I took my son to the doctor yesterday. He has been sick since he started daycare several months ago, and we have been to the doctor quite a lot. His doctor is a really nice man from Nigeria with a complicated name. He came highly recommended from the hospital where my son was born...and he took my son while his Medicaid was still pending. He really has a way with the children. He is kind and gentle, and very realistic. I really love him.
He runs a small family practice, and many of patients are on Medicaid. He also is licensed to prescribe suboxone. I did not know this when we first started going to him almost two years ago, but I noticed some information about it in his office. I have never asked him about it or anything, because it is not something I really care about at this point in my life. I never even really thought about after the day I saw the pamphlet...until yesterday.
My son and I waited in the waiting room yesterday, speckled with random people. There are always other people in there, and my son can be quite a handful at times, so I did not notice her at first. My son, who can be overly friendly, started making eye contact with everyone, waving and saying hi. I noticed her, as she tried to avoid his eye contact.
That was when I noticed the look of pain in her eyes. I recognized that pain, that pain from the void. That anxiousness and irritability that comes with dope sickness. I could read it in her eyes, and I knew it in her movements, stiff and uncomfortable. I could see the look I wore for years, the look of trying to hold it together in a place like this for just a little while longer. I recognized the pain. I could smell it.
And I thought about her shoes. I thought about all the times I have been in her shoes, trying to act normal. Through the pain, she avoided eye contact with my son...and I bet he was real annoying to her at that moment. I know a kid in a doctor's office could have driven me crazy as i sat there waiting for my medicine, or waiting to be seen my a doctor. A lot of suboxone doctors here will have you come in in withdrawal, and wait several hours then for the medication.
She probably took the bus here, and had no where to go for those hours. She probably didn't realize it would take this long. She had a long, deep scratch that stretched across her dark, black face from her eye to her chin, marking it with pink and white where the skin had been ripped away. Her hair was disheveled, and her eyes were distantly wild with the pain and insanities in her own mind.
I thought about the days i was in those shoes...sitting in a doctors office, hoping to be given something to make me feel fucking better. Trying to fake normalcy, when all my insides were screaming with both need and want. Everyone around me, getting on my last fucking nerve...especially myself, an all the fucking pain. Trying not to puke. Trying not to lose it all together. Trying to hold on just a bit longer, as all the shit is creeping slow...
And, I was tankful to be the one with the beautiful baby. And not the one waiting on some dope...in one form or another. I don't miss that fucking shit one tiny bit.
Hey!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the kind comment.. im gonna have a read through yours now!
Sid
I remember very clearly being in the suboxone doctor's office with my son, and yes, they do have to be in withdrawal before they take the first dose. I remember the weekend he was home before our appointment making him sleepy time tea to help his nerves, agonizing over the decision to put him on suboxone. Finally, Monday came, we had to pull over on the way to the doctor's office so he could vomit. Seven months later and he is doing very well, his dose has tapered down to less than half of what it originally was. I cannot wait till he is totally off of it but it did help him regain his life, he is working full time, he is productive, we are living in the same house and getting along really well. He has even finally decided to give up alcohol. So thankful to God that he has taken us so far and always cautiously optimistic about the future. Just taking it one day at a time and finally that is okay with me.
ReplyDeleteYou're really making me want to go back to drugs!
ReplyDeleteNot to sound childish, but to be truthful, I thought I had missed a single methadone dose the other day. All I could think about was jumping in front of a train on the way there.
It took me a good few minutes to come down and realize that if I wanted it, heroin is still out there. Only problem is, I don't.
So in a way I'd rather chuck myself in front of a train. (Or just drink the methadone.)
O shit, I hate Cold Print.
ReplyDeleteParagraph one was sarcastic, but you knew that, right??
Fucking cultural differences. We are told quite a lot that "Americans don't understand irony" of course they do. (You don't have to tell me that.) The difference is, as I understand it, in America, irony would be very subtly flagged up first. Here in Britain, it is not. And is executed with a plain face.
Akh. I will leave it there. You know I did a blog in German. Well I still do. Had all sorts of problems trying to fathom what Germans think. And I just thought they were the same as us, speaking a language with lots of dots on various vowels...