Healing, lungs, doctors, pain meds, habits and fourth chakra

 So now it's been 13 days out of the hospital and I ran out of the pain pills yesterday. Yesterday I also had the follow up appointment with my surgeon and was hoping to get more since hydrocodone is the only lower powered pharmaceutical that really helps with the pain. Even taking 2 or 3 of the 400 mg Motrins does nothing for the pain I'm having. So the doctor did a really quick checkup which only involved checking my blood pressure and listening to my lungs. He then removed the bandages and the stitches and told me I need a primary care physician. I asked him for another prescription for the Vicodin and also told him that it was the only thing that helped. He then told me to take Advil. I told him how Motrin didn't work at all and how much pain I was still in, as well as asking him how long he would expect this pain to last. He told me another 6-8 weeks. So I asked again about getting a refill on the Vicodin, then after a slight hesitation, he told me that his DEA license was not active right now and he was expecting it to be renewed soon and that there was nothing he could do, unless we both wanted to get into trouble with the DEA. So I went home and pondered what to do as the pain kept progressing until I couldn't take it anymore and decided to just go to the ER tonight and see about getting a refill there. While there, they took some more X-rays, just to make sure nothing was out of whack again and since it was July 4th, they were quite busy. This whole ordeal took a good 4 hours, but I got 15 Vicodins for this effort, which I am so thankful for. Now I should be able to sleep well tonight and just deal with all of life's other obstacles a little better. The heat here in Michigan, as with most of the country is unbearable still too. The heat index today was up to 108 degrees... and we still don't have a/c. The combo of the continuous sweating on every inch of my body, starting from the time I got up this morning and the intense lung and chest pain didn't put me in the best of moods, let alone in a productive or even festive mindset. As I sit here now writing this, there are still fireworks going off all around and now that it's officially July 5th, as of 15 minutes ago, I finally feel like I can enjoy it. The drive home from the hospital tonight was actually rewarding too, since I got to see lots of fireworks in all directions the whole way. So I'm thankful for that too.

Anyway, reagarding the Vicodin...I realize that there are a lot of people who abuse narcotics such as Vicodin. One prominent example is House M.D., who probably helped make it famous, but this pain is certainly very real for me and I would gladly trade no pain for the need to take these stupid pills. I can't even sneeze or cough without really intense sharp pain in the lungs, and when just doing normal activities, it still hurts and throbs. But I will try to just deal with it. I realize that many people in this world have far worse pains and horrible things to be dealing with.

I also realize that all things happen for a reason and maybe one of the reasons for my recent lung problems could be greatly due to an imbalance in my Fourth Chakra, the Heart Chakra. This imbalance can be the root of emotional instability and also the repression of emotions. I do know that I've suffered from these last two things, so by basically being forced to address the vayu/air element which manifests with giving and receiving in the form of touch, this may be what I needed more than anything. It's a rather painful lesson, but a very important one. Of course, I'm sure that in a purely physical sense, this imbalance has been brought on simply by the act of smoking, which I have finally quit for good. What would drive someone who is very health conscious for the most part at least, to do something so stupid and damaging as smoking? Maybe this is where the more spiritual aspect that I'm talking about comes into play. This is all very deep and I have enough inquisitiveness and curiosity to drive myself to further study the cause and effect of how all this is related and how it all manifests. I do know that most of my life I have tended to sort of breathe in a shallow manor, rather than deeply in and deeply out. I can see how this can be related to giving and receiving in life and even has to do with the shyness that I've often labeled myself with. I know that I'm probably just scratching the surface, but I do see just a glimmer of light as I pull back the curtain just a little.

I do wish that I could just practice a completely holistic lifestyle, to the point of not needing these pain pills, but I'm not there yet for sure cause I've been utterly miserable without them. This pain shouldn't last forever, so I'm willing to take them while I can still get them... legally at least. I have been walking every night since getting out of the hospital. It's starting to become a habit and a very good habit too. Perhaps my walking is one of the good habits that I've used to replace smoking. Walking has also become the high point of my day and I do it no matter how tired I am because I enjoy it so much and because I've now had enough life experience to know that if I miss just one night for whatever reason which may seem completely legit, that the habit will be broken and it will be all that much easier to totally stop. I don't want to sabotage myself like that, so after I finish writing this blog post tonight, it will be very, very late, but I will be walking for sure...then, falling into bed.