I can hear my alarm going off. It's been buzzing for about five minutes now, but I just can't seem to find the strength to lift my bony arm to turn it off and get out of bed. When I finally do hit the off button, I just lay there for a while. Why am I always so tired? Didn't I just sleep for ten hours? I can't seem to get it right. It doesn't matter if I get 4 hours or 12 hours, I'm still going to fall asleep in each class today. People will laugh and think I don't care, but there isn't much I can do about it.
I get up and stumble to my bathroom. My stomach feels empty, and yet, as though I swallowed a ten pound weight. In the past few months I've gone from 125 lbs to 110...I just don't have an appetite anymore. I turn on the fluorescent lights. First, let's put our contacts in so we can see, I say to myself. Next I look at the various pill bottles along my counter, each with my name neatly printed along the white label. I go through my list of medications and wonder again to myself if any of them are actually making things any better.
Morning Meds:
Ritalin- For ADHD...supposedly to help me focus.
Provigil- Supposedly to help me stay awake.
Cymbalta- Antidepressant. You know, so I don't kill myself.
Abilify- To "enhance" the effects of the antidepressant...
Lortab- For my constant head ache. (These usually stay with me throughout the day...)
Nighttime Meds:
Clonopin- Sleep-aide. Much better than the Ambien I was taking, which made me hallucinate...
Flexoril- Muscle relaxer, self explanatory.
Lyrica- Muscle relaxer, supposedly to help specifically with Fibromyalgia and its other symptoms.
Ativan- For anxiety, so I don't wake up and have a panic attack after dreaming about my mom....
Lortab- Again.
I really would stop taking this crap if I could, but the last time I didn't take my medication for a couple days, my body went into withdrawals and I ended up in the ER.
I can hear my dad snoring in the next room. No matter how overly medicated I think I am, I can't compete with this guy. He takes everything I take, or something similar, and then a bunch more pills to help his heart and his lungs and his stomach...and who knows what else. I'm glad he is home from the hospital. It's the second time this year he's had severe pneumonia. This time he stayed for a whole month, and I was left at home. Alone. I hate being alone. It's been four months since my mom passed away. I still feel like it's a dream. Maybe it is. I can only hope, right?
Four Years Earlier...
I'm sitting at my new doctors office, waiting for Dr. Cheddar to come back and tell me what the heck is going on with me. His name is spelt, Tschetter, but it sounds like Cheddar. As I wait, I stare at this picture on the wall. It's by some guy named M.C. Escher. It's a picture of a chessboard planted between a light New York and a dark New York, and as you move up the squares turn into birds....the longer I look at it the more my head hurts so I decide to stare at my untied shoe laces instead. My dad is dozing off in the corner and my mom is reading a magazine. I look up when I hear the door click.
"Okay, Karllen. We got your blood tests back and nothing seems out of the ordinary. Why don't you explain to me a little more about your symptoms and we'll see if we can't get an idea of what's going on, hmm?" Dr. Cheddar says.
"Well," I start, "I'm having trouble sleeping. My muscles shake a lot and it wakes me up. My body is also really sore lately, especially when I wake up..."
My mom jumps in, "She's been sleeping with me the past few nights and I've tried to watch her. She'll be fast asleep and all of a sudden her body starts to spasm. It's like she is shivering. It's causing her to fall asleep in school. We're just getting a little concerned..."
"What other medications has she taken in the past?" Cheddar asks.
"Well, these symptoms haven't shown up until now, but in the past she's been diagnosed with Anemia and Acid Reflux Disease. She stopped taking her iron medication for the Anemia a couple of years ago and has been doing fine without it, and for the acid reflux she takes Prevacid before meals," My mom answers.
"And you've noticed no side effects prior to now?" Cheddar asks.
"No," My mom and I both answer.
"Alright then. Karllen, I want you to hop up on the table here and I'm going to try a couple things, okay?" Cheddar prompts.
