You can sure say that again.
thanks for the support
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I guess I forgot to post about the good news from this week.
The part about not having to go to residential rehab while I await court is nice, I am very appreciative.
But admit all this shit, I did have something happen that is so good, it almost makes all this shit vanish into thin air, that is how good of news it is.
And this is not a set up, it really is incredible.
My long term goal from the moment I checked in to Detox and residential rehab for a year back in Oct 19 thru Sept 25 2020, all the way thru the hospital, the miserable life on methadone, there has been ONE majjor goal.
The light at the end of the tunnel (Methadone became a factor during this I could not ignore, so I switched focus towards getting off that, but I am now back, full force working towards my ULTIMATE GOAL.
I know it is moving along, but it could still take 6-10 months.
But
I went to my orthopedic surgeon office on Tuesday for an appointment to get shots in my knees.
You need to get lots of shots, and lots of Physical Therapy, and walk in knee braces for a good long while before they think you have not improved enough, and surgery will be necessary, therefore turn it into the insurance for approval.
Well, she asked me how the last shots did
Just a little bit
How long
week at most.
OK, you donât need new shots.
I am gonna schedule you to see the surgeon, and talk to him about when he can REPLACE YOUR KNEES.
I had tears running down my face.
New knees has been my number one driving force thru all this crap I have gone thru since I checked into the ER then Detox, then Residential rehab 18 months ago today.
New knees means I get back in the water, and surf up and down the coast daily. new knees means I get about 10 days to go snowboarding a year.
But new knees, means I can step off a curb like a normal person.
New Knees means that I can walk up and down stairs, not going one step at a time holding onto the handrail, and only when I have to.
New Knees will save my life
They will kindly thank Bass Buzz and all the members, thank @JoshFossgreen, thank B2B, and thank all the great information and challenges we got going on around here.
My knew knees will thank you all for keeping me alive while my knees have been unable.
New Knees = new happy, active, prosperous life.
its not like "câya, I am out of here, I got these new knees, and we are going worldwide to chase surf swells, no, it wonât be like that, I will be here, but I will do alot more playing while standing than playing while sitting.
Sorry, i am just crazy happy its finally starting to go the way I want it to go.
I just stay in my head thinking about new knees, and bass, and a song I just played, and cpl other posts I just made, and that keeps me happy and serene.
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Great news Toby!
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Stay that way 
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Great news Toby @T_dub,
Hanging tuff has its rewards, and sounds like your getting yoursđ
You can come down under and surf Bellsđ and make some music with us allđ
Cheers Brian
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Yeah, you gots lots of bucket list spots down there I would LOVE to visit and surf. Kierra Point (I donât know many of the beaches geographically like I do here on the California coast, but I know of the spots, I think I will just stay the hell out of Western OZ.
Like where is the tour setting up for leg 3 of the pro tour, somethingdeen?
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Ok, I figured out where Somethingdeen is (thanks for the help 
). It is Narabeen. i could not remember the exact name, only how the ending sounded (but mistakingly wrote it with a D in stead of a B)
How far are you and @Mac from Narabeen?
I am watching the 3rd stop on the World Tour right now on YouTube. Last week I was watching Bells. This is the first year in 20 years that both of those beaches were stops on the world tour. I had not followed very closely in recent years, but I recall the Stubbies at Bells way back in the 80âs as a stop on the world tour. I did not recognize the location Narabeen just by hearing the name, I had to watch a little pre-event talk to remember aboutl the place.
It looks like a killer beach break, and very pretty area. I learned that it was the home of Simon Anderson, the inventor of the Thruster (3 fin surfboard) who changed the sport forever. Probably the single most important thing to happen to surfing in the last 100 years.
Funny thing, when I first started surfing, I remember my first ever copy of Surfing Magazine. It had Simon Anderson on the cover, and the feature article was on him, explaining the development of the Thruster.
Tri fin surfboards became the norm after he introduced them to the world. Mark Richards, 4x world champ on his twin Fin. was finally taken over by Simon and others using that design.
When they were doing the pre-event talk, they said Simon Anderson hails from Narabeen (something I did not know, the rest of it I did know) and they flashed the picture of that same magazine cover that was the first one I bought as a kid.
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Oh, ok, see you there, you will beat me by about 9 hours if I fly.
Its just a day trip for us, right 
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Seems to be in Oz. About an hourâs flight I reckon
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Yeah, but if you fly you have to wait about 17 hours for me to get there, so if you drive you only have to wait about 9.
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Ok, I see, it is just north of Sydney, about 30km, in New South Wales.
and it is only a 15 hour flight nonstop from LAX, so you only have to wait about 6 hours for me.
