recover, we don't have to live that way anymore and if we really wanna get clean, we can.
Just my 10 cents worth for today - because I really do care.
Peace, hugs, and real concern and care.
Hey Gleds
ReplyDeleteBeing a "pick-a-sorus" myself I do understand the urge to remove and squeeze foreign growths on my person, being scabs, pimples, ingrown hairs etc. What I dont understand is the desire to inject foreign substances into my body that could end in death. I have had family members die choking on their own vomit after a similar experience as you have just had. You seem to be "lucky" if that is the right term for a junkie. My own son has lost/fried his mind, yes another "bad dose / cut" and is living in a psych unit and he was only 19 at the time is now 24yrs. As a parent, I wonder how your parents & siblings cope with what you are doing to yourself.
I hope that you are more careful with your sources in the future, but more importantly I hope you are able to find the strength within you to "get clean" before you loose whatever is left of that brillant mind.
G'day Gleds.
ReplyDeleteIts been awhile, and im sorry to read about your leg. I hope you are more careful in the future. As Cazz (my daughter)said previously, we, the family members, are the real sufferers of drug abuse, please take care my friend and I also hope you can find the strength before it is to late for you.
Jen
Well, Gleds, you've been through the mill with your leg, all right. Wouldn't pay to pick or squeeze too much...an infection of top of all that could be nasty and leave a big hole in your leg.
ReplyDeleteAs for your questions re my posts.
1. I think you mean Komodo dragons (I think condom is a much better name, though!) and I guess all dragons are related but the ones we have are about a thousand times smaller than the Komodo.
2. Yes I live near Brisbane, about 40 mins drive south-west and yes, Cairns is also in Qld, about 1,000 plus kms up the coast.
3. For the first time in about 10 years, the grass is green thanks to the lovely wet season we're getting. And the photo of the M1 was taken on a Sunday, in peak hour it's nose to tail, just like any other city in the world.
Take care of yourself and lay off the dodgy drugs, eh?
Oh My! I hope you continue to heal with much less trauma!!
ReplyDeletePenny
p.s. loved your vision of home on a rainy day you posted on my blog.
If anything like that wound ever happens to you again (let's hope it never will), ask for burn dressings. I once sliced the top of my right middle finger off with a scalpel and it couldn't be dressed normally either it needed a paraffin dressing, very loose threads with vaseline-type stuff on them. This helps not sticking like dry gauze. (You put the normal dressing on that just to cover it loosely.)
ReplyDeleteHappy to hear that the leg is better!
Heal well, my friend.
ReplyDeleteAs for Rush, ten years or so ago I had a bumper sticker on my car: “FLUSH RUSH.” I still have the same idea.
Jeanette: before I forget I will answer this now. Yes it's quite true the families suffer a lot more than the addict because they don't have the escape of being off the planet half the time. Every trauma causes pain. (Not a brief, befuddled shock before forgetting.) Also I find that phrase "fighting heroin addiction" rather stupid. Anyone genuinely fighting the addiction will be making concerted efforts to stop. Of course most addicts (self included) just wallow most of the time in the morass of their own self-destruction
ReplyDelete:-<...
Glad you're feeling better. You're quite an authority on barbiturates and benzodiazapenes. I'm impressed.
ReplyDeleteTake care of yourself.
Anything that zonks ya out: that's for me!!
ReplyDeleteI can totally sympathise with you re your leg. About 12 years ago I got some sort of insect bite on my calf and within a week I could hardly walk it was so painful. The doctor sent me straight to hospital where they promptly dug it out! That hurt - a lot. It took 12 weeks of the district nurse cleaning it out and packing it twice weekly before it cleared up. There was talk of plastic surgery but thankfully I didn't need it. It has left a 1/2 inch circular indentation in my leg though.
ReplyDeleteHeroin
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Akelamalu: bloody hell! That was infected then, I take it..?
