(* Referencing this song.)

My seemingly endless purging of the past year has been a really good thing. It feels like the emotional strings on things really do have a time limit – after which the string snaps and I think, “Oh, this? It can go.”

Some of the strings have lasted for many, many years (I can’t seem to part with my elementary school report cards, as if someone might require proof that I got an “A” in grade 2 reading!) and others last only a few months. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to them, either, since I’ve been getting rid of old papers and some ‘family heirlooms’ with equal enthusiasm.

I just keep checking in, though, to see which strings are gone or fading. Some of the things that are ready to leave the house are things that I really and truly didn’t think I’d ever give away.

A few years after my Dad died, when I had purged a few (small, non-crucial) things, I had a dream that he came back from the dead and was devastated that I had given away [certain items that I no longer remember]. I woke up from that dream feeling absolutely awful. It took me a long time to give away anything else of his; the guilty feeling I got, just contemplating it, was intense.

I don’t feel like that any more. I no longer feel a sense of panic that my Dad will return from the dead and demand that I give him his coffee mug or one of his old dress shirts.

That’s probably a good thing, right?

At any rate, the only thing standing between me and a house mostly emptied of ‘stuff’ is the size of my car, my weak arms, and enough time to go through every box, bin and drawer. It’s probably not fair to Coffee to make him return home from work to find 80 garbage bags, 20 bins of ‘stuff’ and a wife who can no longer use her arms and who keeps saying, “Please? Please just take one more load to Goodwill for me? Pleeeeease?”

At least my arms will both likely still be attached, right Bartholomew?

When asked how he was doing, a client (I’ll call him “Joe” since that’s not his name) recently confessed that he was in “a lot of pain” in a particular part of his body. He had injured it (I don’t know the details) and had gone to his doctor to discuss it.

The doctor, having known Joe for some time, informed him that he should, “take some Tylenol or Advil and relax.”

Joe said that he had tried that and was still in a great deal of pain.

His doctor frowned and said, “Well, Tylenol or Advil are the best I can offer. I will not be prescribing you opiates. Ever. There is nothing else to talk about here.”

..

This is one of those times when the world is filled with shades of grey and where there’s no good answer.

The doctor, of course, wants to keep his license and wants to avoid becoming the sort of doctor who, in essence, supplies drug users with opiates (or narcotics, or..). This is a good thing for everyone involved. I agree with this.

But.. if we assume that Joe is in pain – significant pain – and that he has tried the Tylenol and the Advil and the “relaxing” to no avail, it is absolutely awful to consider that he will remain in pain because his doctor believes he is “drug seeking” and not legitimately injured.

Drug seeking refers to patients, usually with an active addiction, who visit doctors or hospitals solely to get meds that they can use (or sell to buy other drugs). You’ve no doubt read about people who “doctor hop” and visit multiple physicians for prescriptions – or people who fake an injury/pain in order to get an Rx for pain meds.

Was Joe drug seeking in this instance? I don’t know. I know that when I injure myself (my shoulder, say) I don’t necessarily look like I’m in pain, even when it really, really hurts. Joe looked fine to me – but that means absolutely nothing when it comes to pain. If my doctor didn’t take me seriously, I’m not sure what I’d do – but I have many avenues available to me as a result of my comfortable, middle-class status.

I asked Joe what he was going to do – since he was in pain and his doctor had denied him. Joe smiled wryly and said, “I already told the doctor that if he wouldn’t help me, I’d go out and buy the drugs on the street and he could let that rest on his conscience. And I did and I’ll feel better later today..”

Now, that sounds totally crazy to anyone who’s never bought drugs anywhere than their local pharmacy – which might make you think, “Ah, see? He was drug seeking!”

Except.. Joe knows where to buy all sorts of drugs – the kinds he uses and the kinds he doesn’t – so it wouldn’t be a challenge for him to get exactly the meds he (thought/felt) would help him with the pain. The act of buying drugs on the street is no less comfortable for him, generally, than you and I walking into the local pharmacy. It’s a transaction.

I often try to get my clients to trust some sort of health care professional – and it’s a long hard road. My job is to keep people safer when they’re using drugs (and/or having sex) which means that’s the subject that I most interact with them on. So when, for example, someone shows up with an abscess, I am inclined to suggest that they seek medical care. I know, and so do many of them, that abscesses can go really wrong – quickly – and that the best, most effective thing to do is to have it professionally cleaned and packed and get some antibiotics to clear out any remaining infection.

When I tell them this, my clients look at me like I’m insane.

Many of my clients don’t have a doctor – that’s not abnormal, ultimately, for our community. A lot of people use walk-in clinics because there’s a shortage of physicians around.

Clients who do have a family physician are very much aware of the stigma around drug use – and, as a result, do their very best to hide drug use from their doctor. Some of them fear that the police will be called (particularly if the client has children). Some fear that the doctor will refuse to treat them “unless they quit using drugs” (a legitimate fear, in some cases). Some know that the doctor will treat them differently in general – because, as we all know, drug users don’t deserve basic human rights (that’s sarcasm).

Walking into your doctor with a big abscess is a give-away to your drug use. Better to avoid the doctor and try to drain it yourself.

I fight a pretty big battle when I tell someone to go see their doctor – and I usually lose it.

In the case of Joe, the fact that he went to a doctor at all is pretty impressive. But.. it’s my personal feeling that his doctor has a bunch of obligations – but I admit that I don’t know what the doctor has already done/tried. I believe the doctor is obligated to try to determine whether Joe is legitimately injured (xray, ct-scan, or whatever would be appropriate). I also believe he is obligated to address Joe’s addiction – to offer Joe help (that he may, or may not, take at that time) and not just dance around it. (Assuming there was help available.)