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Thatâs a lot of coffee
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So, I stared this thread last year, when I was brought to the ER and immediately got to ICU or CCU on October 1st, 2020.
I had necrotizing faciitis (flesh eating virus) in my right leg, and it kicked my ass bad.
I lost about 3 months of playing time, as I was too sick and weak to play.
Fast forward 1 year to the present. On October 1, i checked into the hospital with full blown psychosis.
I went 7 days with little to no sleep, and whatever sleep I got was short and light dozing. The longer I go without sleep, the more weird things get.
Now, this story is 100% drug and alcohol free, no drugs have been wasted during production of this story.
Last Thursday, the 23rd IIRC, I was up all night, just playing around with my basses and computer. By the time I was going to get some sleep, it was almost time for my 6am meeting, so I logged on at 5:45, and participated in the meeting. I had to give a pre-op blood sample at 11:30, and I never got any sleep.
Friday the 24th, same thing, except in the morning, it was Saturday, so I should be able to sleep most of the day, right?
No, Wrong.
My location monitoring for the court goes off 3x per day. Once between 7am to 12pm. Once from 12pm to 5pm and again from 5pm to 9:30pm
During these times, i have an alarm on my phone to go off every 30 min of the day, because after the thing signals me for a check in, I have 28 minutes to check in, and if I donât make it in time, it is a Bond Violation, and I could have my bond revoked.
If it goes off at 7:20, I checkin thru an app, where I take a photo of myself and send it in, and they monitor my location via the GPS of phone. On days that it goes off at 7;20, great, awesome, i turn off all the alarms til 12:30, and can sleep.
And then if the 2nd one of the day goes off at 12:20, I can go back to sleep til at least 5pm.
BUT that saturday, after not sleeping fot 2 nights, I was waiting for the signal to come so I could go to sleep til at least noon, but it didnât go off til 11:45am. And on top of that, the next segment didnât go off til 4:35, so I could not get any sleep between noon and 5pm. Plus, the last one of the day didnât happen until 8:40pm. So no sleep that day.
Or that night.
I ended up doing some bass cleaning, string change, and put a new bridge on my squire P bass. and all of a sudden it was 5am again, so at 6am I hit the morning meeting til 7, and then started waiting for the signal to check in. This day, Sunday was the same as Saturday, with almost identical check in times, so I was not able to get any solid sleep all day Sunday either.
So after the last check in on Sunday I forced myself to lay in bed all night, hoping to get some sleep, and if not, at least I would be lying down resting for a good 8 hours or so. I never got anymore than about an hour and a half sleep at a time, once or twice that night.
So by Monday morning, I am looking at about 4 nights with no more then a total of 3 hours sleep, all happening that Sunday night / Monday morning.
Because of my lack of sleep, my mood was getting aggressive and unpleasant overall. I was sour and pissed off and sick to my stomach over not sleeping enough.
Then on Monday night no sleep, nor Tuesday or Wednesday, but Tuesday is where it starts to get interesting.
I started hearing voices outside, which is normal, but not often, it is pretty quiet where I live, and not many people are outside talking in this area very often, in fact, if there are people talking right there, it is most likely me talking to my neighbor or if a friend stops by. However, the neighbors were not home, and I didnât have any company, so it got me thinking I may be having some audible hallucinations. I go look out front, sure enough, there is not a soul in sight. I got visual confirmation that nobody was there, but I keep hearing voices, and some of them are saying my name.
I know its not real, but part of me is questioning reality at this point.
I get through the night but I went outside a few times because I was so sure there were people out there. This is like 2am and 4am, not 7 or 8pm, so yeah, there was not anybody there, even though I was hearing them.
Wednesday night, same thing, but the neighbors are home, so I know there are people outside (upper balcony above my unit), but some of the voices are talking to me, like thru my front window, looking at the tv, asking me what I was watching, and commenting on weather they thought it was any good, and even making recommendations for things to watch.
I am 100% positive it is not real, and am certain it is a hallucination, but by this time, 5 or 6 nights with no sleep, I am so out of it, I just donât know what is real or not anymore.
I even caught myself talking back to them at some point, and when I realized I was talking to nobody, I started really getting concerned.
Then that last night, Wednesday, I saw some people outside, walking along the street (19th Street) from the light at Park to the light at Anaheim, and back again. Just walking from one light to the next and back to the first all night. I am thinking they are signaling to people that are trying to break into the houses that are over a wall, and across a ravine that goes from the street down to the underground parking, really giving no access to inside the gated apartment complex. So I am convinced they are trying to signal to somebody inside the complex which windows are open and which are closed, and which ones have people in them and which have nobody in them.