I do as he says. He begins by pinching, massaging, and tugging at my biceps and shoulders and calves. He asks if these areas are tender at all, I tell him they are. Lately it feels like my whole body is bruised. Like I just raced a 10 K or something. After he is finished poking at me he asks how I've been feeling emotionally. I have to think about that for a minute. I suppose I haven't been as energetic lately, maybe even a little down. School is stressful, but what kid doesn't feel that way? My mom has been sick lately as well, so that has been hard, especially since the doctors can't figure out what is wrong with her either. After I explain all of this, he thinks for a moment before saying,
"Karllen I believe you have what is called Fibromyalgia. It's a muscle disorder common among older women and is brought on by anything from hormonal or chemical imbalances, to other illnesses, to stress and emotional trauma. This would explain the pain in your joints and muscles, and would also explain any anxiety or depression you might be experiencing," Cheddar explains very matter-of-factly.
The rest of the appointment consists of my parents asking questions about treatment and whether or not it will go away. Dr. Cheddar explains that with some medication and staying physically active, it might not go away, but will be very manageable. I end up leaving with three prescriptions, an anti depressant (which bothers me for some reason, I feel like I don't need it...), a muscle relaxer, and something for pain.
***
As the years passed, Cheddar would add on to my list of medications: sleep-aides, more pain-killers, other antidepressants, higher dosages for everything. My mom would continue to get sicker. We would eventually find out that she has stage 3 breast cancer. She would then go through two years of harsh chemo therapy. She would be told that the cancer is gone and she will soon be on her way to remission.
And then she would die.
And then she would die.
***
January, 2010
So here I am. Another year has gone by. I stare again at the pill bottles along my counter. Most of them are almost empty. I'm afraid of what will happen when I run out. In April I will turn 19, and my government funded health insurance will be taken away--rightly, I might add. I am old enough to go find a job that gives me health insurance...the problem is I just can't find one. I've decided to try to wean myself off of some of these medications. I still wonder if they even help. I'm still in pain most days, I'm still pretty dang depressed. I've begun to build quite a lot of resentment against that Cheddar, for each time I entered his office, complaining of a head ache or night terrors--did he ever once try to find out what exactly was causing all of this? No! He'd just happily write off another white slip for me to take to my friend the pharmacist to give me more happy pills or pain pills or any other kind of pills to make me "normal" like everyone else. And now here I am. 18 years old and addicted to the medications my 60 year old father takes. It's ridiculous.
You know what I think? I think this is crazy. I think it's anything but normal. I just heard from my older sister that her 12 year old son is starting an antidepressant and a heavy sleep-aide for his insomnia. 12 years old. Will he end up like me? Where the side effects of these medications have caused me to forget 75% of my high school experience? Causing me to sleep through most of it? To not graduate? To be terrified of what happens if I don't take them all? I certainly hope not.
Present Day
So.....here I am. I am now 22 years old. I did wean myself off of all those medications and I am better now than I've ever been. I can think clearly, I sleep fine most nights, I have an appetite and I have the energy to do everything I need to do. All those years I was given medication to help me perform better mentally and physically, and all those years I only got worse. I am writing this because I am angry that I wasn't given another option. That the effects of these drugs weighed down on me so heavily that I couldn't function enough to graduate high school. I want others to learn from my experience. I don't think it's right for children to be given these heavy medications with no alternative. There are other alternatives.
It starts with you, parents. Don't let a doctor feed your child with narcotics and addictive medication just because it's an easy fix. It has taken me years to escape the effects of those drugs and I will never do that to my child, not if I have other options. Be informed. Know what you are putting in your child's body and what it's really doing for them.
It starts with you, parents. Don't let a doctor feed your child with narcotics and addictive medication just because it's an easy fix. It has taken me years to escape the effects of those drugs and I will never do that to my child, not if I have other options. Be informed. Know what you are putting in your child's body and what it's really doing for them.
The End.
