For most of my adult life, I rarely took so much as an aspirin. That changed in ’18 when I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
Today, I take five different pills four times a day for a total of 10 pills.
I’d right up front here tell you all their multi-syllabic names but the names are so uniformly intimidating they’ll make your head hurt and I wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt your head when hurt heads are already one of the potential side effects.
But 10 is a bunch. I know many people who’d be leery about altering their body chemistry so dramatically. They don’t trust Big Pharma or their white-smocked minions.
I’m not at all like that.
I trust and admire the doctor I see to treat my PD. That’s not all. I have a grade-school type crush on her so the chances of me refusing her advice on medications are only slightly less than if she’d enter the examination room and order me to start removing my clothes.
The pills seem to be doing their job. I can appear symptom-free in most any situation and to be symptom-free 10 years after exhibiting baffling symptoms is a godsend.
But I understand those who feel differently. The thought of taking pills makes them skeptical.
What have they done to me?
They’ve made me astrological.
See, I don’t look at the pills as merely therapeutical boosters.
I look at them like roadmaps to the universe — as if outer space has actual roads, a sometimes useful assumption when you’re waiting endless hours for PennDOT to come and plough Earth roads.
Before ingesting them I like placing the pills on a black surface in ways that depict the great constellations.
See those three stars? They’re not Alnilam, Mintaka and Alnitak, more commonly known as Orion’s Belt. No, in my universe, those are PRAMIPEXOLE, RASAGALINE and LEVOTHYROXONE.
Those two ancient mariner beacons glittering overhead? They’re not Ursa Majors fabled pointer stars Dubhe and Merak. Those are AMANTADINE and CARBIDOPA/LEVODOPA.
Twinkle! Twinkle little star! Thanks for all you do to keep me grounded when you’re not making me all spacey n’at.
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