Now, on Wednesday I was feeling good during the day, not a shake mess, so I thought I would get some sleep that day, but I couldnât because of the alarm / check in thing every half hour. I didnât feel tight and tense and filled with anxiety, but I still didnât sleep that day or night
Then, early Thursday morning I was again. feeling ok, not like I should after a week with no sleep. Not great, but not bad, so again, I thought I would be able to get some sleep that morning and day time.
Thursday morning, I did the 6am meeting, and finally the location monitoring signaled at 7:20, so I had time to get sleep until at least noon.
But
the audible hallucinations were bad, it was hard to get calm enough to sleep, but I got close. Then at about 8, my alarm went off, I forgot to turn off the alarms up until 12:30, and the sound I use for my alarm is a phone ring, like old school phones rang, and instead of turning off the alarm, I answered the phone.
A person on the other line said my name and I said, yeah, who is this. They started saying something about being on the way down, and will be in the area between noon and 2pm. I asked who this was again, and they just said are you ready. I looked at the phone to check the number, and I realized that my phone was not connected to any number, it was on standby.
I asked, who is this, how am I talking to you, my phone is not connected. They replied, you are talking to me cuz you are talking to me. I said this is not real and it said, yeah, between noon and 2pm. I said, this is not real, I know it is my head messing with me, and threw the phone aside.
I then grabbed the phone and turned off the other alarms, but accidentally missed one, which I will talk about in a moment.
It will be really hard to detail this and make any sense, so I will just walk you thru what I thought happened.
1 - I heard voices outside, like I had been for 2 days now.
2 - I heard my neighbor / friend outside, and he was arguing with his girlfriend. I was in turn arguing with both of them thru my door, I kept telling them just come inside. They never did, and they were never there by the time I went out to check. this happened several times.
3 - around 10:30am, that alarm I forgot to turn off went off, with the sound of a phone ringing. I picked it up and the person said my name, and I said who is this. They started telling me that the Feds and DEA are on their way down from Ventura / Oxnard, on court order to bring me in. I said WTF are you talking about. They said, two weeks ago you were in Oxnard and were arrested 3 times in 48 hours, your court is next week and the court ordered a warrant for your arrest to hold you in custody until you appear before a judge.
I told them WTF are you talking about? and they said the same thing all over again. I told them, âyou got the wrong number, that was Kyle, not me, you need to call Kyle about thatâ, and went to hang up by pressing the END CALL on my iPhone. That was when I noticed that the phone was not connected, and It was the alarm going off, not a person calling me.
4 - I was almost falling asleep when I felt somebody touch me on my head, and heard my buddy KJâs voice, and he was running around my house checking if there was anything that needed to be hidden, and saying "the Feds are coming for you, they are cutting me a deal to give you up, they are gonna bust you for trafficking between Orange County and Ventura.
(No, I am not a drug trafficker , never have been, never will be, and there certainly is nothing in my house that would say otherwise).
I heard his voice, and felt the touch, but when I opened my eyes, I didnât see anything. My front door was locked and chained shut from the inside, so there was no way anybody could get in my house, so I know this is all in my head. My salvation was one, that I knew it was not real, and 2, I was 100% sure it was not real because I did not SEE anything. I had not had any visual hallucinations thus far, so I was able to stay calm thru this part of it and not freak out.
But
At this point I am ready to go to a hospital or psych ward, but told myself, I have only had audible and physical hallucinations, but no visual hallucinations. If I get Visual, I am calling somebody to come and take me somewhere for help.
Then I heard a skateboard ride by, and I heard a helicopter start to circle around the area, and then it happened. I looked up, straight out my front window, and I SAW 2 Feds or DEA right at the corner of my patio. They were looking at stuff on the ground, and on the door and stuff in the patio, and I heard them talk to each other. I heard the one guy say to the other, can we get in the front door, or do we have to go around back. The other guy said, only one door, but it could be chained inside. The first guy says do we go now, and the other guy says, we will wait for back up.
I was about to shit myself, no joke.
I instantly called my parents and told my mom, I think I am going to jail right now. She asked why, and I told her what was going on, and I told her there is more then a 95% chance this is all a hallucination from not sleeping, but if you donât hear from me for there rest of the day, or for a day or 2, I got hauled off to the US Marshalls detention in LA in Federal custody, find me and figure out what is going on and get me the F out of there.
I also called my Lawyer and told her what was going on, and she said she doesnât know of any reason they would come pick me up for anything to do with my case. She said you have not done anything else, right? I told her, Hell no, I have not done a thing, so she said, just relax, and call somebody to come be with you and relax you out so you can get some sleep.
