A Pain That I'm Used To

Some things stay the same, some things never see to change. As the months pass by since Jim's attack and its savagery seems to fade from some people's minds, the more difficult it seems to become for us regarding our work situation. Immediately after it happened, everyone from the office staff here in London right up through to the VP of Operations in Toronto couldn't get to us fast enough with promises for our physical, emotional and financial security. Now that three months have passed since this incident almost all of their promises seemed to have fallen by the wayside. The only thing that I am not really worried about - yet - is our physical safety. We still have a beautiful roof over our head which we do not have to pay for as well as having all of our utilities looked after. Right now that is all that we seem to have. This fact is disturbing to say the least.

All of our forms were to have been filed and completed, etc for a Workman's Compensation claim for what happened to Jim and any forms that we were responsible for have been submitted. When I last spoke to the head of Human Resources of the company about a week ago, she mentioned that the company would no longer be paying us but that WSIB would be taking over from no on. Now when I spoke to WSIB earlier today, they advised us that our claim had been rejected because our employer had not submitted a series of forms. Fit to be tied at the moment mostly because I wasn't able to actually speak to someone at WSIB but had to leave messages on two separate answering machines there. GRRRR. Of course when I called through to Toronto, I could only reach voice mail in the HR department. Oh how very, very typical.

I wouldn't be quite so insane about all of this if something awful hadn't happened here in London with my Regional Manager almost three weeks ago. Shortly after Jim's attack, we moved into our current apartment because no one in my family was feeling terribly secure living on the ground floor of the apt building. Now since Jim was still recovering from near life threatening injuries, he obviously was unable to move any of our furniture or stuff up here. Naturally, one of my daughters managed to break her arm barely a week after Jim's attack so she was also unable to offer much help or assistance. That left just me and Sara who barely wears a 100 pounds on a good day! Naturally, it was tough carrying some of the heavier stuff for us so a few items were left behind in our old unit. I advised the office of this and apparently it wasn't much of an issue until the time came when they needed our old unit.

The weekend after I was notified that they were going to need our old unit, I moved everything except for one couch out of it. This left behind couch was a monster to move so I had to leave it. When I talked to my boss she said that was no problem that she would get some of the maintenance guys to help. I waited for a number of days and no one came to help. One day Sara's boyfriend was over and we managed to get it upstairs and into the hall of the fourth floor. could not get it into our unit no matter what I tried. Finally the head of maintenance showed up to help me but no matter what he couldn't get it in either. This couch just also happened to be near brand new. We had had it only a month. Looked like we were going to have to trash it which was a darn shame. Because I had been waiting to get this couch inside before I moved a few more of our other articles in, I stashed some of our stuff in an empty unit which just happened to be located directly beside our current one. This is also standard practice if you happen to be a Building Manager of an apt building - you tend to take advantage of empty units and store stuff in them on a regular basis. This is done by near everyone and is not remotely unusual.

I had mentioned to the office about this furniture being there in the empty unit also but for some reason my Regional Manager decided to take it upon herself and have the contents of this unit emptied into the dumpster out front of our building. There was a lot of stuff of value there also. Why she didn't mention that she was going to do this so we had a chance to move it into our unit or get rid of it ourselves, is a mystery to us. Even after talking to her about it, she had nothing to say regarding her reasoning. I am so sick of everyone telling me that whenever I need help while Jim is recovering to just let them know and then when the actual time arrives, nothing at all. It is beyond insulting. What is really terrible about the whole thing is that when we went to check the dumpster not all of our stuff made it there. Any of our electronic equipment seemed to be missing. When we asked about this, we initially got a whole bunch of different answers until someone obviously started to feel a little bit guilty cause somehow some of this stuff was located - sitting in the paralegals office getting ready for her to take home!

Excuse me? How awful is this? You're stealing from someone not only that you work with, but also from someone who has already had a series of horrific stuff happen to them, someone who's interests that you in your position should be guarding. Insane. I wasn't going to get the police involved but on our last visit to the specialists we mentioned what had happened and one of the doctor's took it upon herself to call the police. I guess that she is a fairly good friend of the detective handling the attack. The police feel we have a fairly strong case for theft, etc. So far I have given a statement but I haven't had them approach anyone in the office yet regarding this although after today, I plan on giving the go ahead. I've also given everyone enough time to return all of our electronics and even though I've received assurance that we'll get them back, we still have not.
Following is a list of the items that we ended up losing - that I can remember so far cause I know that there is more but probably won't know something is missing until I go to get it.

