I don't do drugs for recreation. I have had drugs done to me. So, my first experience with the magic of drugs was when I gave birth to my first baby. A little girl that had made my life miserable for nine months with having me puke and eat tons of stuff. Peanut butter right out of the jars, pickled peaches and the juices that dripped off my elbow, gallons of Coca-Cola from small bottles that had to be filled with slivers of ice; just anything that didn't bite me first got dibs on being eaten.
I ate. She rumped around and caused me to cry and eat. She caused the drugs to be administered to take me away as she came butt first at 9 lbs., 4 oz. while those magical drugs failed to hold back the tide of pain. I screamed…way out there somewhere. Earline, a whole squad of Earlines screamed and pleaded. Then those magical drugs took me to a place of peace and joy as I tried to see her sweet face through a wavy glass pane.
I had drugs done to me a second time as my sweet little boy child came into the world by being lifted from a cutout slit in my belly. He weighed 10 lbs., 1 oz. with a red fuzz on his noggin. I floated around in a pool of happiness while I invited the whole delivery crew to my house for Thanksgiving.
Oops!
I was trying to say the drugs were as nice as Wild Turkey whiskey (which I never tasted), but the conversation in that delivery room got out of hand and everybody turned it into me cooking a really good turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. That was a drug overdose rounded to the highest power.
Next time I had a drugging was several years later when I had all my girl parts cut out so as to render me free of another chance at motherhood. The drugs to help manage my pain instead brought nausea so bad I begged calf rope.
Then,
Years of living with inherited DNA of bad hearts, I had a heart attack. I had to get stents to let my blood flow through veins to keep my old broken heart ticking. My head was splitting from all the nitroglycerin. My minister prayed for me, then came back to ask another prayer to have my headache taken away.
I lay on the gurney waiting to be transferred to the operating table as the crew hooked me up with some "good drugs," their words.
"It will let you float around while we try to fix this mess."
I saw things: I saw pink, I saw lights, I felt myself lifting to the lights, I heard people talking and laughing, I got tired of waiting for those silly professionals to get me onto the operating table so I suggested they get the show on the road. Those pathetic incompetents laughed and said,
"You are all done."
Where did I go? Who were those people there? It was pink and pretty and peaceful there. A floating clouds place. A miracle had happened; the headache was GONE, just gone after three days of raw green pain.
Four years ago, I had another heart cath done to look around in my old broken heart to see what could/may be patched up for a few more miles of great living. So, I was on the gurney surrounded by a swarm of professionals, exposed naked/hooked up/swabbed off/probed/poked/questioned and answered when I became aware of hearing music playing in that serious place. I ask what they were listening to or if I had already crossed the great divide. Loud laughter followed with,
"Oh, that’s some Steely Dan. You like it?"
"No, I take Hank or Willie or Merle or George straight up."
More laughing, then:
"Here is some Willie for you."
I'm juiced up with Wide Awake Twilight and Willie is serenading me with "Always On My Mind." I drifted about and when Willie finished…they were too.
Last June I landed flat on my back to have the latest dose of drugs flushed into my system so the gifted hands of gifted surgeons could cut out a nasty aneurysm from my stomach area along with a five-inch section of my big gut. I went down like a ton of bricks to awaken to the raw clawing, mind bending, pain of recovery. I begged for more Fentanyl but warned the dosing staff that they had killed Michael Jackson with too much of that demon. Snarky laughing as I faded away.
As the hours turned into days of being washed in the drugs I saw Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee and Clint Eastwood along with other famous personalities being floated away in mudslides. I ask God to stop that horror and put me into a coma for relief of it. I went to a place of the most vivid colors of beautiful exploding flowers, birds changing into bees and butterflies fluttering over the most beautiful valley towards a blue river. Little children ran by laughing. I enjoyed that place.
I listened to old-time gospel singing and music coming from the floor fan that was blowing cool air on me. Dottie Rambo put her face next to my ear and gave me a private concert. My sister Kathy advised me to go to sleep because she couldn't hear any singing…
I came home to endure a week of hard nausea until the miracle drugs finally got processed out of my system. Hope I never again have the need…
***Mercy sakes, things have changed in these last years.***
You can check out Earline’s blog and buy a copy of her first book “Life With the Top Down” at: http://www.earlinesdoins.com.
