I was in Council Bluffs yesterday visiting my daughter and a woman who regularly buys Meth there came in with a huge swollen jaw with a little bandaid over the center and I knew right away what it was and the first words out of her mouth were, “I got bit on the face by a spider last night!” I looked close and saw what looked like several other places on her face that looked like they were about to become more and asked her if she was going to the doctor. She said that she was and mentioned that she herself was a nurse so I believe she is either another misinformed medical person or afraid to tell the truth about what it is. I didn’t go farther because the room was full of people and but I will follow up and see if she goes to the doctor.

My daughter was supposed to lose her apartment Tuesday but the landlord told them he wanted to give hem a chance to get together the rent, so they still have a home likely until the end of the month or as long as they can talk Mr. Landlord into giving them a chance.

I sat there for a few hours and their business was hopping and I thought for a moment that they might actually get it together and pay rent but then they fiddled around and missed their next delivery and passed opportunities left and right to make more money. I don’t think they can get themselves together enough to make money. They do say that the only ones who make money dealing drugs are the ones who don’t do them. The big guys in sits somewhere who are the only ones the police seem interested in arresting in this little town. So far I have seen the law target doctors giving out prescriptions for Oxycontin, pharmaceutical heroin, and have taken the medical license of several and arrested one, a Dr. Rosario, who was the most blatantly a drug dealer. I was thrilled at his fall as it came right after I found out my daughter was getting Oxycontin from him all through her pregnancy. A lot of people think I turned him in but someone beat me to it. I went with Jami once to see her doctor when I was still very ignorant of the drug traffic in CB and the waiting room was big room with folding chairs lining the walls. Each “patient” was called back in turn and walked back out withing five minutes with prescriptions in their hand. Can you imagine the money he made seeing that many people per hour at $80. each?? Jami later told me that you just go back and tell him what you want and he wrote it no questions asked and certainly no check ups or doctoring. Now tht so many doctors have been shut down heroin is booming business in CB. It’s like these doctors paved the way for heroin addiction. They also made life almost unbearable for people like me who suffer from severe chronic pain as all of the doctors are terrified to prescribe more than tylenol since the sweep of shut downs. All the meth dealers had to start double duty and carry heroin, too, to pick up the addicted patients.

I am lucky. I have a pain doctor who gives me methadone for pain which takes the edge off enough that I am about one third functional, but I wonder sometimes what I would do if I lost him. Will I decide to live a life in excruciating pain, kill myself, or line up at the heroin dealer’s hoses? It is a terrifying thought. I have read that a large percentage of addicts started from chronic pain that their doctors refused to treat properly although we have a wide range of medications for them, us, that could let us lead a full life. Before my last doctor lost his license because a patient overdosed, I was living a very “normal” life. I got out of my wheel chair and cleaned my house and played with my grandchildren and never got “high” at all even though I was taking Oxycontin myself. Pain medications work differently if you have real pain and only take enough to get rid of the pain. I never abused my meds yet was punished with all of the junkies going to pain clinics. Maybe we need a better plan like how about checking pain patients for “tracks” on their bodies to find out if they are shooting up the drugs. Or how about random testing to find out how much of the drug they are on to see if they take more than prescribed. As it is we have a society that creates junkies and turn our backs on them and those who are just in severe pain.