1. antique sewing table w/antique Singer sewing machine
2. walnut dresser w/five dresser drawers
3. all components to construct our bed frame i.e. slats/foot board
4. Sklar Pepplar arm chair
5. creme coloured leather love seat
   
6. creme coloured leather arm chair
7. 20" tv set
8. 17" flat screen computer monitor
9. 17" computer monitor
10. dvd player
11. large collection of various types of cables for use with computers
12. digital camera w/case
13. laptop computer w/leather case
14. collection of electric helicopters plus their accessories
15. all of our winter coats - four individuals for a total of eight coats
16. six fabric laundry sacks of clothing primarily Jim's winter clothes
17. all of Sara's bed linens including comforter, three double sized blankets, set of curtains, sheets, pillows
18. two extra large Rubbermaid storage containers w/hinged lids w/contents removed
19. misc hand held tools
20. two basic desk chairs

the change

This entry was actually first written 2006-01-18 22:39:03

I can not describe the change I have felt in myself personally since I finally made the commitment to return to methadone. A proverbial weight has most definitely been lifted from my very overwhelmed shoulders. I feel as if I have somehow been released from a life sentence and suddenly I can see light at the end of the tunnel. Psychologically I am feeling empowered, liberated and even near invincible. I understand that this is not truly the case but what a change from the previous three months and the suffocating melancholy that I felt would never disappear. I still have twelve days to wait unless by some miracle there is a cancellation but at least now this is actually going to happen. Not just talking about starting or getting down there to register. Now on the 30th of January at precisely 9:30am I will willingly present myself so that I can begin the long road back to freedom - freedom from addiction, freedom from debt, freedom from esteem issues, freedom from depression/anger/frustration.

A number of events in the recent past have certainly contributed to my sudden eagerness to clean myself up the least of which is the sheer cost of sustaining not one but two fairly healthy addictions. Now to be fair the actual cost is not actually my prime motivation in attempting to clean myself up but simply one of way too many to mention right now. On that note I would like then the subject of this entry to focus on the financial end of drug addiction. I would also like to clarify that for me it is not, nor has it actually ever been, so much the actual cost of the addiction but the way my supplier treats me and my money in regards to my dependence. Even reading the last two sentences back knowing what I am attempting to convey, I am still kind of fuzzy so I am fairly confident that I am not being as clear as I would like. Bear with me then and accept that I have recently reached the point where I am finally so sick and tired of my dealer’’s cavalier attitude towards the amount of money I spend each month that this has forced me to started resenting my addiction and the unreal amount of money spent in my crazy attempt to maintain it that it has provoked me so hard to want to quit.

While I made the decision to commit to methadone a few weeks ago, events from last evening absolutely convinced me that not only had I made the correct decision but also ensured that nothing and I mean nothing will cause me to waver from this. When I look at the big picture this will and does sound ridiculously petty but to me it did nothing but illustrate the regard in which *** actually holds me. It has been tough around this city since about last Friday when 300 of his pills disappeared. There are not a lot of alternates if you want 8mg dilaudid. Yes both morphine and oxycontin are reasonably easy to get but from my point of view a very poor second and third. As it is it is not uncommon for *** to be out of dilaudid for four to five days of every month but to his credit he usually ensures that his hardcore regulars are not left without anything. Generally I don’’t experience too many problems hooking up with him but over the last two months there have been a towards While I made the decision to commit to methadone a few weeks ago, events from last evening absolutely convinced me that not only had I made the correct decision but also ensured that nothing and I mean nothing will cause me to waver from this. When I look at the big picture this will and does sound ridiculously petty but to me it did nothing but illustrate the regard in which *** actually holds me. It has been tough around this city since about last Friday when 300 of his pills disappeared. There are not a lot of alternates if you want 8mg dilaudid. Yes both morphine and oxycontin are reasonably easy to get but from my point of view a very poor second and third. As it is it is not uncommon for *** to be out of dilaudid for four to five days of every month but to his credit he usually ensures that his hardcore regulars are not left without anything. Generally I don’t experience too many problems hooking up with him but over the last two months there have been a couple of little things occurring while trying to hook up that have caused me to pause and question his actions. The amount of money I spend each month has forced me to start resenting my addiction and the unreal amount of money spent in my crazy attempt to maintain it has provoked me so hard to want to quit.

