Was in my mom's store talking business and I looked down and my hands were blue and cold, I started to get dizzy, my speach was labored, was chilly but sweating profusely. And I started to feel like I was slipping from conscienceness for one of the few times in my life other then sleep of course.

Turned out to be lack of sleep (over 2 days...and counting!), food and I was dehydrated. My blood work came back showing my potassium levels were on the high side but after another draw it was wrong and was only really high, instead of dangerously so. I've taken a potassium supplement since high school to help with cramping...my doc told me to cut it out, but still take my other supplements.

Reason for some funny posts on here for sure...everything has a reason :P

My luck was that my PCP was pulling ER duty (thank god for small towns!) and he's just awesome...medicine men step aside, this cat is cool. He calmed me about some recent changes in our weening schedule from the pain meds and was just generally on the ball and cool...I've got a keeper there.

Sounds like your okay!

Make sure to put down those fluids...Dehydration can be serious--put me in the hospital for 9 days and they suspect it had a lot to do with my defective gall bladder that came out a couple of weeks ago.

Take care man! And drink drink and drink!

LOL...I put out some crazy posts on Ambien...and my GF made me stop taking it for other reasons...

Eric

Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, but Eric goes to ER.
Hang in there brother. I did catch your drift on your paradisical post and was working a double entrende on MJ. Us old timers remember when Mary Jane was not spiderman's wife.
Hope all goes better for you and that dreamland awaits soon
charm

Thanks guys. Charm, I knew you knew what I knew I actually like the Harold and Kumar movies too...I watched them when I wasn't vaporized and they were ok...they are hilarious after a few sips from the bag. Good times!

I finally got good sleep last night, but on a scary level. My dr put me on clonazepam and the side effects look really scary. He thinks that I'll be fine though and I got great sleep last night and woke up feeling good. He also put me on a clonidine patch to help me deal with the withdrawel effects while coming off of the fentanyl...seems to be working thus far as I felt good today after spending 3 days in bed not sleeping and then one day in the ER.

Anyway, thanks guys, hope you all are well

Eric

As an anti anxiety med, clonazepam is really effective, and I have been on it occasionally with no side effects from it at all. As a little aside, it is the drug of choice for actors and musicians that deal with stage fright before a concert, performance etc. I guess this means that while it may relax you (to sleep better) its effects do not keep you from functioning properly.

Also I was on opiod drugs for almost a year during my treatments, and if that is not scary enough, I got stuff like synthetic morphines in PINT bottles to put in me PEG, which I as really liberal with once I left the hospital and was living remotely from my doctors in New Mexico during recovery. Getting off all that was a task, and after one really bad event with withdrawal, I finally did it under dr's supervision, but the step down increments were so small, it took 4.5 months.

Geez Eric,, sounds like a scary time for you > Go easy man and keep whipping this stuff.

Thanks for the support guys, I appreciate it.

Brian, thanks for the info on clonazepam and sharing your experience with the opiates.

I've been on an opiate of some sort for the last year and a half, Fentanyl for most of it and using oxy for break through pain. I've also used oxy just to get going, a few sips from the bottle or a few 5mg pills and they will usually overcome my exhaustion spells...but I hate it.

I was on as high as 200mcg/hr during tx and have dialed down to 100mcg/hr until a month ago and felt ok...then we decided to go to 75mcg/hr and that's when I really felt it. I know it's going to take time to get off of these, but it sucks and I'm having a hard time with it. I'm not wanting to take anymore drugs but my PCP thinks that the clonidine will help take the edge off...here's to hope

Slow is the key - don't rush it. Your body has to adjust at a pace that is different than your mind wants. Eventually one day it will be over, but remember you've said there is another surgery in your future, so this may be part of who you are for awhile.

I think the hardest part for me was realizing how tough I was on the people around me, and at the time not even realizing it. (I think I should rephrase that and say I was an asshole.) The mood swings were horrible on me and them. I did plenty of apologizing after the fact when I got control again. But I burned some bridges that didn't get rebuilt. Much of it I didn't even remember saying, or at least I remember it differently than they did.

Two of the docs on OCF's science advisory board, who are now good friends, and who were part of saving my life, I yelled at and treated like crap.... I'm surprised that they came around to helping me with the foundation. But I guess forgiveness is part of caring, and they did.

I did not do well with frustration, and patience is a virtue that I did not posses. Couple that with the fact that I was a shadow of the man I was before - after treatment, and my ego was significantly impacted by the new me. This disease has been a teacher. It has taken years, but I have certainly evolved as a result of all this. I think mostly for the positive, but I still struggle with frustration and patience.