50/100 WORDS
Give Me The Drugs Any Day
Thrifty Words Challenge 100 #17: /50 #38: Drugs and Medication
Everything was going along swimmingly; at least that’s what I thought until I went to see my ophthalmologist last week. She looked at me aghast when I walked into her office. “What’s going on with your eyes?” I thought I heard alarm in her voice. ”It’s been seven weeks and these medications have not kicked in yet? We need to sort this out.” Then she picked up her phone.
“Dr. P.,” She purred down the phone. “You’re like Jesus Christ. We know you’re there but we never get to see you...”
Well, I got to see him the very next day, thanks to her divine intervention. And he agreed with his former student’s analysis; the drugs I’m currently on are not working for me. “But don’t worry,” he assured me, “There are plenty of other treatments we can try.”
It had been previously been explained to me that the autoimmune illness I have is known as a snowflake disease because what works to treat one person won’t necessarily help another. As the steroids and myasthenia-correcting medication (pyridostigmine) have made little difference to my condition, Dr. P. decided he would take me off some of these meds, and try me on something new to me, mycophenolate mofetil.
He ran through a few of the possible side-effects which scared the bejesus out of me, but I felt better knowing that I would be in hospital for monitoring whilst the new drug is introduced. Dr. P. also told me that he wasn’t very keen on operating to eighty-six my thymus, as one, it is not enlarged nor defective enough to be removed, and secondly, although some doctors do advocate this, he is not a believer. (While there is a 70% chance of myasthenia going into remission after this operation, people have also died on the operating table while having their thymus taken out.)
OK then!
Who needs surgery when there are great drugs available?
As my more faithful readers will know, I don’t do illicit drugs. I had an unsettling experience with ganja when I was a teenager that put me off for life — thank you very much, Father of Afrobeats Fela Kuti, may your soul continue to rest in eternal peace.
Dr. P.’s final words to me were: ”Go home and pack a case for two weeks; think of it as a holiday and we’ll check you into hotel Neurology on Monday or Tuesday of next week. I hope you like hospital food.”
Luckily, I love hospital food — just more drugs, after all…
What are some of your experiences with drugs, meds, and rock and roll? Illegal or legal? Share your greatest high and/or your lowest low with us, but keep it thrifty!
Drugs and Medications, 50 words or 100 words — GO!
“Reality is a crutch for people who can’t cope with drugs” — Lily Tomlin
Please choose either the fifty-word or 100-word challenge, not both. See the guidelines for your chosen challenge below.
Remember, in order to be considered for the challenge, you need to write exactly 100 or 50 words (contractions such as ‘you’ll’ and ‘y’all’ count as one, as do articles ‘a’ and ‘the’ and all 23 auxiliary verbs ‘am’ ‘is’ ‘are’ etc. Hyphenated words count as one word.) The editors reserve the right to add or remove words to ensure the exact word count. Please keep an eye on your tags as laid out in the submission guidelines above.
Use the kicker 100 WORDS or 50 WORDS and ‘Thrifty Words 100 Challenge #17: Drugs and Medication or ‘Fifty Word Challenge #38: Drugs and Medication’ as your subtitle and submit by 6:00 pm.EST on Friday, 21st May. All stories submitted by the deadline will be released the following morning in the weekly roundup.
Need inspiration? Here’s last week’s roundup, and Ian Drury.
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