I’m not sure when this appeared on my nightstand.
Mah Pills
That’s seven pills on my agenda. Let’s explore them.
1. The patriotic painkiller — red, white and blue Extra-strength Tylenol
These are on the menu since the day, about a week ago, when I problem-solved my inability to reach the top half of the white board in my office by standing on a tiny chair. My unorthodox dismount, what some people might call “falling ass over teakettle,” ended with me landing hard on my backside right on the wooden edge of the chair. I am still paying for it daily, in what I think is a cracked or badly bruised tailbone. Holy cow, that is no joke.
2. The gaggers — fish oil capsules
These will lessen my chance of heart disease. Or maybe Alzheimer’s. I think Dr. Oz wants me to take them. I take two every evening. Except for the night where I only take one because Alden has taken the other one by gnawing it into a pulp and then swallowing the lot. This can only be good for him, right?
3. The one I always drop on the white carpet — cetirizine, the allergy pill no doctors seem to recognize even though it’s the generic of Zyrtec.
This is the only one that I absolutely need to take every day, living here in the allergy capital of the US. I do forget sometimes, and pay an immediate price.
4. The speckled hen’s egg — either a multivitamin or a prenatal vitamin.
I mixed them together ages ago to save space and now I can’t remember which is which. I just shake the jar and take what pops to the top.
5. Beige and dusty — Brewer’s Yeast
This one keeps me from getting fleas. I bought them for my dearly departed Darby cat years ago. I have no idea if they really helped, but he loved them. I used them as treats. I found them recently in the back of the medicine cabinet and offered them to our new rotten cats. They declined. So now I take them because I don’t know what else to do with them. And I definitley don’t want fleas.
jaysaint 
Posted by Jeannie on December 28, 2011 at 3:30 pm
I think brewer’s yeast is also supposed to be a galactogogue. You know, in case you find yourself needed to lactate any time soon.
Posted by thomastoday on December 28, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Ass over teakettle truly is no joke. One Friday night last January, not long before Thomas was born, I was sleeping in the guest room because I had a cold and was having a hard enough time sleeping being 33 weeks pregnant without factoring my husband’s impressive sleep-apnea-enhanced snoring into the equation. I got up at 12:30 a.m. to go pee, was shuffling back to bed after, and tripped over an IKEA Bekvam footstool that I’d had sitting near the closet so I could reach the top shelf to finish organizing it. I was going down and I knew it, and so I managed to twist myself around so I wouldn’t fall on the baby. I went down hard enough that I knocked louvered closet doors off their tracks. I did not go to the ER, because I felt like the baby was OK, and I had an OB appointment on Monday. All I was concerned about was the baby, and he was fine. Meanwhile, my cold got worse, I developed a horrible stabbing pain in my back any time I coughed, and wound up being prescribed a trip to a physical therapist by my OB four days before Thomas was born. That PT paid attention to the stabbing pain, did a little non-chiropractic manipulating of my spine, and voila, seemed like all was well.
The week after Thomas was born, my resting heart rate was a consistent 40 bpm and I was light-headed and I got hauled into an ER on a Friday night because everyone but me was worried about post-partum cardiomyopathy. A CT scan was ordered. My heart was fine. But the radiologist came in, gave Michael a weird look, and said it looked like I had two broken-but-now-healed ribs. Could I have broken my ribs about a month ago?
Um, yes. Yes, I could have. And the stepstool/closet door story sounded a little like a cover-up for spousal abuse, but what could we do. Our week-old son was sleeping sweetly in his car seat right there with us, so we looked more like a happy family than not, and nobody called social services.
Had they realized, however, that I also had a cracked coccyx, I really think there would have been paperwork. Fortunately, nobody realized it until my however-many-week follow-up with my OB, when I told her about the pain in my ass that was not related to any particular *person*. We went through the possibilities and realized that I really had injured myself pretty badly falling over that stool. Had I gone in that night with two broken ribs and a broken coccyx or fractured pelvis or whateverthehell, they would probably have induced labor, and Thomas would have missed out on his last several comfy weeks in utero. And there wouldn’t have been anything they could actually have done for either set of bones.
As it is, coming up on a year later, the ribs are fine (thanks to the PT who inadvertently set them), but the butt is not. I *still* have to be careful how I position myself for sitting and sleeping. I wonder sometimes whether I am just going to have a chronic pain in the ass, and have already started crafting the husband-related jokes to sprinkle through the decades. All that is to say take those Tylenol. Do a little yoga, maybe. Watch your posture. Feel better.
Posted by Brian Patrick Flynn on December 29, 2011 at 11:18 am
I enjoyed this post. Most of all, the naming of the pills brought me the most joy, particularly the patriotic ones which look like an Astropop in the form of pills. One thing that is officially going into the memory vault for me in regards to you is that you take cat flea pills. Hey, in this economy, you need to make use of every purchase. #dogchowcasserole
Posted by bshory on January 1, 2012 at 10:39 am
Impressive list. I only have 2, but I can’t even manage those. I can never remember whether I took them five minutes before, so I’m finally going to give in to the senior citizen blue pill box. I may become the youngest person to ever need my days of the week labeled.
Posted by statia on January 5, 2012 at 11:03 pm
You should look into the Nordic omega with coq10, which not only helps your heart, but prevents hangovers! You know, in case you were a lush (a lactating lush).