DOSE:

30 mg

sublingual

Morphine

(ground / crushed)

BODY WEIGHT:

107 lb

I had gotten hold of a 30 mg Morphine Sulfate tablet via a mix-up at the hospital where I work; a patient refused his morphine and my instructor told me to put it in my pocket, and she would show me the “wasting protocol” later. She forgot; it was the sort of situation that is never supposed to happen, and I thought an opportunity like this would probably not arise again. For two weeks I kept the pill on my desk; I knew I would try it eventually but I wanted a nice free evening when I wasn’t going to see any of my friends or boyfriend, all of whom would frown on this sort of thing (both the questionable way I had acquired the morphine, and the use of narcotics in general).

So finally a night arrived where I was on my own, and didn’t have to wake up early the next day. The pill was still in its plastic bubble wrapper, but crushed, because we had been about to put it in the patient’s NG tube when he refused it. I carefully opened it and allowed the crushed pill to fall under my tongue. I washed it down with some herbal tea and then licked the wrapped to get any remaining powder off. I wasn’t sure how strong I expected it to be; I am almost entirely opioid naïve, except for 7 hydrocodone over a year ago (and not all at once, I took them on 7 different days) and weigh about 48 kilos. I take no medications and had drunk no alcohol that day.

I took the pill at 9 pm and settled into my bed with a nice spacey playlist and some art supplies; in the past, I’ve enjoyed drawing while taking hydrocodone and I thought this would be similar, that I could pass the evening hours in a happy fog, drawing. I started on a pattern of houses, more specifically, on a window, but after I drew the first two sides of it, I couldn’t discipline my hand to finish the third side. Weakness, in pleasant shivery waves, would overtake my hand and my spine, and the lines I drew were wiggly.

I didn’t mind; I settled lower into my bed and basked in the feeling of heaviness and of having no limbs at all. Even though I couldn’t draw, I was content doing nothing and not really sleepy. I called a friend, one of only two people whom I have told about the morphine, and he listened in amusement as my voice became more mumbley and my sighs of relaxation more heartfelt. When I hung up, I found the music gratingly loud and turned it down to a whisper. I lay watching the iTunes song timer and counted my pulse several times. It was 54 beats per minute, which is normal for me in a relaxed state.

I didn’t sleep. My body was almost entirely loose and numb but there was a certain tightness that remained in my neck and sternum that couldn’t be relieved by repositioning. Perhaps my narrow twin bed was too restrictive or my shoulders tired from carrying a backpack, but the extra effort required to fully inhale kept me from ever relaxing completely. My hands were still too slow and numb for drawing; I could feel this without even picking up a pen, just by how tingly and large they felt, so I didn’t bother trying. As more time passed and I didn’t sleep, I became frustrated because I had imagined blissfully passing the evening working on a picture I was excited about, and now I couldn’t.

After about three hours I was not asleep, which was surprising because it was midnight, and I’d been awake since 5 that morning and had spent 12 hours at the hospital. However, I hadn’t eaten dinner and that may have contributed to my inability to sleep. At this point I became hungry; when I got out of bed my legs felt unsteady, but not as much as when I took 2 of boyfriend’s lamotrigine. I was able to wobble my way to the kitchen for some rice crackers. After snacking and reading for a while, I still felt pleasantly numb, and easily forgot that I had legs if I didn’t move them, but my hands were steady enough that I could draw. After about 30 more minutes of drawing in bed, I finally slept. In the morning, I felt totally normal.

Exp Year: 2012	ExpID: 95612
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 24
Published: Nov 16, 2022	Views: 769
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Morphine (211) : General (1), First Times (2), Alone (16)