Wow--you guys made me feel sooooo good. Oh, Phil, you were my one voice at the beginning answering what I thought were my cries in the wilderness that gave me the most hope when I felt so alone and like a total freak. I hope you are doing well. And you twins I need to find out how you are doing and Lisa and everyone else too. I still have not caught up on the board, just hopped on into this thread yesterday and today from the e-mail updates. (I just happened to look at the Addiction board update only yesterday and still have hundreds of unread e-mails.)

I actually just wanted to pop in to say I don't feel so hot today (scratchy throat and no sleep), so I'll do a longer post hopefully tomorrow. Still recovering from concussion and all, so I'm supposed to rest, too. Went to doctor yesterday, and no menengitis, bloodwork fine except for dilantin level way way too high and will taper down, hopefully shedding some of these dilantin-induced pounds and helping my short-term memory thing. (Think Dory in Nemo and Drew Barrymore in the 50 First Dates) Anyway! My mom is flying in tonight so that our family can "function" (dh's words).

Ddana, yes I did just over one week, only once. Learned a ton!! Wise word from my sponsor--if your insurance covers only a portion, ask if they will accept just the part covered by insurance. They did that for me. Mine only covered a one-week detox, not rehab. I guess part of the brilliant rationale was that it was only my first time in detox. (***?!) I did have to pay for an extra day, cuz I was a mess. I will definitely fill you in on all the details of the detox. All you have to do is call the CDU and the nurses will be very very helpful . . . maybe bordering on hard sell? They will take care of finding out what your insurance will cover. NB is pretty uppercrust, and you get to go the "Gucci" meetings. Food is pretty good (lots and lots of it, whenever you want) and you can get a tan on the patio. Also had accupuncture and yoga. But my digestive symptoms are terrible on w/d, so having to beg for every immodium when I am used to downing 4 at a time was awful awful. And w/d won't hit you until a couple days after they reduce the sub, so that's why I went home miserable. But good motivation to not end up back there for me. Had a nightmare that they were sending me back there and I said no, no, I promise I will quit, just give me my immodium!!

Also will fill you guys in on the whole seizure thing. This is probably the best place for me to socialize, as I can read what I already wrote and what everyone else said. My memory is absolutely for crap. You know when you put the remote control down and can't remember where you put it? Well I am like that all, I mean all the time, all day long. I am always walking circles around the house looking for every little thing. It's exhausting.

I miss you guys!!! Look forward to coming back into the swing of things--it is meant to be, as I have been given major time out from any rat race by the powers that be.

Luv,Rosie

Hey, agentalias and Lynn, so good to hear from you. I know you guys are busy, but I miss you so much! Agentalias I am so so proud of you. You are really an inspiration and I would love to talk more. Twins, I really, really want to know everything about the sub and how you are doing. I know it is a huge step, relearning how to do everything without the other pills. I didn't realize that sub can cause memory loss?? or is the w/d? I know a woman who is on sub after being on lots and lots of oxys, and she does shake a little, but she is doing really really great and is a successful professional. Ddana, let me know how it goes if you decide to contact NB. There are a couple others in OC that people I know know about, so if it doesn't work out insurance-wise or whatever, let me know. I can give you as many details as you want. Has anyone heard from Banker or Michelle or Kinda? I know, I know, I will catch up on my reading on this board. Seriously though, when I start I can't stop and I have to be prepared to read for a couple hours. That is why I just stopped reading the e-mail updates.

Well, I am fading, but I just wanted to let anyone who is interested about my lovely seizure (since ddana asked). It was 5:00 and I had been working upstairs all day. The babysitter had just taken the kids for a walk and I was going to try to talk dh into driving her home because I felt like something was up--hard to describe. I went out to get the mail and the neighbors told me the kids were going to be right back. I chatted for a minute and the next thing I remember was waking up on the couch with neighbors and paramedics rushing around.

