Drug Reaction – Pretzelitice

A lot of inmates didn’t get much mail. Those who did usually got less and less as time went on. Writing letters became difficult after a while. There was really nothing to talk about from our side. How many times can you write how you plan to stay out this time, that you were determined to get your life back on track? That your drinking days are over and that you just know this time you are going to make it! They have all heard it before anyway. After a few months I thought that I could simply photo copy a letter and keep resending it. It wasn’t like I could write about what was really happening to me:

“Dear Mom, I just spent eleven days in the hole and was soo happy to get back to my unit! I spent my nights counting silverfish out in the hallway in order to stay sane but after seven days they let me out for an hour a day so I could sweep and mop the hallway! I really looked forward to that hour I tell you! I managed to steal a tube of toothpaste though, and it really helped get through the night eating it one little dab at a time.”

Yeah, the truth wouldn’t make for good letters.

I received more mail than most and got teased a little for it sometimes. I loved getting letters, though I found it hard to reply. My mother wrote me constantly, and it was her letter I was reading when things started to get weird. I was sitting on the table with a few other guys around, the letter in my hands, and had barely got through the first paragraph when my head started to tilt back. I pushed it back down, wagged it from side to side and continued reading. My head tilted back again. I forced it back in place, taking a quick look around to make sure no one had noticed. For a moment I thought I was going crazy. When it started to go again I stood up and headed for my cell.

I stretched my neck in all directions, thinking it must be some muscle issue, spasms or something, and tried once more to read Mom’s letter. It wasn’t long before my head was tilted backwards again, only this time I could not get it to come back. I tried to force it back down, back into place, but it just wasn’t happening. Now I was scared. What the hell was happening to me?

I sat for a few minutes, looking at the ceiling, and not by choice. My neck began to hurt and would not move at all. I gave up, and decided I needed help.

By the time I walked out of my cell I had worsened to the point that my back was arched painfully backwards along with my neck. It felt as if something was going to break – my spine or my neck, one or both.

“What the fuck is up with you Veinotte?” I heard someone asked me was I made my way up to the control room. “I don’t know man, but it fucking hurts!” I replied. My spine now felt like it would simply have to snap, it was bent back so severely.

The guards didn’t know what to think of it when I got to the control room, twisted up like a pretzel. They took me downstairs to the doctor’s office, though I had no idea why. There was no doctor there – the medical doctor only came in once in a while, the shrink once a week. We got off of the elevator and didn’t make it any farther – Mr. Flynn met us there and the first thing he said was “What did you bring him down here for? He needs to go to the fucking hospital!”

And so it was. I got another trip to the Janeway Children’s hospital, but this time there was no handcuffs and shackles to help scare the little kids. There was no way I was about to do any running, and by now my tongue had decided to join the party and was hanging out of the side of my mouth refusing to listen to me and go back in. So now I was a twisted pretzel, with a stuck out tongue, drooling all over myself, and there was not a fucking thing I could do to stop it.

Being examined was extremely frustrating. I knew what was happening by now (at least I thought I did – it was some kind of drug reaction from mixing different kinds of pills together) but I could no longer talk. My mouth would no longer move at all. So while they were desperately trying to figure out what was happening, I had no input whatsoever.

“Well that’s new!” someone said as they shone a light into my eyes. My eyes had rolled back in my head, and I thought I could feel whatever it was that holds your eyeballs in place start to tear. The pain was excruciating, my back, my neck and now my eyes all feeling as if they were being pushed to the breaking point, and to top it all off I was now blind.

By now I was well past terrified. Even if it was a drug reaction, what if I didn’t come out of this? Blind, mute, and unable to move. I started to panic, thrashing on the bed like a beached fish, hearing someone telling me to calm down. “You have to relax. We are going to give you something to help you calm down. Can you hear me Barry? You are going to be okay, you just have to calm down a little.”

They were all talking and it sounded like there was more people there then there should have been. I knew everything that was happening – my tongue was still out, I could no longer move anything at will, my spine was still bent well beyond its normal range and now someone was trying to push a tube up my nose. I tried to tell her to stop, that it was too big, but all that came out of my mouth was some awefull ‘aaagggaahhh’ sound. She kept trying to push this thing up (or down I guess) my nose and there was just no way that was happening. Then I heard someone quietly tell her to put it down my throat. I could have told her that – had I been able to! That is what that particular tube was made for, I was sure. It went down my throat fairly easily, as my body tried to heave it back out while it was proceeding down into my stomach.

From that point on I must have been under some heavy sedation. I woke up the next morning able to see, and my body had returned to normal. No more pretzleitice.

I am not sure what all was done to me that night, but whatever it was it worked. I was only in the hospital until the following day and then sent back to the pen. The doctor’s final diagnosis: “The patient overdosed on either magic mushrooms or LSD.” I could not believe a doctor would write that. Did they not know that you cannot physically overdose on either of these drugs? Perhaps do enough that you go on a trip from which you do not return, but no physical overdose.

You would think an episode like that would have made me reconsider my current lifestyle. You would think. But this is me you’re talking about. One night not too long after, I laid on my bed, yelling for someone to come in and help me – I was unable to move. I didn’t twist up or have any other issues – I just laid there on my back unable to move. I could talk, I just couldn’t do anything else. A buddy of mine came into my cell and stayed with me for a couple of hours, talking to me, both of us just waiting for the paralysis to pass. At least this time there was no pain and I was sure it was temporary.

“Where are you going in that state Veinotte?” George asked. I had just staggered out of my cell and was trying to make it to the end of the unit without falling down. George stood in front of me. “So, where are you going?” He persisted.

I’d had both hands in my pockets and now took them out. Each one held a tooth brush handle with a razor blade melted into the end of it. “I’ve had enough of his fucking mouth,” I said. “I am going to cut his fucking throat!” I spoke slowly, trying to form my words. I had been popping pills all day, now so wacked that I had trouble focusing my eyes.

“You’re not going anywhere until you straighten up.” George said calmly. With that he picked me up and carried me to my cell, as if I were a rag doll. He set me on my bunk and then asked me if he could have the blades. They were still in my hands. I looked at them for a minute, trying to think. “Yeah maybe you should George.” I slurred.

“Just sleep it off Veinotte. You had a little too much bug juice today.”

I listened. I slept until the next day. I remembered what had happened once I woke, remembering it with the oh so familiar guilt and shame that the morning after often brings. I remembered… and went to thank George for not letting it happen.

“Fuck, you would have been busted before you got anywhere the way you were staggering.” He said.

“Well, either way you saved my ass from the hole… or worse. Thanks man.”