He is a dyed in the wool speed addict. There is absolutely nothing in the world that he likes better and sometimes he can tweak a little more than I care to witness I suppose and on a few occasions I would describe his behaviour as irrational at best. I am beginning to think that he may have more of a bill than he can manage with his dealers and if this is the case I am beginning to resent having to suffer for this bill. Anytime he gets something for the few that he continues to supply if he runs out, he never requests money in advance. Normally he would grab what he thinks he needed and we would pay him once we got over to his house. We never had to give cash in advance for him to go pick up and then for him to deliver later in the day. And if this is the kind of service that I have to endure then *** is oh so very replaceable. I went over yesterday and the only thing that he had were two 40mg oxycontins for $20. I grabbed them from him. He mentioned that he should be getting two more any second and should he grab them for me.

8:24pm OK I need to vent right now. Grrrrr....*** just hung up on me in the middle of our conversation. This after Jim had relayed a message to me at work to call ***. The man is an utter idiot and then some. We did him a favour on Saturday and for some reason he has this dillusional idea that we are somehow trying to screw him over. I am sure that most of you know a pretty decent amount of fellow users that have managed to screw themselves as far as having such luxuries as say legal bank accounts. I don’’t know too many in our circle that bother to even maintain a bank account. Now without one it can be difficult to cash cheques. Both Jim and I have two accounts that so far we have managed not to mess up and it utterly stupifies me the number of people that think nothing of asking us to put what we are more than aware is a completely bad cheque through one of them. This occured on Saturday and against our better judgement we agreed to try to cash a second party cheque thru our bank machine. By this I mean we attempted to deposit a cheque that was made out to someone else and "endorsed" by them and then endorsed by Jim. Very few institutions accept this kind of deposit normally and we explained this to him but he wanted us to continue. We also explained that there would be no guarantee of Jim being allowed to automatically withdraw funds from his account until this cheque cleared. Now if this cheque is bad then there is a very high chance that it is going to bounce also.

What galls me more than anything is ***’’s demand a few minutes ago to either give him his money or get the cheque back to him. OK now first of all technically it is not your money. The money actually belongs to the lady whose name appears on the cheque. Second it is also not your cheque. Again the cheque belongs to the name that appears after Pay To The Order. Now magnanimously offering us half of this cheque for doing this favour is also supremely flawed because the funds are actually coming directly out of our account so at this point technically it is already our money and if the cheque does get returned we are the ones that have to cover the amount that was returned. Like *** is going to step forward and replace these missing funds. Yeah of course he is. No we will be stuck holding the bag. The only time that I ever lose my grip on reality and actually contemplate doing something like this is when I am so low on funds that even entering into this type of soon to be very expensive venture is still better than the alternative of no funds. I always do this with the full knowledge that this little caper ultimately will cost us dearly. I am very good at convincing myself that actually all that this really is is nothing more than a very, very expensive cash advance. Now for doing this favour, Jim and I normally are allowed keep half of the value of the cheque. To this, I say oh you bloody morons how very generous you are with what is in fact our own money. Your ignorance is incredible and some days I can barely fathom how you are even able to function out in society. I don’’t understand their inability to recognize what is actually occurring. Jim and I are really giving them a loan that they will never actually have to pay back and this loan is fascillated with the help of our bank account. Our reward is the fact that we now have money that we previously did not have access to. Look on this as a really twisted cash advance or messed up overdraft I suppose. Automatically, I end up writing the other half of the cheque off as a loss cause attempting to explain what is actually happening always seems to be out of the individual’’s realm of comprehension and more bother than it is worth!

I just called Jim to ask him to do me a favour and please explain to this lunatic that there is no sense harassing and threatening me because I did not put it thru my account but thru Jim’’s. I think he is having a problem because I physically deposited the cheque after borrowing Jim’’s bank card. This was also the only time that I have ever done so much as a transaction with this account. Regardless of me telling him repeatedly that this is not my account nor is his precious cheque currently lanquishing in my bank account. I can do NOTHING concerning this matter. Talk to Jim you bloody moron.

8:58pm Wow I feel pretty amazing now that I have completed the above rant. Unfortunately this rant only served to end up diverting my attention away from today’’s entry and as I am done work for the evening I am now forced to abandon my entry midway through it. C’’est la vie! I guess TO BE CONTINUED AT A LATER DATE

Downward Spiral

Jim and I are halfway through a nice quiet holiday Monday without the children. Both of the girls left yesterday afternoon for Toronto as they have tickets to see Nine Inch Nails on Tuesday at the Molson Amphitheater. Lucky ducks. We saw NIN way back in 1994 when Marilyn Manson was the opening act, and then in 1997 saw Trent Rezsnor when he toured with David Bowie. Guess the torch has now been passed! They managed to arrive safe and sound last night which was obviously a huge relief to their very worried mother - I know3 that a repeat performance of that horrible incident out west last week would not be repeated, but still...They were traveling by Greyhound after all.

