pills-and-pills

When my third daughter was no more than two I began to have strange feelings. I would get hot and I had trouble sleeping. Sometimes I awoke and my nightgown was soaked. It got worse and worse until my doctor finally listened to me and tested me for estrogen levels. Turns out I was completely wiped out – no estrogen left at all – at age thirty-seven. So I went on hormone replacement and within two weeks I was pretty much back to normal. Now this is what drugs are all about.

When I hit fifty the doctor said I had to have my colon looked into. That it was recommended. Well, that would have been fine with me but there’s one catch. They give you a plastic gallon jug and some powder and tell you to put the powder in the jug, fill it with cold water and start drinking an eight ounce glass of this stuff every half hour until it’s empty. Oh, and they warn you it’ll make you have to go to the bathroom somewhere around the sixth or seventh glass. It varies from person to person.

In my case that estimate was a bit on the conservative side. On the fourth glass of this disgusting bilge water my body rebelled. By the fifth glass, if I just looked at that jug, my throat closed up tighter than a bank vault. By the sixth glass there was no way I could swallow any of it, let alone drink the rest of the gallon. So I figured the doctor had chosen this line of work, let him deal with the consequences, and tossed it in the sink where it settled like a blob of protoplasm.

The next morning I was lying on a gurney awaiting the nurse who would wheel me into the room with the sigmoidoscopy screen. The pump room if you will.

“Did you drink the whole bottle?” It was my friendly gastroenterologist leaning over me, the benign expression on his face belying the real intent of his question which was …  “Are you all cleaned out in there?”

“Oh yes, doctor,” I lied neatly. Well, he didn’t know my history of lying to the customs agent so convincingly. He bought this just as totally as that guy had bought my line about dirty laundry stuffed in socks.

“Good. Very good.”

In I went. They hooked me up to an IV. I had already lied about my drug allergies. Ever since my first bout with morphine I had taken to telling them I was allergic to it. Medical-type people hate that word allergic. But if I were to say on that form “Morphine makes me really cranky” do you think they would stop giving it to me? The answer is “no.” And why? That’s simple. Because the medical establishment, although highly advanced compared with one hundred years ago, still does not consider emotional reactions in the realm of the physical. As if the brain is somehow separate from the body, unless you have a tumor up there. Then it is obvious something is wrong.



***



“We’re just going to start the IV going now. You’ll feel a little drowsy. There won’t be any pain.” The doctor nodded to the nurse, who flipped the switch. I felt a cold sensation in my wrist and forearm. In a matter of seconds my body began to feel light and floaty. My head relaxed. My back and shoulders seemed to melt away from my spine. I was completely at peace.

“You can watch on the monitor if you like,” said the nurse. She rolled my head toward a big screen that showed my intestine in weird colors.

“Oh, that’s all right,” I sort of sang to her. “I’m fine, just fine.”

I don’t know how long I was in there with that metal shower hose snake up my guts from the back end but I really didn’t care. After they wheeled me out I was in the recovery room for a while just grooving along. Somehow I got dressed and Strong With A Spear drove me home. I got into bed and floated along for the rest of the day and night and well into the next day. After three days the valium demerol IV mix they dripped into me finally wore off. That was the best three days I’ve had in forty years. Now that’s what I call a useful drug. But I hear demerol makes some people throw up.