Keeping it all in order

My medicine cabinet is or was pretty ordinary.

A bottle of peroxide, a tube of Neosporin, some allergy meds, Imodium, baby aspirin, Vicks, Vaseline, etc.  and a few do-dads like band aids and tweezers.

My medicine, that is, the medicine that I am taking is a bit more challenging.

They are lined up on the sink and in front of the space where I sit in the kitchen. The soldiers of better health, or so it is written.

I wonder as I make my way through this “recovery” whether these soldiers are on my side or not.  A sensitive bunch of remedies, some have to be taken before bed, some with meals, some with a full glass of water.

One cautions me not to imbibe while taking this medicine, others have multiple colored  labels cautioning me on interactions with other  medications. Another tells me to stay out of the sun.

There is one that I take every other day. Several have big type warnings about addiction.

When you pick up your medicine at the pharmacy, you also get a page plus of information about the drug.

If you carefully read the instructions, you will be guided along the wonderful pathway of “side effects,” everything from dizziness, tingling hands and feet, nausea, insomnia and dry mouth to constipation and diarrhea.

These off putting descriptions, make you hope that you could be taking two meds that cancel each other’s side effects. I have to add, as a public service this admonition, if you are taking iron and an opioid, you had better invest in a big bag or prunes.

It is no wonder that people taking several medications get confused. I know that I am.

I have, and this sounds a bit obsessive, a spread sheet with categories to remind me when and how to take each medicine.

Of course,  I have to consult said spread sheet and,  you guessed it, I can’t remember where I put it.

Now, I could go upstairs to check it out in the computer, but that would mean actually going upstairs, which means that I will have to descend the same stairs and, oh, how can I put this?  My right hip and knee find the prospect daunting.  Ouch. Recovery hasn’t progressed far enough to enjoy stairs yet.

Today I found out that I have to have dental work which will require that I take antibiotics in addition to everything else.

The only saving grace for this ‘recovery” is that many of these nostrums will go away as time passes.

Then I will be back to two meds which are taken with the same frequency and at the same time.

Of course, I have to add it the cat’s medicine, a daily dose of something to calm his thyroid.  This is administered, thankfully, with a transdermal pen.

He has grown use to my ministrations so I only have to chase him around one of two rooms to dispense it.

Most of the stuff that I’m taking has little or no effect on the discomfort that the joint replacement creates, so I have to be creative.

Keeping busy helps, but too busy creates more of what is laughingly known as “discomfort.” Finding a good book, one that engages my whole mind,  will help.

I am in the hunt for that.

Working in my garden has always been a remedy for everything from arthritis to the blues, but at least around my house, the black flies send me back into the house looking for a medicine called “after bite.”

There is one exceptional artifact that I call on to smooth out the bumps.  It’s my Amazon echo dot.   I simply ask Alexa to play the music I love, or when it is time to sleep, I request the sound of rain and distant thunderstorms.  The latter is hypnotic,  almost as good as the opioids without the need for prunes