My parents came over around 3pm and we finally decided that I was gonna go to College Hospital ( A Mental Health and Drug and Alcohol hospital) and do a voluntary 24 hour check in. I tis way easier then going to the ER, and they can prescribe meds that can help me sleep or calm down and I will be in a safe place to get back to reality.
Well
College hospital started out great, they got me a relaxing place to chill and watch TV and eat snacks and stuff, and also prescribed me a sleeping pill for that night.
This is where the story gets really weird.
They prescribed me Ambien, a sleeping pill I am no stranger too. I have used prescribed Ambien for sleep, for many years, many years ago, even abused it, but I thought it would be perfect for this night, cuz it would knock me the F out.
Little did I know that it would kick my already delusional self into hyperdrive.
things got weirder and stranger and I made a huge scene in the place, and that is the last I remember.
That was 9pm Thursday Sept 30.
Skip ahead to 2am Sunday morning, I am being pulled out of a medically induced Coma and am on life support. (I am still not really clear why I was on life support, I guess so they could put me in a Coma and get my body some deep deep sleep for a few days???) I do not remember anything from some time after taking that pill to the time I was being pulled from the coma, with breathing and feeding tubes down my throat, but it couldnât have been any good.
I woke up confused as hell, I was in Hoag hospital, ICU, and was in a wicked pissed off mood, screaming at them for kidnapping me and telling them to transfer me immediately, I will never go to Hoag on my own free will. (that is the place that put me on Methadone last October). I kept demanding answers and phone calls and my stuff and to let me up and release the restraints and was just being a real a-hole. But I finally, maybe 3 hours of talking with them and arguing and asking questions and putting the pieces together figured out it was like 4 am Sunday, and there was nobody up that I could call, or who could take me to a different hospital, or satisfy any of the outrageous demands I was making.
So, I am in the ICU til about 10pm Sunday evening when I transfer to a regular room. They had to take me off the life support and observe me for a certain number of hours before moving me from ICU. I had some injuries to my wrists, which I now know are from the restraints, but one of my arms is all swole up like it has Sepsis, and there are a few bubbles on my arm that look like small pox or measles. It was neither, but they donât know what it was. They took a sample of the liquid, and it came back negative for anything.
They basically had to keep me there for a few days and press a reset button on my brain so it would go back to normal, after all the sleep deprivation and malnourishment I went thru for a week. The longer I was up, the less I could eat for some reason.
I am happy to report that I am home, I am fine, except some swelling and superficial injuries, and most of all, I feel rested, safe and sane.
I do not have Feds or DEA after me (they already got me, no need to want me anymore), and I no longer hear, feel or see things that are not there.
I had a similar episode earlier this year, but it was about 5 days before I got help, and they used Ativan, not Ambien, which was the better choice obviously.
Ambien is a mild hypnotic, and is classed as a mild hallucinogen. so when you add that to somebody already hallucinating, not good. I should have thought of that, but for sure, the doctor that offered it should have known better.
I firmly believe that anybody that prescribes medication, should have to try them, understand them and in many cases, should have first hand experience withdrawing from them before they get a license. Not likely to ever happen, but it would be for the greater good if you think about it.
In the end, the point of this story was that I went to the same hospital on the same day 2 years in a row. Results were vastly different, the first time I was fighting for my life first, and my leg second. This time was That, above. 
The REAL BUMMER about this whole thing is, I had to postpone my knee replacement that otherwise would be coming up in 2 days. I am on a lot of anti inflammatories, NSAIDS, or whatever they are called, and I was not allowed to take any of them 7 days prior to surgery, so it was not possible to proceed safely.
Luckily, I rescheduled it today for November 1st, so I only have to wait 3 more weeks.
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Damn Toby youâve really been through the wringer lately. (Does that phrase even translate internationally?)
Glad you made it through and hope youâre able to keep on top of your sleep needs going forward.
Fingers crossed for a successful op in November and a fresh start when youâre fully mobile again.
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I never would have guessed how much shit I would have had to go thru this past 24 months.
I will say that Covid has played a large roll in it, as most people have gone thru more then usual this past 18 months, but still, looking back, I donât think I would have made it sober this whole time had you told me at the start what I was going to have to endure.
Thanks much kind friend.
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Man you,ve had a hell of a year @T_dub . My missus has a tattoo which states âGod gives his hardest battles to his toughest soldiers â. Now Iâm not at all religious but that seems so apt for you and your fight.
Iâm sure once you get your knees sorted youâll be back firing on all cylinders.
All the best to you my friend.
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