Detox, the Final Days

Tuesday, June 30, we went to Dr. Leiberman's office and learned the good news: surgery July 17. Now we're in the dog days of detox that coincide with summer here in the desert: endlessly hot with no relief in sight. Mornings are as relentlessly oppressive as night time. It's what they mean by heat island. We've too many asphalt-covered, heat-soaking, radiating roads and parking lots here in the desert. It must be like pain with no hope of a reprieve from cooler mornings and nights that provide a respite from what otherwise seems like living in a blast furnace or in front of a hair dryer on permanent high heat. (I am eliminating a/c in this metaphor b/c it doesn't suit my purposes.) So it is with Ken. I had wondered at the seeming ease with which he handled the earlier weaning from oxycotin. He's not under the table sucking his thumb but his pain is clearly evident , especially in the early morning and evening when stinging pain courses through his legs and feet. It's reminiscent, he says, of those post-surgery days 11 years ago when all his nerves awoke from the surgery and remained on red alert until we found Dr. Sparks and some relief from the daily doses of oxycotin. Now he's here with his eyes fixed on the morphine pump insertion and the final days of life without relief except for planting flowers, Google Earth, cookies, gelatto , his Kindle and prayers.