ReplyDeleteI read a story online by a woman from Texas/somewhere who got bitten on the backside by a brown recluse spider that had crawled into her jeans in the night
they opertated on the pussing wound about a week later... after it failed to heal even after that she found a spider bite consultant herself who advised you're meant to wait THREE WEEKS for that one's venom to spread out, THEN you can operate... which would have saved her a second op a while after the first...
if mine had gone really bad I kept thinking "skin grafts" (what could they have done with such a huge patch of dead skin?) and the 1st dr I saw kept banging on about "necrosis" (trying to scare me) which the consultant never did... I cannot inject anywhere NEAR there. Imagine if MORE poison went in? ... Don't even want to think about that...
Francy: thanks that was a fascinating link... unfortunately it's thousands of miles away across the great "Pond" and even if I had $$$ to go, I'd have to answer all manner of complexicated questions just to get a visa (how can I lie about being an addict when I'm writing memoirs of my addiction: I MUST be truthful on such forms or would end up in a real pickle in times future...)
Anon: if I'd been good... yeah I know. Hey but I'd never have done this blog. (Would have done another blog tho haha!!)
ReplyDeleteJohnG: glad you didn't squeeze writhing worms of mayo all over it!!
Patti: thanks. it's healin'.... slowly...
ZenWizz: I've only seen that guy once since and he had a new gear then. I just get fed up of waiting 2 hrs for him to finish watching EastEnders, have his tea, bother to get in his car, drive down and then argue because he wants £20 for £15 worth and I've only got the £15 anyhow (git!)
Anon: I really don't think the guy who sold it cut it. I only know ONE guy who definitely DOES cut himself (sells a strong dose; everything else is same but disappointingly weaker: it's weak enough as HE gets it let alone his further adulterations...) also no way would he ever admit to "stepping on it"... Mother Hubbs DID complain but I didn't bother. If I dropped dead from his bad gear he'd only lament my money not coming... know what I mean?
ReplyDeleteCrystal: That Limbo is the biggest bore I've ever heard on air anywhere... ps 77 wabc is that totally right wing all the time? are they allowed to do that? what does 77 mean? there IS no frequency called 77 on LW./MW or FM: digital doesn't have frequencies just stations names so 77=??... 77 what..?
g3t: stay clean, keep serene!
Lettuce: I really want Bill Clinton as head of the First Ladies' knitting circle... want to see him in those historic first ladies reunion photos... etc... how fantastic would THAT be haha!!
TutTut: haha!
ReplyDeleteRubyshooz: methadone now; have been on buprenorphine/Subutex which is like suboxone... I'm glad you're OK now... what a nightmare situation. I find trying to get off drugs like trying to unstick my naked body from superglued to the back door...
Cazz: whatever that young man took sounds like a psychedelic LSD or ketamine/PCP like drug or "bad" ecstasy those really do fry the brains... then again so can crack and crystal meth so you're right. My mind was cracked up BEFORE hard drugs came along (no excuse I know)... picking is just a natural reaction, surely... yeah injecting is a strictly aquired habit like actually "enjoying" beer or coffee (did you like the taste of either aged 4 or 5?)... yet those 2 things most adults adore.... the junkie situation is similar but taken far far further :-<...
Jeanette: Thanks for that I answered you earlier so look upwards between several new comments and my answer
Puss-in-Boots: no I really don't want an abscess on top (he said save that 2nd lot of antibiotixx for when you DO next get one so I'm quite reassured in that sense...!) It is beautiful where you live!
ReplyDeletePenny: I've had that rainy-day vision for years... you just gave me the outlet to post it
Nicole: that's what I ASSUMED this transparent "dressing" was... it was NOT... unless it was so technological it didn't need to breathe it just looked to me like a plaster without the padding and it took the top right off everything (imagine if I'd had real bad burns what could that have done to me?)... stupid medicinal noninstructions!
Nick: flush him down the Loo? Great idea!!
Hi Gledwood, sorry to read about your leg... but glad it seems on the mend. thanks for visiting my blog come again any time :-) Glad you liked the muffins they tasted good too :-)
ReplyDeleteOh, Gleds, it sounds agony! Simi sends an antiseptic lick of her tongue, as she's sure this will help! Love from Sicily xx
ReplyDeleteSally: muffins rule!
ReplyDeleteWelshcakes: Simi looked really sorry for herself... is she all right now..?
Hi!
ReplyDeleteNice Blog!
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