I never thought you'd be a junkie because Heroin is so passé

In the midst of the morphine fog I got a visit from Laurie. Even though we had split up she had promised that she would come and visit albeit with the proviso that she couldn't cope with me getting injections. I reassured her that because I had the Hickman line in I wouldn't need any injections as everything intravenous was going through the spaghetti junction on my chest so she came up and sat with me for hours. As fate would have it though I did need an intramuscular injection and it was needed in the exact time when she was there so she had to leave. I'd never seen anyone so very averse to needles before; not even my brother is that bad.

By this point I was glad we had broken up because I now understood the full ramifications of my condition and I'd have felt bad for anyone having to deal with it. The paranoia that the drugs induced would almost certainly have led me to thinking that she was only staying with me because it was too cruel to split up, which would have compounded my misery.

The misery of morphine continued well after I came off it. The withdrawal was just as horrific an experience as being on it but in a very different way. It wasn't without pain but more than anything it was the anxiety that sticks in my mind. I don't know what I was so fraught about as I had the best medical staff around dealing with the worst aspects of opiate withdrawal but I was still very tightly wound and couldn't relax at all. It did give me a completely different attitude towards those dealing with addiction though.

When undergoing withdrawal I had ridiculous tremors in my hands so the guitar that was meant to keep me occupied sat in the corner of the room untouched. When I picked it up after my recovery I realised that it wasn't the best of ideas. My skin was paper thin and even basic guitar playing was cutting my fingers to ribbons, which when you can't stop bleeding easily pretty much counts as self abuse.

It didn't go unplayed though as one of the nurses used to come in on her break and play it for me while I sang along every now and then which was a quite lovely way to pass the time.