January 14, 2008

Serious Drug Problems

One particularly bad morning, my boyfriend woke me up to go to work. I couldn’t focus up him when I opened my eyes. I told him I was seeing double. I stumbled through my house in a daze and got myself ready for work. I was still extremely tired and out-of-it, but that was nothing new.

My boyfriend and I both got into our cars and took off for work. He was behind me on the road. After I crossed the second light, a few blocks away from my house, I drove into a parked car. It took me a minute to realize what had happened. I started saying, “oh no, oh no.” I parked my car and started to walk back to the car I hit. My boyfriend had seen the whole thing. He was terrified and angry. I didn’t really understand what was going on and I don’t remember a lot of that morning.

By the Grace of God, I only cracked the mirror of the parked car. I completely destroyed my mirror. It was in pieces along the road. My boyfriend gathered the broken pieces and took pictures of the damages with the camera I always kept in my purse. He left a note for the car owned with my name and number.

I can’t tell you what I was doing during this time. I have no memory of the situation. My boyfriend put me in his car and drove me home. Then he walked back to the scene of the accident and drove my car home. I was lying on the couch when he came home and screamed at me.

I didn’t know what was going on, I didn’t know how serious the situation was. The only thing I could understand was that my boyfriend was mad at me and he was talking to me in a tone I had never heard before. I felt hurt and confused.

I was completely unfit to take myself to work, so I called my supervisor and explained that I had been in a car accident and would be unable to make it into the office. My boyfriend insisted that I call my doctor and tell him what happened. He was on vacation so I told his assistant. My boyfriend left for work in disgust and I went to sleep for the rest of the day.

When I woke up in the evening I tried to piece the morning together. I had no idea how I got back to my house and assumed I had driven myself. I didn’t remember anything about the car that I hit. There was a voicemail from my doctor’s office. His assistant had paged him on his vacation and told him what happened. He said to scale way back on the Lyrica.

When I spoke to my boyfriend that evening, he explained what he saw as he drove behind me. I was moving through the intersection normally when I suddenly veered out of the line of traffic and into a parked car. If I hadn’t jerked the wheel to correct myself, I could have totaled my car and badly hurt myself. My boyfriend thought he could have watched me accidentally kill myself.

1 comment:

Kate said...

Presumably your partner was so angry because he was frightened? (Sorry - psychotherapist - can't help myself.)

What was the dose of Lyrica? I am creeping up on it. Strangely, it seems to be helping the foot that has been causing me so much pain x6 mos, but not yet helping its intended target. I'm taking on 150 mg/day at this point, though - and today is the day I got to that dose.

I had to down-dose on fentanyl because I couldn't see straight or stay awake on the road. Meds are such fun.