Hey Ivan,
I think you have a very sensible plan. You are modeling behavior for me that I may need to draw upon at some point. My fake knees will eventually need surgical "tuneups", and I am not about to have surgery without pain relief postop.
My suggestion is to keep tight control with your doctors. The long acting opiates were something I hated when I was using because they didn't give me any pleasure rush. I even tried crushing them up, and no "luck". So I avoided them, preferring the instantaneous rush short acting opiates give.
Lordy, am I glad I'm not dealing with that now. But you are, and you are going about it the way you should.
Keep us up to date on how it is going.
FT