The girls had been counting the days until this show, both of them working as many hours as they could. Katie, unfortunately broke her arm about two weeks after Jim's attack, so she didn't get to work as much as she would have liked to have worked this summer. It's been a nice break for us though, not having to support them both 100% especially as our income has been drastically affected since Jim's attack - more on this later as this has been one of my pet peeves this summer.

Right now we are tucked inside our apt as it is pretty hot outside. We may go swimming later on this afternoon. I have managed to get Jim in the pool a few times so far this summer under the guise of it being good physio for his physical recovery! All in all, he seems to be coming along fairly nicely considering the massive amount of abuse his body was subjected to earlier this spring. He still has quite a way to go but the specialists are all pleased with the progress that he has been making so far.

Both of us have also been slowly tapering down our methadone dose without any negligible side affects. I am now at 60 while Jim is at 90. We've been decreasing approx 5 per month so nothing too drastic, just nice and moderate. I've definitely been suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to Jim's attack but am trying to deal with this without any help from medication. So far, so OK. Just going to see how I am as the summer comes to a close and will re-evaluated after Labour Day.

Take care, one and all. Enjoy today if you are a Canadian and have today off of work!!!

In the Weeds

It seems an eternity since I last updated - also seems that long since I've even gone near a computer. Guess that summer is to blame for these transgressions! Now if everything else were that simple. Returned to work today - been off now since May 12th. It is blatantly obvious that thses two things are most definitely related i.e. work and computer. I am also pretty confident ,that ,had I not returned today to work ,that, yet another day would have passed on by where once again, my computer would sit all dusty and lonely and neglected. Boo hoo.

Well, I seemed to have gotten through my first day back reasonably unscathed. I surprisingly found it rather stress free, which was not at all what I had imagined nor expected. Go figure. No objections over here either. I have never, ever been one to look a gift horse in the mouth so I shall say nothing more regarding this matter. Don't want to jinx anything so early in the game. This is not at all to suggest that everything will be smooth sailing from here on in, no not bloody likely. I will most definitely have my work cut out for me as they were unable to actually find a suitable replacement for me these past three months so for the most part they have been saving the majority of the work until my return. SWEET. NOT!!!

So on this note, I must depart for the evening. Just stopped by to let everyone know that I was still alive and kicking and very much on course.

Lady of Leisure

For the longest time, I have wanted a chaise lounge, but everytime I came close to almost buying one, something inevitabley came up that was of greater importance. As I have never really been a materialistic person, this never bothered me much cause I knew one day I'd eventually get one. Today was my day! For the past year and a half, my Mom has wanted to get a new couch for her living room. Although the couch that she had didn't so much as have even a pulled thread, she has had it for twenty one years and was just really tired of looking at it. I know, insane. In the length of time she has had this one piece of furniture, I have gone through three and am now on my fourth - all purchased brand new but with kids and cats and husbands and the ever decreasing quality of products in general and the apparent difference in both of our purchasing abilities, this really comes as no surprise.

So today was the day that we were hitting the furniture stores in our quest to find her something truly stunning. We actually managed to accomplish this two hours into the search and at the third furniture store. While she was chatting to the sales lady, I spied the chaise lounge of my dreams. It was exactly what I was looking for if I had actually been looking for one. Begging me to recline, I walked excitedly over to it, tentatively running my hand over the slightly nubby fabric. It was a rich chocolate brown with duck egg blue and beige circles as its pattern. It couldn't have been more perfect had I designed it myself.

When my Mom walked by me, I joked about it being my dream piece of furniture that I had been lusting after for an eternity. She asked me how much and when I told her, she said OK, she would buy it for me. Now, I almost fell off my little slice of heaven. Admittedly it was on sale for a fantastic price - only $399, marked down from $798, plus no taxes today either. Apparently, she had budgeted a certain amount for herself and as she hadn't reached her limit, she could afford to do this for me. Obviously, I'll need to think of a suitable thank you!

