Two mornings ago, I looked in the mirror, and realized I have a Face of Meth. Between the acne, under-eye bags, bloodshot eye, Tyrone Biggum and Tyrone Biggums lips, I had to laugh at myself, and then cry. Only, laughter and crying would have been too painful in my mouth, so I probably just grunted and called it a morning.

If you've been wondering about the paucity of entries lately, it is in fact due to drugs, but of the non-crystal meth type. Mucositis has settled in folks, and when I told the nurse on Sunday that I was feeling a bit uncomfortable, he immediately asked if I would like some morphine.

*Record scratches*

Hmmmm.....does that sound as over-the-top to you as it did me? I was sure we'd start out with the softer stuff, you know, a Flintstones vitamin, or some Motrin. I told him as much, and he then offered me Tylenol, which, me being a n00b, I thought was perfectly sufficient.

Well, there was a reason he offered me morphine, and he had to shoot me up a couple of hours later after the discomfort became unmanageable. Tylenol ain't got shit on these mouth sores!!! Not being a fan of opioids to begin with (my limited experience with them is that they make me feel pretty weird) the first couple of days were quite frustrating and emotional for me. First of all, who wants to emerge from stem cell transplant with a morphine habit? (I felt like that rich New York wife from Deadwood.) Also, maybe I'm naive, but it seems crazy that the step from Tylenol to hard-core shit is so small.

Fast forward to today. We've experimented with dosages and combinations. For me, I get shot up with morphine and take an oral oxycodone, and unless I try to swallow- I'm a normal person- that is, if you consider nodding-off 'normal'. How grunge-y of me!!! I'm even becoming a slightly more functional junky- occasionally I don't nod off immediately after they hang the drip.

So, that's the news, folks. I'm a fucking druggie. The nurses assure me that pain management is critical to general well-being, so now would be the time to mail me your heroin cookies with crack icing. No nuts, please- they're far too gritty on the throat.

In our good news for the day- tomorrow will be the last day of the second week here. Exciting! For the last two days, the two gauges of immune function (white blood cells and absolute neutrophils) have been steady at zero. Scary stuff, but we should see them start to multiply by this weekend, Kurt Cobain willing.

Anyway- I'm going to go nod off now. Oh- for those of you who've tried to call me this week, I'm so sorry, but the whole speaking thing isn't working for me right now, either, so holleration through the Webz is gonna be our best bet.