 |
| The one I'm really worried about is massive right breast swelling. Symmetry is important, yo. Also, the one involving clowns (shudder). |
On Monday, I am going to start taking my new pills. I was cleaning out my bathroom last weekend, and I came across the pill graveyard that lives under my sink. I forget it's there, usually, and I'm always shocked by the size of the collection. I'm not sure how many thousands of dollars of medication I have under there, but it takes up a whole shelf. Every time I get a new medication from the pharmacy, I wonder if it will end up there, sequestered in its orange plastic prison with the other pharmaceutical rejects.
If I arranged these meds in chronological order, the liquids, suspensions, gel tabs, and tablets, in plastic, foil packs, bottles, and tubes, they could map out the course of my illness. The story they tell is one of educated medical guesses, trial and error. None of them worked. One had to be illegally ordered from England. Most of the bottles are still pretty full.
They are a rainbow hued record of failure.
I know the proper way to dispose of them (mix them with coffee grounds or cat litter! Don't flush them!) but I can't seem to let them go. It's like if I get rid of them, part of my history gets erased. It took years to amass this pile, each new med a promise, a beacon of hope, a snake oil cure. Even the ones with the scary side effects get to stay: the medicine that made me convinced I was going to die. The medicine that gave me stabbing stomach pain. The medicine that made me sob, uncontrollably, on the kitchen floor, impervious to reason and inconsolable. The medicine that made my legs feel like they were asleep all the time, even though I was constantly moving them. The medicine that gave me a rash. The many, many medicines that made me nauseous or dizzy or tired. I took them all. I hoped they would all work. None of them did. Keeping them helps me document this history: it happened. It happened to me. It could happen again.
When I take a new med, I read everything I can find about it online. I read the insert that comes with the med from the pharmacy, every freaking word. I try to take new pills during the week, in case I get weird side effects, preferably on a Monday, when all new things start (the week, diets, school). I get scared and dramatic and pace around the kitchen- eventually, I just swallow the motherfucker and hope for the best, because in the end, it's all a leap of faith.
This Monday I start a new med, with a new schedule that involves precise dosage instructions, many blood draws, and some potentially nasty side effects. I'm giving myself the whole day off. It might seem like I'm over thinking this, or blowing it out of proportion, or psyching myself out-all fair charges, to be sure, but after two dozen or so new med Mondays you start to develop patterns and rituals.
The anxiety about new meds never goes away-but strangely, neither does the hope that AT LAST you might find the one pill that will heal you, help you, and improve your quality of life. Much like doctor shopping, taking new meds is like going on a joyless series of blind dates, although I guess for the metaphor to work the blind dates would have to kick you in the kidneys a few times or slip you a laxative. Whatever. You keep trying, and searching, and trying and searching until you find your one true drug.
And when you find that drug, maybe you will finally be able to clean out your pill graveyard, that shrine to sickness and anchor to medical memories past.
No comments:
Post a Comment