Those are probably words most parents won’t hear from their adult child, but I heard it from my daughter, an RN, the other morning. And you notice, I said “Again”. Apparently I don’t do well with opiate pain relievers. Back in May when I had my first foot surgery, I was given an opiate pain reliever and I remember calling my daughter then telling her I felt “stupid”. I couldn’t form sentences and I was dizzy. That time she laughed and said “Mom, you’re stoned”. Oh well. I didn’t take that medication again.

This time I was given Tramadol, which is another opiate pain reliever. I had called her Wednesday night after my surgery and told her that the one pill I had been prescribed didn’t do anything and wondered if I could take another one. The prescription was for one pill every four hours for pain. She said at the low dosage I had been prescribed, it would probably be okay if I took another one in an hour or two, so two hours after the first one, I took second one. Nothing bad happened and my pain was relieved. During the night, I got up to use the bathroom and upon stepping down on my foot, I experienced severe pain. My pills were in the bathroom so I decided if one did nothing, and I didn’t want to get up again in another couple hours, I’d just take two at once. After all, two is better than one, right? So, I did. I went back to bed and went right to sleep, and that is a good thing. I woke up around 6 a.m. when my husband’s alarm went off. I sat up in bed and my head started to spin, I felt like I couldn’t breathe, I felt shaky and I couldn’t make a coherent sentence. My husband was really alarmed so I managed to text my daughter (who was at work at the hospital) but she didn’t reply right away. As the symptoms didn’t immediately go away, I became more and more concerned, afraid I was having a heart attack or a blood clot or something else horrible so I called her. I never call her at work, so she answered right away. I was trying to talk to her, but I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth. I was finally able to tell her I had taken two of the Tramadols and she started laughing and said “Mom, you’re stoned, AGAIN”. Okay, so no heart attack, no blood clot, just stoned, AGAIN. I haven’t taken any more of that medication either, now I just stick to ibuprofen and naproxen.