Turns out that in the interim I had a seizure, conked my head on the driveway, and was passed out for 10 minutes. Thank God one of my neighbors has nurse training and immediately applied pressure to my head wound. I woke up (I don't remember any of this) and insisted that I had to go inside. The neighbors had called the paramedics, and thank goodness one of them had dh's work number. 2 neighbors tried to sit on me to keep me from getting up, and I lifted them up apparently. There were about 5 or 6 young kids out there, so thank goodness a 10-year-old boy took them all to his house. The neighbors were trailing behind me trying to keep pressure on my head wound and I went inside, locked the door, and went in and locked the baby gate. The reason that is amusing is that when the paramedics came, my neighbor couldn't figure out the baby gate and had to hurdle it to let the paramedics in. When I got inside, I laid down on the couch, and I woke up when the paramedics were putting the oxygen in my nose. It was the weirdest thing--no one was looking at me when I woke up--they were looking at their dials and things and the neighbors were trying to help clear a path for the stretcher. The paramedics were just kind of shouting my name and when I woke up they asked if I knew I had a seizure and fell, and I said no. It was weird--I was thinking, are they talking to me? They asked if I had a previous one, and I said yes, and was able to tell them the exact date that had happened (almost exactly 6 years prior to the day). But I couldn't say what day it was for this one.

Anyway, went to the ER, got 7 staples in my head, got a CAT scan and got discharged with a script for Dilantin and instructions for a scalp laceration. Not being able to drive starting the first week of December with a 2 and 3 year old that want to see Santa Claus and being a chronic last-minute shopper was just delightful.

So 10 days later I was able to get the staples out and then get an MRI. It must have been 3 weeks later when my neurologist got the MRI report that she showed me a picture of my scalp fracture!!! OMG! She seemed a little peeved that the ER doctor had missed it, as it showed on the CAT scan. (Are we bored yet? sorry) So meanwhile, before I knew about the fracture, I had started doing yoga and things, and didn't think much of it. A couple pains I attributed to my hair pulling at the wound. So after finding out about the fracture, I had been dancing with my girls to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I called the neurologist's office and said, well I have pressure in my head today and, by the way, can I do yoga? when they called back they said no jumping, no side to side or up and down movement, etc., and I said uh oh, I was just doing that this morning. (We do real dancing at our house, like grand jete's and clicking our heels together.) Turns out that was why I had the pressure. She said well you can't do this that and the other thing when you have a concussion, and I said well no one ever used the word concussion with me! So I have been having a little bit of a tougher time of it since then, with headaches and neck pain and stuff. No fun revisiting the pills, but I think the seizure meds help addiction-wise.

But I now know how really really lucky I was, because the fracture happened at an angle, instead of going straight in. Yikes.

Also, the neurologist saw something in my brain that might have caused it. Possibly could have been from my forceps delivery or another injury or small seizure when I was young. I just got the MRI from 6 years ago and she is going to compare them. When I asked if my eating disorder or drug use could have caused the problem in my brain, she said it was more likely the other way around! I told her about the prior seizure--I was taking Wellbutrin and had run out of xanax (at the time, I was taking only a small amount and very irregularly) and on top of that had a prior eating disorder (supposed to increase seizure risk w/ Wellbutrin). I had used that rationale to discontinue the seizure meds back then. I also told her about my tramadol use this time around. She did not feel that these caused the seizures. In fact, she thought I probably did not have seizures before that because of taking the benzos! Still when I woke up, I just kept apologizing to dh, because I felt like I had something to do with it. But no way do I want to end up stuck on benzos again either, BTW. I have had a couple fainting spells, the first when I was 10, so who knows. They were always in kind of funny situations,but I'll spare you the details for now. But I have always been on the soapbox about the evils of xanax and Wellbutrin--oh well. I am curious about the relationship between eating disorders and seizure risk. I think everyone has probably has heard the Zyban commercials (same stuff as is in Wellbutrin) where they say do not take if you have had a seizure or have ever had an eating disorder. I had resolved my eating disorder 10 years before the first seizure! And just recently I read for the first time somewhere that tramadol should never be given to someone who has ever had an eating disorder.

Maybe a week before I had read a post I think on this board about a woman who had a seizure from tramadol after she had just gotten in the car with her kids, but someone saw her and ran over and helped her. I was freaked. I wonder if the risk continues after you discontinue it?? (A guy in detox did have a seizure after discontinuing suboxone, so I am wondering . . .)

Well I have had it for tonight. Being irritated at my mother is exhausting. She is like a mirror reflecting all my ADD'ness back to me, but she doesn't need any help, of course, so she doesn't realize it or get treatment for it. She is actually a genius, but . . . nevermind. I am supposed to let go of my resentments, but can I use a head injury as an excuse?? Will be back later.

Doing some really deep meditating and thinking during my resting and will share with you guys what I am learing about my recovery (from addiction).

luv,
rosie