First, let me explain the title. According to my Latin expert, it literally translates as “don’t know, don’t care.” (If your Latin expert says differently, then... non curro.)I asked my Latin expert, a/k/a my friend Kathy, to translate "don't know, don't care" into Latin for me because I've been wanting a personal motto, in Latin, of course, because all good mottos are in Latin. As a family, we Bargers generally have the family motto of "Go when you can." I.e., if there's an opportunity to go potty, don't pass it up. So I had her translate that into Latin for me - she came up with “Carpe ad Urinarium” - Literally, “seize the place of urination.” But I wanted my own personal motto to be less potty-related. I failed to come up with anything that suited me better.
Lately, though, my not caring has really been amped up.
I take Paxil - freely admit it, like I freely admit I'm not a natural red head. In fact, I told my doctor (the one who I loved and who retired on me) that he'd have to take my Paxil from my cold, dead hands when he suggested that we might wean me off of it. He of course did not know the pre-Paxil Rose, so he can be forgiven for making a bad call there.
I don't really remember too much about the pre-Paxil Rose either. I do recall that she was an unhappy, impatient bitch. This recollection has been recently reinforced. Wrote a blog about it. Want to hear it? Here it goes...
I get my prescriptions through a mail order company. The refills come every 90 days... or do they? The answer to that is "NO." I know this because over the years, I've collected quite a stash of my meds. Don't get excited, there's nothing really "good." But each time they send me a refill, I'd pour what was left of the prior refill into the bottle, so I'd only have one bottle, right? Well, then I had so much left over that it didn't fit into one bottle. Then two. I have quite a stash of Prilosec since I've been taking it since my surgery in April 2011. That's neither here or there. My stash of Paxil was smaller, but still I had plenty. The problem arose, I'm going to say about 5 weeks ago when I was refilling my weekly pill holder and my bottle of Paxil was empty. I got up to go find my hoard and I couldn't find it. According to the, now, empty bottle, I was supposed to get a refill early/mid October. Hmm.. what to do?
I know that Paxil is one of those drugs that you're not supposed to go cold turkey with. Wasn't sure why exactly; thought maybe it made you turn into a werewolf or something. Now, I had a doctor's appointment set for early October and I really didn't want to have to go see her before then just for this. (Of course I'm sure I could have called the office and had them call in a refill for me, but I don't really like using the telephone.) Fortunately when I was scrummaging around in my bathroom cabinets looking for the aforementioned missing hoard, I found a couple of blue blister packs of an old prescription. By old I mean they were 20mg instead of the 30 mg I've been on for a while now. The label said it was expired (I can't remember by how much, but I'm sure I've been on my current dosage for at least 3-4 years). However, my previous experience in the pharmaceutical profession told me that at worst they just might be slightly less effective. My experience as a former math wizard and my understanding of the law of averages told me that if I took 1 20mg pill on odd days and 2 20mg pills on even days, then I'd be getting an average daily dose of 30mg. So that's what I did.
In retrospect, I can see that my outlook was slowly getting, um... sour; I was becoming less patient with others. The words "I hate people," while still being generally true...
Forgive me. I have to rant for a moment on the subject of me hating people. Last night on Wheel of Fortune this woman won every single puzzle, not letting the other two contestants win anything. Going into what turned out to be the next to last puzzle, she had approx. $30K versus their $1K and $2K, respectively. And keep in mind, you get $1K just for showing up! The guy in the middle works hard and all but fills in the puzzle, just had the poor luck of hitting a Lose a Turn on the wheel, and the skank proceeds to finish off the puzzle winning another $14K! So, going into the final puzzle (before like the FINAL puzzle), she had over $40K! In this puzzle, you know, Pat Sajak spins and whatever he lands on, they add $1K to, so if he lands on $200, it's $1,200 a letter. So last night, he spins and lands on the $5K spot; it's $6K per letter. The puzzle was called "On the Map" and it was:
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ ____ __ __ __ __ __ __
The guy in the middle goes first and guesses something like a "T" and there aren't any. So that woman guesses an "S" and there are three of them, so the puzzle now looks like:
__ __ __ S S __ __ S
__ __ __ __ __ __ __
She then proceeds to guess "Brussels Belgium," and won the round! She could have been gracious and taken a dive. She was going to the FINAL round anyway! I did the math! After taking the S's out of play, even if just one of the other two got ALL of the remaining consonants (and what are the odds?), without spending $250 a pop on vowels, that player STILL would not have been going to the FINAL round! I'm yelling at the television that I hate this woman. Obviously the other two would have liked to have won something! Would it have hurt her to throw one of them a bone!? ARRGHH!!@!
I apologize. I am done with my rant. But you can see that even when on an even keel, I can really not like people. Anyway, the words were coming out of my mouth more often than usual. I was feeling tired and generally unhappy. (Now, to anyone out there who may have recognized these changes in me and, as they're reading this, are thinking, "Duh! You were being a bitch!", keep it to yourself. Just because it's the truth, (and a truth I've already grasped, BTW), doesn't mean it won't hurt my feels to hear it.)
After almost a month of taking my "altered" prescription of pills, I had my doctor's appointment and I mentioned to her that I needed it to be refilled. No problem, she sent off the refill order and I continued with my "altered" schedule until I received the refill. A week later, I was in Carmel having my semi-annual appointment with my doctors there and the discussion somehow came around to my, shall I say, emotional state. The doctor suggested that I might want to discuss "adjusting" my prescription with my regular doctor. Of course as previously discussed, I had just seen my doctor and really didn't want to go back.
During the three and half hour drive back home from Indy, I contemplated what she said and it occurred to me that my 20/40 scheme may not have been as brilliant as I'd thought. The refill didn't arrive in the mail, though, for another five days, so I had a little while longer to think about it and further my descent into emotional wackadooity. But as soon as possible, I resumed my normal programming.
Tuesday, I was talking to Carrie (Boss-lady #1) and I don't recall how the topic came up but we were discussing our current mutual lack of patience of late and I told her my story. She questioned whether the pills, having been past their expiration date, were even effective... pointing out that I might have in fact been going cold turkey. I exerted some of my considerable Google skills trying to investigate whether or not taking expired Paxil was wise. I didn't find anything. All of this has reinforced the "cold, dead hand" thing, though.
And now that I've got the prescribed doses of Paxil coursing through my system, I'm feeling much better. Not feeling homicidal. I have less fatigue. I guess I'm back to my usual Abby Normal. That doesn't change my motto, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment