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Yesterday morning, I woke up mildly hungover, but otherwise fine. It was the day I was going to start taking a new med that's supposed to help with alcohol cravings - anyone that's been here awhile knows I'm a pretty bad alcoholic. This med I've taken before, but hadn't taken in ages. I take it along with my bipolar meds, and head off to work.
An hour into work, I notice I'm sweating a little bit. It happens, I figure it's the hangover and start drinking some water. 30 more minutes later I notice I'm having a LOT of trouble remembering produce PLUs. This is very odd for me, I know the most obscure PLUs you can imagine (dried tomatoes? 4802. jicama? 4626. and I know what organic and conventional products we have in stock EVERY DAY because I walk through produce and look around.. every day) - and I'm one of the fastest cashiers in the store. Then I realize I'm having trouble remembering key sequences on our registers and notice I'm having trouble even scanning items, I was having trouble orienting the bar codes toward the scanner. Our registers have a 12" LCD next to the keypad, and a 14" LCD for the customer display - they're entirely menu driven and run Windows XP, so I know I'm up shit creek at this point. I was having trouble figuring out how to do a CASH transaction. You hit total, enter, amount, enter (or total, cash, amount, enter.. either way works). And couldn't figure out how to do a change quantity. At this point I tell my supe I'm not feeling good and really need to sit down for a bit. They tell me I'm looking really pale and sweating a lot, and shaking pretty bad.
Supes think I might have low blood sugar - I'm not diabetic, but go along with it. I've been through first aid and CPR training and I was showing the classic symptoms of diabetic shock. They bring me some cookies and orange juice. I nibble on the cookie, promptly start dry heaving, and chug the orange juice. I didn't feel better after 15 minutes, so I told them I was going to clock out and go to the break room for a bit. I laid on the couch back there for about 30 minutes, got more and more disoriented and confused, and stumbled back up front (looking piss drunk, seeing double, and barely able to talk) and tell them I need to go to the hospital. They call the store manager to tell them what's up, I get a ride to the ER from a coworker, stumble in and I'm barely able to figure out where I'm at. And could barely write on the admissions form.
After 6 hours of bloodwork, poking, prodding, neurological tests, and quizzes about both legal and illegal drug use (I smoke pot a couple of times a week, and drink a bit every day, that's it for me getting intoxicated), plus a CT scan of my head... both myself and the doctors notice I'm not slurring anymore and regaining most of my motor skills. They chalk it up to a drug interaction with the new drug, even though I'd taken it before. I'm discharged and picked up by my mom, feeling pretty ditzy, but somewhat better. I spend the night at her house, get a nice dinner, she goes to bed... I start watching TV, they have Verizon's amazing FiOS (fiber) cable system and internet and hundreds of channels. I have Time Warner's mid level digital cable and don't have HALF of the channels they have, though I do have a nicer HDTV (they have a 200+ pound 37" CRT HDTV from 2001, mine's a 32" 25 pound LCD from 2008).
I can't sleep, seeing as I haven't slept in that house in about 5 years and my old bedroom is now an office. And I'm still very uncomfortable.. cold sweats, etc. So I hop on facebook. I'd been wondering about what was going on with a friend, we usually talked every few days over facebook chat and I hadn't heard from her in awhile. Notice someone with her same last name had tried to add me as a friend a few days ago (I rarely notice who's tried to add me)..... with a note attached. "Katherine passed away a few days ago".
I wander over to my friend's facebook page and sure enough, it's filled with a bunch of "rest in peace" messages starting on the 21st, preceded by "Katherine is in a coma" on the 15th. Turns out it was her sister that had tried to add me as a friend with that note, she was sending the same note to all of Katherine's friends on FB.
Fuck me running. I wind up crying for awhile, email her sister asking what happened, and crying some more. I finally go to bed, and wind up tossing, turning, sleeping maybe 30 or 45 minutes, and sweating my ass off all night. When I did sleep I kept having nightmares. I wake up with the sheets completely soaked, have an uneventful breakfast with mom, and go back to bed (I didn't have to be at work until 3pm). I sleep maybe 30 minutes, drenching the sheets again in sweat.
I finally get a ride from mom back to my car around 1:30pm, I pick it up from work and go home for a bit to catch up on emails, IMs, and the like. I change clothes and head into work. I stop by the service desk to borrow scissors to cut the hospital bands off of my arm, wander back to the timeclock and lockers to punch in and get my apron, and wander back up front after taking my daily tour through produce. Work was uneventful aside from my boss thanking me for showing up after such a rough night (I had briefed him on the ER visit followed by finding out about my friend) and told me 99% of my coworkers would have called in sick. I tell him I can't afford to call in, I have rent to pay, plus I'm on "final" anyway for attendance issues (missed 2 store meetings back to back, which count as a no call/no show). I rang $11k, my drawer balanced to the penny. A coworker who'd gotten off 2 hours earlier said she was going to hang out at my place for awhile (she has a key to my place, she lives an hour away and I live a mile away, she regularly hangs out here after work), she sent me a text while I was counting my drawer saying she was at the TGI Fridays across the street.
I show up at Fridays, she's hanging out with a guy I've never seen. We make our introductions, and I immediately notice my coworker/friend is drunk. By drunk I mean PISS DRUNK, closing one eye to focus, almost falling off of her stool, and she starts trying to make out with me (.. we're close friends, but not THAT close... she knows I'm gay). I make some small talk with the bartender and ask how much she's had to drink, he said "A bit, but not a lot". He shows me her tab so far and we both agree it's about normal for her to drink that much and be able to walk, though not drive after that much. I ask him to cut her off, he said he already had. I get a couple of beers and notice my friend is getting more and more fucked up by the minute, the bartender strongly hints that I need to get her out of there ASAP and somewhere safe (we're both on a first name basis with the bartender there, we're in there 2 or 3 times a week, tip well, and don't argue). She was making a decent scene, falling off her stool, yelling, the works. I agree, my coworker hands me her wallet to close out her tab. She had a bit - 6 beers and 1 shot, but I've seen her drink more than double that and still walk before. Her tab was $17. Mine was $9 (2 beers, 1 shot - hey, I live less than 2 miles away and have a crazy tolerance). I start making small talk to the guy she was hanging out with, he mentions he's from out of town and he's a bit evasive about giving a phone number to catch up with later, but eventually gives her his number. It's from out of state.
I help my friend/CW stumble to my car.. she's a bit pissed that I'm not letting her drive and hiding her keys from her, but relents after I unlock her car and let her get her valuables out of it (brand new cellphone, CDs, etc) and lock it back up for her. Her car is a beat to shit, multicolored 2001 Saturn sedan missing the front side markers and with a cracked windshield (base model, manual everything including transmission) with 250k miles on it and it burns roughly a quart of oil per gas tank (it leaves a massive blue smoke screen behind it everywhere it goes and won't pass emissions) - believe me NOBODY will steal it, the fenders and hood are multiple colors. It's still at Fridays. We drive to Whataburger to get some food on back roads, then back to my place (again on back roads - I was barely buzzed, but probably over the legal limit, due to my elephant like tolerance of alcohol), and she's still getting worse by the minute. I help her up the stairs to my front door, she nearly does a faceplant twice. We hang out on the couch for a bit eating greasy horribly unhealthy burgers and fries, then I hear snoring and look over at her passed out cold with a burger up to her lips. I wake her up enough to finish chewing the bite and swallow it, and help her into my bed and cover her up.
She's still passed out cold, I've been checking to make sure she's breathing every few minutes.
Long story short, I suspect the out of town guy slipped something in her drink. However, most "roofies" are benzodiazepines, which are relatively short acting, and while not exactly smart to mix with alcohol, generally won't do any harm in small doses with reasonable amounts of alcohol (but with such a mix, you will be VERY fucked up and remember almost nothing of the night). She still grunts if I poke her or try to move her, and she's lightly snoring, so I'm pretty sure she'll be alright. I'm going to keep an eye on her all night and call an ambulance if I see anything beyond normal "I took a valium and drank some beers and passed out" behavior that I've seen in friends before.
Longer story short... fuck my life, I don't want to go through any of this ever again. Either at once or all at once. Seriously. I don't like playing babysitter to people who've gotten too fucked up, I don't like friends dying, and holy shit I REALLY don't like spending half a day in the emergency room. However, getting a CT scan was pretty damn neat even though I was really out of it. Lay down on a bed with a pillow, lay really still, you slide into a tunnel with lasers, slide back out, slide back in with machines spinning wildly around you, back out, repeat a few times, and it all winds down. Took about 3 minutes and made a lot of cool noises, though I'm sure I'm glowing green from radiation after that.
Also I need a hug.
edit: after some reading on rxlist.com, I found out what probably triggered the interaction with the "new"/restarted medicine. If you've taken opiates within the past month or so, it can trigger a nearly comatose-like state, and heroin-like withdrawals. I had Vicodin (hydrocodone) for a sprained wrist 2 1/2 weeks ago and stopped taking it a week and a half ago. Low dose and not taken long enough for addiction, but apparently if ANY trace of an opiate is left in your body, it makes your body go into OMGWTFBBQ mode. My wrist still hurts like hell.
edit2: CW just woke up and wandered up behind me while I was typing this. She's still too messed up to focus her eyes though, and went back to bed. At least she knows where she is though.
An hour into work, I notice I'm sweating a little bit. It happens, I figure it's the hangover and start drinking some water. 30 more minutes later I notice I'm having a LOT of trouble remembering produce PLUs. This is very odd for me, I know the most obscure PLUs you can imagine (dried tomatoes? 4802. jicama? 4626. and I know what organic and conventional products we have in stock EVERY DAY because I walk through produce and look around.. every day) - and I'm one of the fastest cashiers in the store. Then I realize I'm having trouble remembering key sequences on our registers and notice I'm having trouble even scanning items, I was having trouble orienting the bar codes toward the scanner. Our registers have a 12" LCD next to the keypad, and a 14" LCD for the customer display - they're entirely menu driven and run Windows XP, so I know I'm up shit creek at this point. I was having trouble figuring out how to do a CASH transaction. You hit total, enter, amount, enter (or total, cash, amount, enter.. either way works). And couldn't figure out how to do a change quantity. At this point I tell my supe I'm not feeling good and really need to sit down for a bit. They tell me I'm looking really pale and sweating a lot, and shaking pretty bad.
Supes think I might have low blood sugar - I'm not diabetic, but go along with it. I've been through first aid and CPR training and I was showing the classic symptoms of diabetic shock. They bring me some cookies and orange juice. I nibble on the cookie, promptly start dry heaving, and chug the orange juice. I didn't feel better after 15 minutes, so I told them I was going to clock out and go to the break room for a bit. I laid on the couch back there for about 30 minutes, got more and more disoriented and confused, and stumbled back up front (looking piss drunk, seeing double, and barely able to talk) and tell them I need to go to the hospital. They call the store manager to tell them what's up, I get a ride to the ER from a coworker, stumble in and I'm barely able to figure out where I'm at. And could barely write on the admissions form.
After 6 hours of bloodwork, poking, prodding, neurological tests, and quizzes about both legal and illegal drug use (I smoke pot a couple of times a week, and drink a bit every day, that's it for me getting intoxicated), plus a CT scan of my head... both myself and the doctors notice I'm not slurring anymore and regaining most of my motor skills. They chalk it up to a drug interaction with the new drug, even though I'd taken it before. I'm discharged and picked up by my mom, feeling pretty ditzy, but somewhat better. I spend the night at her house, get a nice dinner, she goes to bed... I start watching TV, they have Verizon's amazing FiOS (fiber) cable system and internet and hundreds of channels. I have Time Warner's mid level digital cable and don't have HALF of the channels they have, though I do have a nicer HDTV (they have a 200+ pound 37" CRT HDTV from 2001, mine's a 32" 25 pound LCD from 2008).
I can't sleep, seeing as I haven't slept in that house in about 5 years and my old bedroom is now an office. And I'm still very uncomfortable.. cold sweats, etc. So I hop on facebook. I'd been wondering about what was going on with a friend, we usually talked every few days over facebook chat and I hadn't heard from her in awhile. Notice someone with her same last name had tried to add me as a friend a few days ago (I rarely notice who's tried to add me)..... with a note attached. "Katherine passed away a few days ago".
I wander over to my friend's facebook page and sure enough, it's filled with a bunch of "rest in peace" messages starting on the 21st, preceded by "Katherine is in a coma" on the 15th. Turns out it was her sister that had tried to add me as a friend with that note, she was sending the same note to all of Katherine's friends on FB.Fuck me running. I wind up crying for awhile, email her sister asking what happened, and crying some more. I finally go to bed, and wind up tossing, turning, sleeping maybe 30 or 45 minutes, and sweating my ass off all night. When I did sleep I kept having nightmares. I wake up with the sheets completely soaked, have an uneventful breakfast with mom, and go back to bed (I didn't have to be at work until 3pm). I sleep maybe 30 minutes, drenching the sheets again in sweat.
I finally get a ride from mom back to my car around 1:30pm, I pick it up from work and go home for a bit to catch up on emails, IMs, and the like. I change clothes and head into work. I stop by the service desk to borrow scissors to cut the hospital bands off of my arm, wander back to the timeclock and lockers to punch in and get my apron, and wander back up front after taking my daily tour through produce. Work was uneventful aside from my boss thanking me for showing up after such a rough night (I had briefed him on the ER visit followed by finding out about my friend) and told me 99% of my coworkers would have called in sick. I tell him I can't afford to call in, I have rent to pay, plus I'm on "final" anyway for attendance issues (missed 2 store meetings back to back, which count as a no call/no show). I rang $11k, my drawer balanced to the penny. A coworker who'd gotten off 2 hours earlier said she was going to hang out at my place for awhile (she has a key to my place, she lives an hour away and I live a mile away, she regularly hangs out here after work), she sent me a text while I was counting my drawer saying she was at the TGI Fridays across the street.
