Things I do Not Like.

Chantix.  Don't like it one bit.  My medical provider had great hopes for me using the Chantix, but as it turns out, it was just a new side effect a day drug for me.  I was afraid to see what happened on day 5.  Days 1 and 2, skull splitting headache.  Day 3, felt like puking every 10 minutes.  Day 4, extreme fatigue.  Not, I haven't slept in two days sort of fatigue, but rather, if I was trying to wake up from a coma, what would it feel like sort of fatigue.  Plus wacky, crazy, creepy dreams beginning on day 1.  And if you already know me, and have heard about my "regular" dreams, then you can only imagine.  So, in 4 days I managed to nearly go mad, and was pretty sure I was permanently effed up, but I also managed to go entirely back to my normal smoking habit....because that is what I was supposed to do, per the medical instructions of the stupid, evil Chantix.  Disclaimer....these side effects will not be experienced by all potential users of the drug (just most), and it still comes highly recommended to those who have an incredible insensitivity (INCREDIBLE) to pharmaceuticals, and who would like to quit smoking. 

So now, I am still trying to make sure I am not crazy, or on the verge of going mad, and I'm back to smoking nearly a pack a day.  Are you kidding me??  I thought I was doing, well not great, but making some good damn progress toward being a non-smoker.  It wasn't just around the freaking corner, but on the distant horizon. Now I am back to picking another damn quitting date.  That means I get to start the anxiety, and doubt, and near paralyzing fear all over again.

Perhaps the only way I will ever quit is to find myself in a Robinson Crusoe scenario.  (See the photo on the right.)  The island that Bryan and I visit in Fiji is within sight distance of the island where "Castaway" was filmed and the photo on the right is me standing over the Castaway sign.  Awesome island, but Tom Hanks could have swam to any of 4 other inhabited islands with lots of rum, or he could have stayed on the island and eaten all the goat and fish and fruit he could get his hands on.  In any event, I know I have the willpower in me somewhere, but I just haven't quite found the tap yet.  Sorry I dropped off for a couple of weeks.  I thought I was crazy, and I was pretty tired of hearing myself (and all the other voices) talk. 

Thanks Laura for sending "The Easy Way to Quit Smoking."  I'll get on that one of these days, and maybe that will work before I have to get myself marooned. 

False Start!

I am smoking again, but on doctor's orders.  Sort of.  Since I was still an obsessed stress case using the patch, I decided to try the Chantix.  Started it on Tuesday.  The list of precautions was like nothing I've ever seen before for a pharmaceutical product.  Without exaggeration, which I am sometimes prone to, the insert for Chantix is a full 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheet of paper two columns, single space, of things not to do and other things to look out for.  Not the least of which was the precaution against going crazy and trying to kill yourself or others.  Eeek!  So far no pharmaceutical induced fits of rage, homicidal or suicidal, but stay tuned. 

I did get a wicked headache last night, that was still around today until late this afternoon, but it is now gone.  Keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't return.  Now that I can find out anything about anything on the Google (which is on the internets), I did some searching and learned that some other folks got a headache from Chantix that stuck around for six months after they had quit using the drug. 

Here's the thing about Chantix.  You get to smoke for a while when you first start taking it, so I have temporarily started my old smoking habit.  The drug is supposed to block the nicotine receptors in the brain so that a smoker no longer has any physical reaction to the drug, and ergo, no longer wants the drug.  So I smoke again for two to six weeks and hopefully, by then, no longer care about smoking.  Sounds impossible, but lovely.  So hear I am at the starting line again (that's why I chose the racing picture).  Here's to no terrifying fits of rage!  But stayed tuned just in case.