On Vonn and vicodin

On Lindsey Vonn

During the Winter Olympics, I was struck with sympathy for the downhill skier, Lindsey Vonn. Even my Mother thinks she was courting trouble by participating in the Olympics after a recent ACL injury, I found my myself interested in her as she also had her left tibia fractured. As well, she posted a picture of her external fixation which took me a long time to do. Her external fixation was much more complicated than mine, though I understand it was relatively temporary as she had at least another operation lined up when she released the photograph.

 So, good luck to her and I hope she recovers faster than I did.

On matters relating to vicodin

Strictly speaking, I am not really going to write about Vicodin. However, it is a "v" word and touches on what I am going to write about.

Morphine. 

Fentanyl. 

Dilaudid.

OxyContin.

All of them drugs with a lot of baggage. And all of them one which I have consumed in one form or another. I will quick to add that in all cases the consumption was medically regulated and, in most cases, administered by medical professionals. There may have been other opioids administered to me but in all honesty, the names ran together at some point. 

The third one in the list is somewhat scary for me as it was the one that I was on the longest and at dosages that made me wonder. For various reasons, it was administered by injection early in my hospital stay. At some point it was decided that I should receive it orally. I had no objections to this. However, the first time a nurse came around with my pills she said I had been getting 2 mg of Dilaudid by injection, but as it isn't as effective taken orally, the dose would be doubled. That would mean 4 mg at a time and they only give that much to addicts. At the time, I was taking very passive approach to my treatment and said something like "Okay, give me the dose you think I should get." However, looking back, I wonder if I should have asked questions about the dose I had been receiving by injection. One of the side effects of Dilaudid is hallucinations. I can think of a least one time when I was at the Montreal General when I think I was talking to nurses as though I was still in a dream involving a girl and boy and a Bernese mountain dog. I wasn't supposed to let the nurses know about the dog. With hindsight, I find it somewhat scary that I was so disconnected with reality.

Partly as a result of this, I tended towards taking as little as possible of the opioids prescribed to me. In fact, at least once, my physio had to tell me to take my dose before the physio session! Even after going home, I was still on opioids, though I was scrupulous about taking no more than the prescription warranted. After the operation to reconstruct my left tibia using bits of my hip, I was prescribed a higher dosage of Dilaudid (2 mg). When I went to the pharmacy to get it filled, I was somewhat frightened by the fact that they also gave a Naxolone kit, "just in case". As a result, I only ever took one of the 2 mg pills. I later returned the unconsumed portion of the prescription.

Why am I writing about this? Well, BC recent tightened up the rules for supplying various opioids to people at high risk of drug abuse. The drug featured in the picture is hydromorphone which is the generic name for Dilaudid. I feel uneasy about how easy it is has been for me to access the drug compared to others versus the potential danger for the substance. 

One of the reasons I used Vicodin in the title was because it is the drug that Dr. House used and abused in House, MD. Looking back at the show with the benefit of having been a user of an opioid, I wonder at how realistic the way he consumed the pills was, popping them like they were candies. On the flip side, I now appreciate the fact that we often see Dr. House arriving at work with a backpack instead of briefcase or small bag, as when you are using a cane, keeping your other had free is fairly important.