To hell with the Vicodin

/ marydpierce

cape cod kayak

 

I start things, I don’t always finish them.  At least in a timely manner.  I have a lot of drafts in my WordPress folder.  The way I work is, I get an idea, usually a sentence or a title, or I look at one of my photos and it spurs something.  But, the two things — a few words and an image — always go together in my mind.  That’s how I roll.  Often I get several sentences down, maybe even a paragraph or two, before I leave it.  That way I have something to pick up on when I come back.

You can imagine my confusion when I opened this draft and found the title with this particular photo and nothing else.  Not one word.  What does Vicodin have to do with a placid scene of two guys fishing from kayaks in a cove on Cape Cod?  What WAS I thinking when I dropped this here?  Anyone?

And before you ask, no I wasn’t on Vicodin when I began the piece.  That was the point of the title.  I do remember that.  Because I had tried to have a prescription for it filled, along with an antibiotic after a grueling oral surgery last October.  And an older woman who reminded me of my high school Math teacher, Mrs. Burns (a woman so terrifying that the French teacher across the hall once put a sign on his door that read:  First Aid for Lethal Burns) looked at my prescriptions and then told me all the reasons why the Vicodin scrip couldn’t be filled.  Something to do with changes in dosage — of the acetaminophen, not even the narcotic part of it — and my oral surgeon should have known that.  No, I couldn’t just have his office call it in because it was a Class 3 drug, I would have to go back to the office, a 70-minute roundtrip drive away, and have the doctor write a new prescription.  And my mouth was swollen and starting to hurt, and I was thinking, to hell with the Vicodin.  Which completely makes sense now that I’ve explained it to you doesn’t it?

Except for the photograph.

Your guess is as good as mine.  I welcome your suggestions.

44 thoughts on “To hell with the Vicodin”

  3. The last time I took any Vicodin was after my hysterectomy for cancer. I had don’t remember sleeping, but I do remember having what seemed like a wide-awake dream – very strange dream about corridors and empty meeting rooms. I think it was from wandering around the hospital with its long, empty corridors. Doesn’t sound disturbing but it really was. Best not to take that stuff, I think.

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    • I had Vicodin once years ago after a jaw surgery. I just remember that I slept a lot which I needed to do at the time. This time, the doctor wrote the prescription on a “just in case” chance I had a lot of pain. I was more interested in just getting what I need and getting home. I have had those wide-awake dreams before and they are always frightening. I have them sometimes if I wake tired in the morning and then fall back asleep.

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  4. By the looks of the kayakers, if they continue to sit where they are, the water (as in tide) will be gone and they will not need their paddles (hence the passage of time and you won’t need the vicodin). So too shall the pain pass)….maybe????

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    • When I took that photo I actually thought of Dennis and how he loves to fish from a boat, and I thought that if he was there he would have laughed at those guys. But I loved the photo itself because of the angles and shapes and the shaft of yellow from the guy’s life vest reflected in the water. Man, I wish I could remember why I put that photo with the thought of the not getting Vicodin. Maybe one day it’ll come to me.

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  7. Maybe you were wishing you were enjoying a nice float in a kayak instead of dealing with the Nazi pharmacist (and the pain), Mary. Fortunately, we humans tend to forget pain but maybe in this case you forgot what was associated with it as well (the photograph).

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    • They are lovely colors indeed, Renta, but I wouldn’t know about the shrooms or the LSD, I’m not that kind of girl. Maybe the pain of the procedure had simply addled my poor brain. I’ll probably never know now. (You’re up awfully early.) xx

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  9. The guys in the kayaks represent fellow sufferers needing treatment. They are trying to make their way to the dentist, but things aren’t going well. Their appointment was ache o’clock, but they won’t be there until tooth hurty 🙂

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  10. First: I laughed out loud over the “lethal burns” sign. Funny!
    Love this post, Mary!
    I associate kayaking as soothing and a chance to get away from the cares of the world for a bit (at least that’s what it is for me).
    So I read this as “to hell with the vicodin; i’ll get relief on the water” (although to be honest, it’d be hard to enjoy the float with pain and swelling after oral surgery).

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    • Glad you liked it, Laurie. I didn’t want to let a perfectly good title and a lovely photo go to waste because of my poor memory. I really liked this photo, I took several from various angles wondering the whole time why these two needed kayaks, and also, what they would catch in such shallow waters. The water was not very deep. I could have walked over to ask them.

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  11. First of all, I love the title. I think what the image evokes is how being on Vicodin is like floating on a placid body of water in a serene, blissful state. How’s that? 😉

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  12. When I saw the title, I thought it made perfect sense. The picture suggests you find peace and tranquility from gliding on top of the water and taking in nature instead of using the drug. Narcotics typically give you a little lift and a feeling of peace….basically an escape from whatever life is dishing you at the moment. You may have been hoping for an alternative to the drug since it was going to be such a hassle to get it.

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  14. I like everybody else’s theories. Love them, actually!!
    I’m totally giggling at your whole story and imagining how the picture ended up here. It made me look at my writing idea board – I’ve been trying to figure what story idea this little post-it note was supposed to represent, “3 of Cups.” It’s scribbled on a lovely piece of paper with no other context…
    Wha? Perhaps, you slipped me your Vicodin…

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    • I don’t know; that sounds plausible to me. She was a most unpleasant person. She could have used a little Vicodin herself, or at least a peaceful float on calm water and a sunny day.

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  19. Funny you mention this, Mary, because I was yesterday looking at some old writings of mine (some of them well older than a decade) and some of them made zero sense. In a way, I’m looking at the work of a stranger, and that’s a little weird and a little liberating, I guess, in a way, because you know that you (not to mention your art, your outlook, your appearance, etc.) can be transformed over time–and, moreover, it will be, frankly, whether you want to or not. As for the photo, to me it looks like the closer paddler is maneuvering around a rock; perhaps you meant your draft to be about how we paddle around the nagging, poking, painful ‘rocks’ that fate (or whatever) decides to strew about our lives. Anyway, good post . . . I believe Twain advised a similar thing (that you should stop writing mid-sentence and that will help jog your memory when you come back to what you’re working on).

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    • Older than a decade — that must be an odd sensation. I recently found some poetry I had written two decades ago, but that’s an entirely different thing. The fear of coming back to old writing used to stop me from writing much at all when I was younger. Most of my friends and both my sisters kept diaries or journals as teenagers, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that. Blogging scares me more than I can say.

      You’re right about Twain. I remember that quote now. Good advice.

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  20. Hey maybe it was just thinking of a happy place while in pain…..just to get past the moment. I can often visualize a place or memory that helps me get past something not quite so pleasant. Well at least it has provoked a lot of surmising and comments, I have enjoyed reading your blogs.

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    • Thank you so much for reading and commenting. I appreciate it. Whatever my original plan, I like your idea of visualizing a place or memory to get me past an unpleasantry. I’m going to give that a try. Maybe even with the photo about because it is calming. Thank you!

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