Ritual de lo habitual
I hate taking pills. I am sick of it. Sick of being sick. Coming off this most recent toxic/allergic/withdrawal bout, I am even more tired that usual of the being tired of it all, the exhausting vigilance Belinda so eloquently described. The clatter of particular pills into the containers changes; the raucous reminder I’m sick, and will continue to be, doesn’t. B vitamin, multivitamin, Omega 3. Lamictal, minocycline. Who knows what anti-anxiety, anti-depressant, anti-inflammatory, anti-anti-anti will be added to the mix? Sometimes my regimen has included so many pills that these little rounds overflowed, and the plain old, boring M-F strip came out of hiding for the lunchtime doses.
Small wonder I forget to take my pills some days, even though I am usually a pretty med-compliant patient. If one little thing disrupts my ritual of morning preparation– wake up late, skip the shower until later, then the pill-taking is shot. I had an alarm on my cell phone for the mid-day pills, back when I was taking them, which I’ve now disabled. Maybe I need to set one for after my weekday wake-up alarm– a “hey, idiot, did you take your pills before you leave the house?” alarm. Because the one in the middle of the day won’t do me any good if the pills are at home, and sure as sh*t, I’ll forget to take them by the time I get home, even when they’re sitting there in plain view on the bathroom shelf, in their rattly, musical lucite rainbow stack. I bought it in those pretty colors so I wouldn’t mind the medical boring reality of it all so much– as if I could make pill-taking HAPPY. Hah. But it does come with extra lids, so I can unscrew one, pop it into my bag for taking after fasting blood draws– or more likely, forget until my alarm goes off. I could take them at lunch, setting my alarm to do so, and carrying my rattling stack in my bag, my very own rhythm section, but I don’t want my maracas reminding me I’m sick every step of my day, and I know I will forget to unscrew and recap just one section every single day. I want to take my pills at home, and spend the rest of the day trying to be functional, to work around, to get over, to move beyond the “did I remember” that I ask myself at least a dozen times a day.
The problem with alarms? You have to live by them, yield the flexibility, the freedwom of ignoring them, or precipitate a real alarm. There’s no sleeping late on weekends, if that means I can’t remember to take my damned pills two days in a row, and then end up a weepy angry mess on Monday morning. The other problem with alarms? You have to remember to turn them back on after you disable them, in time, or learn to tolerate them when they are unnecessary. “Yes, yes,” you say, as you shut that damned buzzer off, “it’s OK right now, thanks for asking.” I could note a little “meds” on my handwritten calendar. I could update my symptoms and mood calendar. (Don’t even get me started on procratinating on refilling the damned pill minder on the same day every week, so that I can be confident Red Means Monday… or Sunday?) Hell, I could start a little gold and silver pectoral or clutch and scratch a tick mark in it every day, wearing my medication memorialization as adornment. (Hmm. Are there any jewelry makers in the house?)
But the best I feel like I can do right now is fill my rainbow maracas every week and leave it on the table, a constant reminder, in the hope I’ll be caught by color as I walk by. That I’ll someday cease to resent the ritual, the attempts to render it habitual, so I don’t think about it, don’t resent it, don’t forget it. Don’t sit for a moment, every single day from May 13, 2005 on out, looking at the palm of my hand, and ruing the ritual, despite the welcome surcease of death-defying heights and bottomless lows.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:08 am
I grew up taking vitamins every morning, and then anything prescription just got added to the mix. It was part of our before-school ritual: eat breakfast, take pills, go to school. Even with that, it was still hard to be OK with taking my beta blockers when I was diagnosed with supraventricular tachycardia (read: my heart went really, really fast all by itself). I got my heart fixed because I didn’t like the side effects.
And that was only after having taken the meds for a year for something that bore no social stigma.
I don’t have any answers or witty comments or sage advice, but I have the beginning of an understanding of what it must be like. It stinks.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Ahh the boring M-F srip is my best friend. It does not matter that the M-F letters have all worn off at this point. Maybe I should look for something more enticing too. Add to my ritual the need for insulin shots and I better shop for a snazzy insulin monitor bag as well. The routine and ritual of it all grates on me no matter what color or design it is. I just try not to think about it too much…some days it works better than others.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:28 am
It is an interesting phenomenom that is commonly acknowledged in the pharmacy–many people that cannot miss their medication, especially diabetics and epileptics, always wait until the last minute to order refills and don’t monitor their refill availability. I’m sure it is out of resentment.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:26 am
The pill thing kiiiiiills me. It’s annoying to have to remember to take something and sometimes I forget to bring something with me. Like last night I spontaneously decided to sleep at my mother’s house and didn’t have my Lithium with me, which I usually take at night, so of course I had a minor internal freak out as to whether or not I would wake up in a swirl of hypomania or something. I didn’t of course but still it all takes its toll somedays. Of course I take my meds because if I didn’t there would be hell to pay but I hate having to be so responsible. I’d like an entire pill free day. That would be lovely.
May 19th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Alex takes 14 different medications every day. Every. Single. Day. I don’t know how he keeps up with them. He has severe allergies & asthma in addition to bipolar. And takes a statin. And since lithium killed his thyroid, he has to take Synthroid…and on and on. He doesn’t have a 7-day strip, he has a 7-day x4 box. It’s unreal. He does sleep in on weekends, and sometimes we’ve run out of something, but we’ve found that with blood levels of the mood-stabilizers, it would take about 3 days without them for the effects to show. Of course, he’s on two MS and an A-P, so there’s a little bit of a safety net if one is missing for a day or two.
My GI guy put me on a reflux drug a month ago, that I’m supposed to take first thing in the morning, with a glass of water. I have not yet managed to remember to do that for as many as three days in a row. I also can’t remember to take the anticholinergic he gave me twice a day. So yeah, I’m right there with you.
May 19th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
my god that sucks, so many pills. and think about it, not just you, me or them but millions of people doing this every day. in fact, i was going to write about my recent intake of pills. i feel you on this, as do so many others…
May 19th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Emily– sometimes I wish their were surgery. I might trade a fair amount of functionality for the pill-free days.
Michelle– diabetes is the one cognate I keep coming back to. How boringscarytediousdreadful it is to know you can’t miss a dose, day in, day out.
Jenn– no doubt, it’s the same toddle “I don’t wannas” that I have.
Heather B– “a pill free day.” That’s it, exactly. Just a little vacation, every once in a while. Though the not having it is in the running for desireable things, too. : )
Belinda– 14? My God. I know I’m on baby-level meds as things go, but 14? Wow. The problem w/me is I am med-sensitive enough that conventional wisdom aside, my blood levels are much more precarious– 1 day missed, max, before I start to freak out for real. And yeah, it does take a WHILE to get in to anything approaching a routine.
Moonflower– I’d love to see your take on this. You always have an eye-opening perspective on things.
May 20th, 2008 at 1:27 am
Geez, you sweet darlin’. Here I’m all annoyed when I forget to take my tiny little Synthroid pill when I first wake up and must delay my coffee.
You write so well. So, so well.
May 20th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
My cousin has lived with AIDS for twenty years. The doctors gave him five years to live when he was diagnosed. He finally truly gave up on the cocktail medication last fall, accepting that he’s ready to die. He just couldn’t deal with the pills and the side-effects any longer.
I don’t blame him. I understand completely.