Everything Counts

It has now been just over a month since Jim was savagely attacked. With each passing day, as he continues to improve, I become increasingly happier and less concerned. Considering the abuse that his body ended up taking it is literally a miracle that he is as well as he is. After the hospital had finished up their inventory, they found twenty five distinct, separate stab wounds, a few of which were life threatening on their own, without any help from the many other ones scattered across his upper boy, neck and head. The worst ones were the ones that punctured his liver, punctured his lung and near severed his throat. To say that any one of these three literally missed by fractions of an inch are very much understatements.

He had approx seven decent stab wounds on his lift arm, five on his upper back, four throughout his head, six on various parts of his chest. From his hairline down to his eyebrows, he has this long jagged scar where his head burst open from the three animals taking the boots to him. There are more of these all over his upper body but to a must lesser degree. Well, he certainly now has a face that can tell many, many stories indeed. While all oh his injuries occurred over a very brief bit of time that Monday afternoon - we rec'd the noise complaint shortly after 5:30pm and he had been seen by paramedics at the scene, transported to the hospital and in surgery within no more than forty five minutes. That's really pretty impressive if you ask me. Now as his injuries were so severe, he ended up spending over five hours in surgury as they repaired a number of delicate spots plus he rec'd a lot of blood from transfusions as he lost so much of his own. Had he have lost a fraction more, I guess his recovery that first night would have been in great jeopardy. It seemed on numerous occassions throughout this whole ordeal that he had to have had an angel sitting on his shoulder looking out for him. I don't know how else to explain the sheer number of miracles that he ended up receiving.

He was on life support for the first two days and although on the third day, he had yet to regain consciousness, they removed that as he was now able to breath on his own although he still wore an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose and the tube may have remained down his throat for part of the third day. Certainly by day five, the only thing remaining were those thin tubes going thriugh both nostrils. He had also woken up by this point and was interacing with everyone although he has just recently admitted to me that he has no memory of that day or the two that followed. Initially, the doctors expected him to be in the hospital for at least two, possibly three weeks yet he actually ended up coming home on the fifth day of his hospital stay. He literally woke up, and while he was most definitely in excrutiating pain, - on that first day he described his body and all of the pain like he had fallen down an elevator shaft - he wanted to be gone from the hospital as soon as conceivably possible. Now it sure didn't hurt that it was a long weekend and traditionally, Ontario hospitals like to discharge as many patients as possible before the start of one of these weekends!

Still, the fact that they were even considering discharging him considering his state barely 96 hours earlier is certainly a testement to Jim's health and strength going into this whole debacle I should think. These traits have proven to be greatly beneficial these past few weeks as well. The officers that had originally attended the scene didn't even recognize him when he went to the police station ten days later. Except for all the new scares all over his body, initially they refused to blieve it eas the same man. He has had two followup visits with the Critical Care Division, with the operating surgeons, and they two are stunned and beyond pleased with how well his recovery is coming. In fact, initially he had been sceduled to have ten followup at home visits with one of their nurses and she actually withdrew herself after her third visit with him.

While his recovery is progressing beautifully, he has yet to return to work, nor will he be returning in the near future. This is due to the fact that he has A WHOLE BUNCH OF RECOVERY STILL TO GO! While the actual attack took a boatload out of him so, literally, did the surgeries.In order to get to the punctured lung, the surgeon had to cut open his chest and peel back both sides of his rib cage - might as well have had open heart surgury for this amount of work that had to be done. So in addition to all of the knife wounds and scars, he has a huge line where he was cut open so that he could be repaired. This incision alone required twenty seven staples to close it up! Yikes, indeed.

His temperment has obviously changed, as has mine, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. He was too much a Type A person before all of this, too high strung, too everything...He was very fast becoming a shoe in for either an ulcer, high blood pressure or even a heart attack sometime in his very near future. Maybe now, any one of these possibilities has been averted. I sure would like to think so!Still, the fact that they were even considering discharging him considering his state barely 96 hours earlier is certainly a testement to Jim's health and strength going into this whole debacle I should think. These traits have proven to be greatly beneficial these past few weeks as well. The officers that had originally attended the scene didn't even recognize him when he went to the police station ten days later. Except for all the new scares all over his body, initially they refused to blieve it eas the same man. He has had two followup visits with the Critical Care Division, with the operating surgeons, and they two are stunned and beyond pleased with how well his recovery is coming. In fact, initially he had been sceduled to have ten followup at home visits with one of their nurses and she actually withdrew herself after her third visit with him.