By J. A. Stroud
I begin my day with two small yellow capsules, legally prescribed by one of my many doctors. They tell me this drug will help to control the chronic pain I live with.
Of course, after being awake for fifteen, twenty minutes, I forget whether I’ve taken my morning medication. That short term memory loss is due to the other medication I take for depression: a side effect of chronic pain.
By mid day I’m required to take two more yellow capsules, and I often forget if I’ve managed to take those as well.
My evening is devoted to two more yellow capsules, my anti-depressant, my high blood pressure medication and the much needed sleeping pills (difficultly sleeping is another side effect of chronic pain).
This has been my régime for weeks now. For the last few years, I’ve been on one pain medication or another and feel like a (barely) walking advertisement for medical research.
If one pill doesn’t work, or if I develop, a tolerance to the affects of that medication, I am quickly put on another. I can’t tell you how many different drugs I’ve been on since 1996, but I wish I had all the money I‘ve spent. I could take a cruise!
I think some doctors play a sort of Russian Roulette with their patients and medication. It’s hit or miss. One may work but until then, take this pill/capsule and call me in two weeks. There are far too many pain medications that a doctor is more than willing to prescribe, but getting my doctors to fully comprehend that I don’t want to be on any narcotics – although I do want to function - has been a chore.
It isn’t that I’m afraid of forming a dependency to the drugs, but if I have to have assistance to just walk to the lady’s room, how am I supposed to perform my job?
As a writer, I reply on my emotions. Yet, with all the medications I’ve been on, I seem to be somewhat removed from my emotions, add to that the short term memory loss I experience - well, it has me thinking I may never write anything of substance again.
Prior to 1996, I was a healthy, active woman. Rarely ever sick with anything more than the seasonal cold for flu. I looked forward to every day. I’d been diagnosed with and surgically treated for ovarian cancer, and the medications began. First hormone replacement therapy and then the pain medications due to a hernia from the surgery.
After multiple abdominal surgeries (the wonderful doctors kept cutting me open to see if the pain was from further hernias), I was left with damaged nerves in my lower abdomen, or at least that‘s what the doctors say today.
Think of it this way: The area around your belly button feels as though something is trying to cut it’s way out. I jokingly referred to ‘it’ as my own personal Alien, even though I will never be confused with Ripley, the character Sigourney Weaver played in the Alien movies.
Um … dang it, there goes my memory again! and train of thought! Whwew were we?
The medications slow down the brain synapses. Which I guess is what they are supposed to do, because if they fired they way the gods intended them to (the brain synapses I mean), I would be doubled over from the pain.
Pain medication, anti-depressants, none of those heal - they’re just a band-aid. They numb you to the reality of the quality of your life. They help you to appear to function. Heck, I wasn’t even aware of how depressed I was until I saw one of my doctors a few weeks ago. I broke down in tears just talking about my day to day life with pain. I mean, how was I supposed to know that long term chronic pain can make one feel overwhelmed? I just thought I was slowly losing my mind.
I had begun thinking the pain was all in my mind. No one could see it. To look at me, I seem like every other middle aged woman.
I dress, do my hair, show up at my place of employment (except on those days I don’t dare get out of bed, medications be damned!). I go to the grocery store. If I don't get to push the shopping cart, I weave in and out of the aisles like a slow moving drunk - another lovely side affect from the medications. I pay my bills. I meet with family and friends and no one really knows - no one can see.
I often wonder what the local pharmacist thinks when I come in to pick up all my medications. Does he understand, or does he think I’m some sort of legally sanctioned drug addict?
I have no idea how long I will have to live with these medications, or if on my next visit with the doctor(s) they will decide to try the latest, greatest new fangled drug. I am, after all, a guinea pig.
What I do know is that I would like to wake up one morning, look at the bedside table and not see a small herd of pill bottles waving at me and saying, “Take me! Take me!”
"One pill makes you smaller and one pill makes you tall and the one that {doctor} gives you, don’t do anything at all."
