Writer’s Note: I committed this epic cautionary tale several years ago, before I started this blog. But it remains my personal reminder of why I must always, ALWAYS think and plan before I walk out of my door and hit the road. I repost it in the hopes that you’ll learn from my mistakes and not end up wandering the streets of a foreign city in a foggy half-delirium. ‘Cause it’s not safe to do that.
In my own defense, I was pretty distracted before this trip–my marriage was in the process of imploding, I’d just been informed that I was about to be laid off, and I was about to go into my second surgery. Yeah, that year just sucked.
I
think what I like best about Toronto is the fact that no one attacked me while I was walking its streets in a bleary haze of leftward* SNRI withdrawal.
Well, that and the food. The food was awfully good in TO. And the number of live theaters, and the recycling bins in all the cute little city parks, and the lake, and… Actually, I loved Toronto even after I got my medication disaster straightened out.
So what happened?
A series of blunders that added one upon the other to create a situation in which I missed 3 doses of Cymbalta (an SNRI) in a row.
Blunder #1: Booking a red-eye flight.
I’d never recommend this special little corner of travel hell to any of my readers, so it’s a mystery as to why I inflicted it upon myself. (Actually it’s not. It was a budget-based decision, and a bad one. Not to self: Pay more and fly during the day. Always.)
Blunder #2: Not adjusting my med schedule before I left.
A couple of days before I left, I should have shifted my med times by about two hours so that I could take my pills before I left home for the airport. This would have been an easy thing to do. Now I start shifting my pill-taking times before I take a trip through a wide band of time zones.
Blunder #3: Not just taking the stupid pill before I left the house.
SNRIs aren’t all that time sensitive. I could have just taken my Cymbalta before I left for the airport.
Blunder #4: Not planning to take my non-narcotic meds on the plane or in the airport.
I always put a bunch of meds in my purse anyhow–it would have been easy to think “Gee, I need to take my Cymbalta twice a day. I could put some in my purse and take it at the end of the flight in the morning.” But I didn’t. So the Cymbalta wasn’t anywhere I’d see it (triggering a memory that I needed to take it) while I was in transit.
Blunder #5: Flat-out forgetting to take my meds when I got to the hotel.
I was exhausted, in pain, and (oh the irony) starting to withdraw from the Cymbalta. I got to the hotel and promptly collapsed into bed, and the thought of taking meds never even crossed what was left of my mind.
I am a professional. Do not try this at home. Or on the road. Ever. By blundering like this, I put myself at real and serious risk of harm. In addition to the dizziness, confusion, headache, and lethargy I put myself through, I could have had a seizure. Seizures can cause brain damage. Brain damage probably won’t improve my pain.
I seem to have learned my lesson–I’m much, much more careful about planning my medication schedule when I travel now, and I’ve had no repeats of Total Medication Fail. Hooray for learning without horrible personal consequences!
wow, i am glad you are doing okay, and that you did not have a seizure. If withdrawl from is anything like what starting a medication like that is like (i tried lyrica before the doctor desided it must not be nerve damage) then wow, i couldnt and didnt leave my house while i was getting on those meds because of how dizzy/confused/headache ridden. I walked into basicaly every doorframe i went through that week.
And yes toronto is great! i live in ontario, all my life i have lived within an hour of toronto basicaly. I live a bit farther now so i dont get back to often but when i do oh its fun.
And yes, i have always had a love of food but i think more since my pain became so much. Eating is one thing i can still most often do/enjoy (though now i cant eat as much or as fast since simply the volume of more then half a plate of anything at a time hurts). When i hit toronto there are a few things i alway have to do… i mean eat.
1) Chippy’s chips (and fish if i am feeling like that)
http://www.chippys.ca/
2) Hero Burger (a safe burger for those who watch what they let in their bodies)
http://www.heroburgers.com/
there are 2 reasons i love them the first for those reasons its a guilt free burger, this is because they are “made 100% Canadian, range-fed, hormone and antibiotic free Angus beef “. The second reason is that its convinent! It is right at the streetcar stop that i use to then walk to my friends apartment (where i stay when in town).
3) Baklava (when i lived in multicultural towns i could by this easy, now i dont so i get my fill in toronto. Though its easy to make i know i wont eat as much as i would have to make and it is never as good made by me as by others)
4) sushi (one reason i really do miss living in a bigger city, here i can only buy those premade “sushi” packages that arent acturaly sushi since they dont know how fast they will sell)
5) Street meat!
(sorry for the legthy comments today, and the likely ones to come. bad pain day and demerol makes me chatty, but since i am home alone you get to read it.)
Shelley, thanks so much for all the food suggestions. Especially the specific restaurants in Toronto. Next time I visit, I *will* find Hero Burger. I am such a sucker for grass-fed burgers.
Actually, that was another cool thing about Toronto–there seemed to be a lot of concern and emphasis on where meats, cheese, and produce come from and how they’re produced and prepared. As a San Francisco Bay Area native, this made me feel right at home.