If you have ever lived with intense pain, then you know that being short and not having access to the drugs that you know can help you, is nothing short of terrifying. But that terror has a long history, and I will tell you about that later. If you have ever lived with chronic pain, then you know the fear of the next instance can be paralyzing.

All I know is my pharmacy has new ownership, and although I've gone there for years for the same medicines for cancer, for epilepsy, and more, that these new people - some of them - look at my valid scripts with a squint in their eye, wondering if they are real, and often, treating me like an addict, not a cancer patient, as one who is trying to "pull one over."

They make me wait several days for the drugs because they don't keep them in stock, and the fear or running out makes me feel unsafe and vulnerable, and I have spent too many nights in the emergency room, traveling fast in the back of screaming, whirling ambulance the long distance to the hospital from our house.

You could argue that I'm psychologically 'addicted' to narcotic pain killers. I say this with quotation marks because to me, addiction means out of control. Addiction means you need to take the drugs. It means unmanaged care, misuse, no legitimate use. I don't yet know whether I'll need to take them or not; I just know that the choice is available, should I need it - sort of like being pro-choice. I may never need that service, but in principle, I believe we should have options. To me, and from what I have read, addiction means needing more. Addiction is not a choice - it is physical dependency, but more, it is psychological and about getting high. It is not being monitored by doctors. It is taking narcotics to get high. But I don't get high from these pills. I ask my doctor "Why Not?" as if I'm being ripped off. Hey, if you have cancer, the least you can get is some small pleasure. He says with that much pain, it works on the pain. If you have no pain, then you get high. This blows.

The stuff they put in my i.v. before surgery made me loopy and high, but then, it was supposed to. The user drug of choice these days -oxycontin - which I have taken but never liked, so switched, has never made me high. I wish I knew what it did to all those people who abuse it - who knows, maybe then I would become an addict. Anyone can. But what my doctors tell me and what I read, is that if you take drugs for pain, they kill the pain but do not make you high. Maybe they are too busy cleaning up the mess. I have had chronic pain for a long time now, that I wouldn't mind being a little high - but it's not going to happen.