Vigilence

I was sitting on the couch studying when an unnerving thought crossed my mind. As I stared at the Vicodin bottle on the table that I was prescribed for my ear problems, I started to wonder how many I'd need to take to pass out. My mind wandered to the kitchen, questioning if I still had that bottle of wine I never opened. Maybe if I had some Vicodin and wine together the mixture would knock me out. Maybe I could lay in bed all day in a groggy haze and leave this life behind for a while.

Just as the elaborate spider-web of thoughts was woven into potential plans, I swiftly knocked it down. WHAT?! I retraced my trail in an attempt to figure out how my brain got me to that point. Did I really want a drink? No... I don't even like getting drunk. Was I feeling depressed about Blake? Not particularly. Is suicide anything I'd ever considered, even in my darkest days? NO.

I freaked out! I felt like I had lost complete control of my body. The four days since I started taking medication for my ear, I had been eating non-stop, feeling anxious, and having the most depressing thoughts cross my mind. I thought back to a conversation I had with one of my best friends about how she was put on steroids and it made her gain a ton of weight. Oh my gosh... the Prednisone! I quickly looked up the side effects for the steroids that the doctor put me on. Sure enough, increased appetite, anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts were all listed.

I didn't know whether to feel relieved or mad. At least my weird behavior had an explanation. I wasn't regressing, it was just the chemicals in my brain telling me to do these things. But that just made me angry. WHY did the doctor not warn me that Prednisone causes suicidal thoughts? If I had informed him about the recent death of my boyfriend, I'm sure he would've thought twice about prescribing me something that could send me on a downward spiral!

I called my mom and dad sobbing, explaining to them that THIS was the exact reason why I have such a distrust of medicine. The fact that the doctor checked me out for less than 20 minutes and put me on all of these dangerous meds seemed disgusting. How could he do this to me? How could doctors everywhere do this to people every DAY! For all he knew I could've had an extremely addictive personality and the Vicodin he casually prescribed me for pain could have triggered a life long addiction. I hated doctors for me, for Blake, and for the whole world.

But after a while of fuming, my mom helped me see that it's the system that's broken. Doctors give advice about what to do to naturally heal, but people want medicine. If the doctor can't give them a quick fix, they'll move on to one who will. And people don't do the research necessary to help inform the doctors about what they need. How can doctors know all of the potential problems you'll have with a medication unless you tell them? It's our job as patients to be advocates for our health. If we don't guard our own bodies with vigilance, who will?

So I stopped being upset and changed my perspective. Thank goodness that I know myself well enough to catch these thoughts. I knew right away that I was not upset about Blake, so my depressive and suicidal thoughts were definitely abnormal. I don't like drinking, so there is no reason I'd be contemplating getting drunk in the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday. None of this added up to me, so I knew something was wrong.

I realized that it's not the doctors fault, my fault, or the pills fault. It's actually no one's fault. What happened this afternoon was a wake up call. I need to be the number one advocate for my mental, physical, and emotional health. Only I will be able to know when something is wrong, so building up my self-awareness is my best defense against potential problems. Just as I have been vigilant with this blog tracking and paying attention to my emotions, I need to do the same with my physical health as well.

A Prescription for Vicodin

I have a huge distrust of medicine. Although Blake's addiction to prescription pills amplified this, I've felt this way on some level for as long as I can remember. When someone offers me Advil or Ibuprofen for a minor ache or pain, I always decline. It's not that I don't think they work, as I'm sure they will, I just don't like putting random chemicals in my body. Something about that has always felt weird to me. Unless something is seriously wrong, I'd much rather let my body heal itself. 

For the past couple weeks, I've had a pretty bad ear infection/ailment of some sort. I'm actually not quite sure what's wrong because the doctors keep telling me it's something different every time I come in. At first I was just going to wait it out like I usually do, but when I told my parents about it over Thanksgiving, they insisted I go see someone. So I saw someone, she looked in my ear, wrote me two different prescriptions, and that was that.

The whole thing felt really rushed to me. When she gave me the prescriptions she said, "These might help, let me know if they don't." Might help? So I'm going to pollute my body with pills that might not even help? And if they don't, you'll chalk it up to trial and error and send me home with another set of prescriptions? This was just too much.

But with the insistence of my parents that I need to get better at taking care of myself, I've been taking the prescriptions exactly as directed. I've been waking up each morning with three pills, taking four more throughout the day, and can't fall asleep until I remember the last two. All the while I've been waiting for my ear to feel better, but it only seems to be hurting more. 

When I went to the doctor this morning, he said he saw no signs that I ever had an ear infection to begin with. But even though I don't need the antibiotics I was originally prescribed, he advised me to keep taking them to avoid the potentially bad effects from cutting them short. Ugh. After he prescribed me something else to attack the ailment he thinks I actually have, he told me he was also giving me Vicodin.

My stomach dropped. "Are you sure I need Vicodin? That's a really serious pain killer. I don't think I really need that one." He was confused, as if he'd never had a patient question his decision to give them medicine before. He explained that if the pain is making it hard for me to sleep, a pain killer could really help. He told me that I don't need to suffer; these pills can mask the pain. 

I don't need to suffer; these pills can mask the pain. 

As that sentence continued to echo in my head, I wondered if it's the mantra of every addict. I wondered if it's that kind of thinking that leads to the justification of coping mechanisms that only serve to hide a problem instead of fixing it.

I let these thoughts carry me away. I wondered if it started out like this for Blake. After his accident, his doctor harmlessly prescribed him Oxycontin. He told him he didn't need to suffer; as he healed, these pills could mask his pain. And they did. They masked his pain and then started to mask everything else. Created a disguise so encompassing that it ended up numbing him to all pain, not just from his injury. A feeling so addictive that the suffering of a real life seemed too unbearable. 

After crawling down the rabbit hole for a while with that thinking, I had to ask myself: will I take the Vicodin? It has been pretty horrible staying up until four or five in the morning wondering if the pounding in my ear will ever cease. The doctor is right, I don't need to suffer. If there is medicine out there that can help me dull this pain, it would be silly not to take advantage of it. So I won't deny myself the help if the help is what I need.

But the difference is being in tune with what exactly I mean by "I need." I know that pain killers like these have a way of tricking you into thinking you need to continue taking them or at a higher dosage or more frequently. What you "need" can potentially change because pain killers make you feel good. And who doesn't like feeling good? If you could get the feeling of peace, ease, and weightlessness instantly from a pill, a pill a doctor told you to have, who wouldn't want to? The lines between what you need and what you want begin to blur. 

I see the pros and the cons, the benefits and the hazards. I can't spend another night up until 5 AM, but I also can't allow myself to believe a cure lies simply in a white tablet either. I am still uncomfortable with how readily doctors hand out prescriptions for pills, based on surface level guesses at what's actually going wrong. But even though I've always had a huge distrust of medicine, I also understand that it is necessary in some situations. What other choice do I have than to put my trust in a doctor? The only thing I can do is take this medication with a critical eye, from a position of ever present self-reflection.