Thanks for all your comments, they're a big help.

Gary, in answer to your question about withdrawing from the narcotics, my radiation oncologist guided me through weaning myself off the fentanyl patches (I was at 150 mgs. and it took a few weeks to get down to 25 mgs. and then quit. (as an aside, a very good friend of mine is a palliative care physician and he showed me a little trick for fractional patch dosages. If you buy some clear adhesive plastic and cut a piece that is roughly the size of the patch, you can overlap whatever percentage of the patch onto the plastic to reduce the dose. It's a good way of getting from 25 mgs. to zero, if the cold turkey route is too problemmatic.
The oncologist pretty much left getting off the oxycodeine to me, but told me to taper off slowly, so I went from 2 tsps/6 hours to 11/2 to 1, etc. going 4-5 days at each dosage level. Whenever I lowered the dosage, I increased the frequency closer to 4 hours and then got it back up to 6 hours before lowering it again.