I show up at Fridays, she's hanging out with a guy I've never seen. We make our introductions, and I immediately notice my coworker/friend is drunk. By drunk I mean PISS DRUNK, closing one eye to focus, almost falling off of her stool, and she starts trying to make out with me (.. we're close friends, but not THAT close... she knows I'm gay). I make some small talk with the bartender and ask how much she's had to drink, he said "A bit, but not a lot". He shows me her tab so far and we both agree it's about normal for her to drink that much and be able to walk, though not drive after that much. I ask him to cut her off, he said he already had. I get a couple of beers and notice my friend is getting more and more fucked up by the minute, the bartender strongly hints that I need to get her out of there ASAP and somewhere safe (we're both on a first name basis with the bartender there, we're in there 2 or 3 times a week, tip well, and don't argue). She was making a decent scene, falling off her stool, yelling, the works. I agree, my coworker hands me her wallet to close out her tab. She had a bit - 6 beers and 1 shot, but I've seen her drink more than double that and still walk before. Her tab was $17. Mine was $9 (2 beers, 1 shot - hey, I live less than 2 miles away and have a crazy tolerance). I start making small talk to the guy she was hanging out with, he mentions he's from out of town and he's a bit evasive about giving a phone number to catch up with later, but eventually gives her his number. It's from out of state.
I help my friend/CW stumble to my car.. she's a bit pissed that I'm not letting her drive and hiding her keys from her, but relents after I unlock her car and let her get her valuables out of it (brand new cellphone, CDs, etc) and lock it back up for her. Her car is a beat to shit, multicolored 2001 Saturn sedan missing the front side markers and with a cracked windshield (base model, manual everything including transmission) with 250k miles on it and it burns roughly a quart of oil per gas tank (it leaves a massive blue smoke screen behind it everywhere it goes and won't pass emissions) - believe me NOBODY will steal it, the fenders and hood are multiple colors. It's still at Fridays. We drive to Whataburger to get some food on back roads, then back to my place (again on back roads - I was barely buzzed, but probably over the legal limit, due to my elephant like tolerance of alcohol), and she's still getting worse by the minute. I help her up the stairs to my front door, she nearly does a faceplant twice. We hang out on the couch for a bit eating greasy horribly unhealthy burgers and fries, then I hear snoring and look over at her passed out cold with a burger up to her lips. I wake her up enough to finish chewing the bite and swallow it, and help her into my bed and cover her up.
She's still passed out cold, I've been checking to make sure she's breathing every few minutes.
Long story short, I suspect the out of town guy slipped something in her drink. However, most "roofies" are benzodiazepines, which are relatively short acting, and while not exactly smart to mix with alcohol, generally won't do any harm in small doses with reasonable amounts of alcohol (but with such a mix, you will be VERY fucked up and remember almost nothing of the night). She still grunts if I poke her or try to move her, and she's lightly snoring, so I'm pretty sure she'll be alright. I'm going to keep an eye on her all night and call an ambulance if I see anything beyond normal "I took a valium and drank some beers and passed out" behavior that I've seen in friends before.
Longer story short... fuck my life, I don't want to go through any of this ever again. Either at once or all at once. Seriously. I don't like playing babysitter to people who've gotten too fucked up, I don't like friends dying, and holy shit I REALLY don't like spending half a day in the emergency room. However, getting a CT scan was pretty damn neat even though I was really out of it. Lay down on a bed with a pillow, lay really still, you slide into a tunnel with lasers, slide back out, slide back in with machines spinning wildly around you, back out, repeat a few times, and it all winds down. Took about 3 minutes and made a lot of cool noises, though I'm sure I'm glowing green from radiation after that.
Also I need a hug.
edit: after some reading on rxlist.com, I found out what probably triggered the interaction with the "new"/restarted medicine. If you've taken opiates within the past month or so, it can trigger a nearly comatose-like state, and heroin-like withdrawals. I had Vicodin (hydrocodone) for a sprained wrist 2 1/2 weeks ago and stopped taking it a week and a half ago. Low dose and not taken long enough for addiction, but apparently if ANY trace of an opiate is left in your body, it makes your body go into OMGWTFBBQ mode. My wrist still hurts like hell.
edit2: CW just woke up and wandered up behind me while I was typing this. She's still too messed up to focus her eyes though, and went back to bed. At least she knows where she is though.
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