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The Medicine Creep
Why am I taking all these pills?
How did this happen? Wasn’t I once a reasonably healthy person who only took the occasional Ibuprofen for period cramps? Ok, yes, before that I was the quite decidedly unhealthy pillhead who would scarf down anything in pill — or powder — form in hopes of improving my inner climate but that’s another story.
Somehow — without my permission, btw — my body has aged and various complaints, pains, ailments, and conditions have begun to make their presence known.
And each ache, pain, and symptom seems to require a trip to the doctor whereupon I get a referral to see another doctor and whereupon that doctor prescribes more pills. And procedures like last week’s no-fun MRI of my head which seems to have confirmed that the benign thingamajiggy in my brain has not grown or changed in any alarming fashion (whewww) since the last MRI six months ago. And procedures like next week’s no-fun mammogram.
It all started innocuously enough, this pill habit.
I had been on oral birth control since forever to feed two birds with one seed: to not procreate and to not want to die every 28 to 48 days when my period hit like some roaring red beast intent on ripping my insides to shreds. I was one of the lucky ones whose system tolerated this…
