Zimbabwe Festival and Withdrawl Symptoms

I went to the Zimbabwe Festival today with a couple of friends today. Listening to the marimba bands was really kinda cool and I had fun browsing the arts and crafts booths. I bought a $5 pair of abalone and coral earrings, half of a cloth with a pretty floral blue and white pattern on a black background, and a small statuette of a mother carrying her child on her back. The statuette reminded me of Eskimo "umaqqing", which is when moms or older kids carried a baby on their backs under their parkas. It fits nicely in the palm of my hand, almost like a worry stone. I have a turtle necklace that I bought in Hawaii last year with a baby turtle on it's back. I figure the two remind me of one major reason why I continue in my efforts to heal myself from this cancer: my son.

Well, that got kinda heavy! In other news, I felt a bit shaky and had chills with flu-like symptoms with occasional sweats. Thought it was a digestive issue or I caught some kind of flu or ate something wrong yesterday.

I had last taken a 50-mg tramadol pill yesterday at noon. Tramadol is the name of the pain pill I have taken for almost four weeks now. Two weeks ago, I had as many as 6 or 7 pills in one day. But on the last week, I had gradually de erased it as my pain lessened. I think last week, I may have had only 3 or 4 at a time. Then on Thursday, the UW doctor said I could take anti-inflammatories for 72 hours to decrease the inflammation and stop taking the pain pills.

By Friday, I had less pain, so I think I may have only had 1 or 2 pills all day. Then just one on Saturday. I woke up at 3am feeling achey all over and couldn't get comfortable and go back to sleep. I finally took some Tylenol and fell back asleep at 4:30am.

This evening, I still didn't feel right, with muscle aches and chills and a bit of pain in my armpit, so I took a pain pill in the hopes that I could get a good night's sleep. Within an hour, the chills and aches were gone, so I began to suspect that I was going through withdrawals.

Looked up the symptoms of withdrawals and, yep, that's exactly what's going on. So, I could either go cold turkey or gradually wean myself. I am going to opt for the latter because I have some things to do tomorrow, like laundry and a couple of work things, before we head to the Coast on Tuesday. So, my plan is to only take half a pill for two days then quarter of a pill for a. Ouple of days so I can enjoy the Coast without feeling like I have the flu.

Criminy, why didn't the doctors tell me that withdrawls were a possibility? I would've been more careful about how much I took (never more than prescribed) and would've maybe started to wean myself sooner.

Ah well, live and learn. That's all one can do with this disease!