Vaseline Coated Lenses…

I started writing about what it’s like to function under the influence of medication specifically formulated to reduce, eliminate, or inhibit pain. I was trying to find a clever way to describe functioning while looking at the world through vaseline-coated lenses. A clever way to talk about something most people don’t really want to talk about.

Don’t misunderstand… When it comes to pain everyone wants the bad man to go away. Even if it means ingesting potentially dangerous substances.  They just don’t want to talk about what they are taking or what it might be doing to them above and beyond moderating the pain.

The problem is the hierarchy of evils associated with taking anything when anything you take is pretty much guaranteed to change something. Hopefully, what you or your doctors want to alter in some way. After all, that’s what they’re designed to do. The problem is all the things they do that they weren’t designed to do. The disclaimers that eat up half the airtime of any of the pharmaceutical ads on TV. Or the multiple pages of warnings that accompany each prescription.

With the endless list of caveats associated with taking most of the drugs we take, it’s a wonder anyone takes anything!

And, yet we do. Perhaps, because there is no reasonable alternative. I take an insanely expensive cancer drug.  I started taking it because it was the only FDA-approved drug available to mitigate the symptoms of my bone marrow cancer. I’m back on that drug prophylactically to help manage chronic Graft versus Host Disease (GvHD).

I am suffering through post-herpetic neuralgia left behind in the wake of a particularly evil case of Shingles. The possibility of a Shingles outbreak is just one of the many warnings accompanying the cancer medication I just mentioned.

Foretold is Forewarned

Take the drug to stay alive and take a chance on contracting shingles. Refuse the drug and take your chances with GvHD. Something that can result in serious illness or even death.

I’ve been dealing with post-herpetic neuralgia — a result of the Shingles virus — for more than thirteen months. It’s some of the most exquisite pain I’ve ever experienced and that’s saying something. I’ve had three medications prescribed for the pain over the past thirteen months. Each with its own laundry list of side effects.

Two led to thoughts of self-destruction. All three, a loss of clarity. A state in which everything appears translucent. Life events without clarity, definition, or detail.

Everything you want to do — need to do — takes longer and seems harder. Demanding a much higher level of effort, attention, and concentration. Too often resulting in frustration and irritation. It’s an uncomfortable character-building exercise you never asked for and don’t really want. One we all may experience as we journey through life.

I’m dealing with it now even as I write this. Things that would normally take days, drag on for weeks. Things that would normally take weeks, take exponentially longer, and require far more energy and effort.

The only thing that seems to work is perseverance. Just put your head down and power through until the fog lifts. No matter how long or how hard. Stay with it until the images are clear. Until the words say what needs to be said and the lens through which you see the world is clear once again.