In other words, there was plenty left to discuss there.

So, Joe comes to see me to pick up supplies to use whatever drugs he’s purchased. He tells me about his pain and his interaction with his doctor. I give him the supplies, praise him for using safely (because I am legitimately happy that he does, not in a condescending manner) and tell him that I hope he’s feeling better.

Because, ultimately, I do want him to feel better. Regardless if the pain he has is physical or if the pain he has is psychological, I want Joe to feel better and stay healthy – and I want the rest of the people in his community to have that priority too.

I want drug users – addicted, non-addicted, recreational or otherwise – to be given the same rights as everyone else. I want their lives to be as easy as mine in all the meaningful ways. I want them to be healthy in all ways, not just in their substance use or sexuality. And, my god, I want there to be more readily available help for people with addictions who want help.

Since we celebrated Solstice a few days ago, it doesn’t feel even a tiny bit like Christmas around here, other than finding the internet mostly calm and quiet. Few updates to blogs, especially the more commercial-style, and Facebook seems to be primarily filled with people gleefully letting others know what Santa brought them last night.

Our day around here will be quiet and calm too, though. Coffee has parked himself on the sofa with his xbox controller. The kids are occupied with electronics and snacks and sleeping late and all that other good stuff.

Me, I’m about to do some laundry. Then I’m going to add to my seasonal pudge by eating something relatively unhealthy and curling up with a book or ten.

For those of you who celebrate, in whatever way you do, I hope your day is filled with whatever it is that makes you happiest around this time of year. Family, snacks, presents, afternoon naps, silence, Chinese food, snowflakes..

For a significant part of the winter, I walk around with chapped, dry, sometimes-cracking hands.

The simple solution, here, would be for me to apply moisturizer of some sort. I know this. You know this.

I mean, perhaps I could do it after I wash my hands (approximately 80 kabillion times per day)? Or maybe I could do it first thing in the morning and last thing at night?

No. No, I cannot.

As a general rule, I wash my hands a lot. A lot-lot. I wash them before and after most tasks. I wash them as soon as I get home from somewhere. I wash them before I leave to go somewhere. I wash them many, many times while cooking. I wash them after I pet the dog(s). I wash them .. okay, so I wash them a lot. I basically just wash the moisturizer off within 5-10 minutes of applying it because I’m constantly washing my hands.

In the morning, I need my hands to be ‘grease free’. I can’t handle losing any of my dexterity or my ability to grasp things. I cannot possibly start my day with gunk on my hands.

At night, I roll around and (apparently) spend a lot of time groping my own face. I know this because, in the past, I have applied moisturizer to my hands and awakened to find my face covered in pimples. (I have really sensitive, ridiculous skin on my face). I’ve tried the gloves that are made for sleep-moisturizing – and while they initially worked, I ended up either taking them off in my sleep or freaking out and removing them because my hands felt “claustrophobic”. Right.

I can’t have moisturizer on my hands when I’m at work (touching people’s stuff). Crack pipes + lotion are not a good mix.

I can’t drive if my hands are sticky. I can’t shift!

I’ve determined that, on average, there are 2 opportunities per week for me to moisturize my hands and not have it be problematic – and I’m generally nowhere near a bottle of lotion at those times.

I’ve tried the “waterproof” moisturizers – they’re not waterproof for very long. Plus, I have to actively not think about the whole concept because the idea of a layer of film on top of my skin, collecting dirt, skeeves me right out.

I’ve tried the really ultra-thick moisturizers (thinking I could get away with doing it less often) and they take forever to soak into my skin and, in the meantime, I’m totally incapacitated. I can’t use my hands!

I’ve tried washing my hands less (HAHAHAHAHAHA) and .. no. Not doing that. I’ve tried different soaps (moisturizing!) to no avail.

And so, I quit. I am just going to walk around scabby-handed until Spring and avoid shaking anyone’s hand, ok?

I finished my first university course (well, the first one of this time around) and my final mark is 86%.

I am now completely qualified to speak about random bits of religion, ideologies, modernity and evil.

I am also now totally positive that I will never, ever again, take a religion course. My brain can’t handle it.

As I’ve written many times in the past, the season that spans October to February is, generally speaking, sort of shitty for me. It’s a series of anniversaries (of deaths, mostly) and birthdays (for dead people) and other assorted things along those lines.

Every year gets better, though, as much as it doesn’t feel like it at the time. I mean, when you’re feeling miserable it’s hard to compare that misery to previous misery. It’s all misery, right? It’s only looking back that I can see the differences.

This year, I’ve been coping with the misery by forcing Coffee to spend his evenings watching episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

For those unaware, Sunny is a ridiculously awesome show that’s full of inappropriate humour. I mean, there is nothing politically correct about any of the episodes and, even on re-watching, there are times when I can’t believe they got away with writing, filming and then airing the show.

The fact that Danny DeVito is in this show, and the role he plays, makes it even more surreal.

But oh, god, I love it. I think I love it because it’s just so totally black-humoured and inappropriate and completely disconnected from any sort of reality (and, as a result, it’s a good distraction for me).

Unrelated, I may also be developing a crush on Charlie Kelly – which is disturbing in many ways (except that the actor, Charlie Day, is adorable). My other television crush is on Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgård is ridiculously hot) and, clearly, they have absolutely nothing in common. Nothing.

Now that I’ve confessed my inappropriate humour, I must ask – when you’re feeling a bit miserable/down/sad, what makes you feel a bit better?