Just Another Day in The Med Game

There's this thing I call The Med Game. It's the constant change of medication that anyone with a chronic illness has to go through.

This is how it works: go to doctor who gives you the meds he thinks will work while you wait for your referral to see a specialist, see specialist who says, "Why in the world would he give you that?" & receive different medication for your symptoms, go back in a month to tell them it's not working, receive new medication & be told to wait another month, go back in a month to rinse & repeat.

I hate The Med Game. And if you're like me & being bounced from specialist to specialist, you have this going on multiple times in one month. And they all want to know why the other doctors prescribed this or that.

I have now seen 14 doctors for what I have. Sometimes it's because this doctor didn't have a clue what to do so they sent me on to someone else, sometimes it's because I was sent to someone who didn't listen to me & prescribed things that clearly states "ALLERGY" on my chart, and sometimes it's because I simply didn't like this doctor & wanted someone who actually gave a crap about me.

Tuesday I went to see my specialist who told me that I need a new medication (surprise!) because I'm not responding to the 2 medications he prescribed a month ago. I go to the pharmacy to pick up said medication & the pharmacist is shocked at the incredibly high dose I was put on & warned me that it will make me extremely tired. Great, I've been looking for something for my insomnia so--awesome!

Yeah...no. Tuesday night I took it thinking, "Sleeping pills don't even knock me out, this won't do anything." Well...I woke up 13 hours later. I fell asleep literally in the middle of my school books & laptop. My 9 year old was "helping" me study & told hubby that suddenly I wasn't making sense when I was talking to her.

Hubby had to put me into a decent sleeping position & it never woke me up. That's not normal.

When I started studying again on Wednesday, I opened the book up to where my daughter had put my pen to mark my page. I saw some things highlighted. I had no idea why I highlighted those things. I thought, "Self, this is interesting. Not only did you pass out with no warning but you apparently were 'studying' while not quite with it."

I went back in the book until I recognized something that I'd read & highlighted. It was 5 pages back. 5 pages of random highlighting might I add. I had to reread those 5 pages because I have no memory of reading them the first time. And my highlighting...well, some made sense & then others...just didn't. Like the word respiration. Why I would highlight one word...that I know the meaning of...in the middle of a paragraph...when the whole entire chapter is on respiration, so obviously that word is everywhere in this chapter...I have no answer for this.

I'm supposed to take that knock-out medication again in the AM. So basically, my illness won't bother me at all because I'll sleep 23 hours of the day. What an answer to all this! "You won't feel any symptoms because you'll be asleep." Not exactly the answer I was looking for.

This isn't a sleeping pill, it's not a pain pill, it's a medication strictly to make my body stop attacking itself so it can do what it's supposed to do. Which is, you know, allow me to live a life that's not full of uncertainty & surprise attacks at the most inconvenient times.

When I say I want sleep, I don't want to sleep my life away. I'm supposed to be on this my entire life, if it works. Hmm...live a life I'm barely functioning in when my symptoms act up or sleep through it all. What a choice to make.

When I called my doctor's office yesterday to say, "Yo, I slept for 13 hours & then took a 4 hour nap...you sure my dosage is fo sho?" or something like that, the nurse said, "Oh, crap, that's the dosage I'm supposed to start taking tonight! I don't want that to happen to me! I'm so glad you called 'cause I had no idea it could do that." Gee, so glad I could help you with your health, now tell me what to do.


Ah, well, one day someone will get it right. Until then I have Ethel to tell me things like: "Stay positive, one day the pain will end." To which I replied, "Positivity can take a ride up my butt." Actually, that was the pain talking; there are times it takes over my body & I cannot be held responsible for how it answers others.