Prescription Purge

Today I did something I thought I’d never do.  I dumpster-dived…. in my own trash... for drugs.  Before you call Dr. Drew, let me explain.

For the majority of my life, I have enjoyed excellent physical health.  That is to say that apart from the usual bumps and bruises that come with youth, I have never been hospitalized, rushed to an ER, or had to visit a doctor for anything more than the usual round of requisite childhood vaccinations.  This is largely due to the fact that my mother was a skilled nurse and subsequently had a rather low opinion of doctors and the medical industry in general.  Short of bleeding from the eyes, any injury was only a scratch, which I would surely survive, and I in no way need to be rushed to the hospital. So, I grew up without the aid of doctors and just toughed-out whatever cold, flu, or sprained ankle that occasionally came my way.  I absolutely took my good health for granted, and was lucky to have it since I have spent at least half of the twenty years (gulp!) since college doing the entertainment industry job shuffle with sporadic health coverage, at best.

Finally, in 2002, I was hired as a full time-receptionist at Industrial Light & Magic.  I had no idea that it would eventually lead to my joining Lucas Licensing in 2004 and the longest period of steady employment, and therefore health coverage, of my life so far.  Great, I finally had good health coverage.  Not that I’d need it.  Cue storm clouds and lightening…

By 2008, I was a mess.  As it turned out, the unfortunate flip-side of the Lucasfilm dream-job coin was unreal stress.  Now, anyone who has worked in the film industry knows stress, understands stress, expects stress, even thrives on it.  Life in LFL licensing at that time was a whole new demon, and one I will write about Devil-Wears-Prada-style some day, so I can be sure not to violate any confidentiality agreements, and bring swift and crushing lawsuits upon my lowly writer head.

Yes, any normal person in my situation would have quit, as I was strongly advised to do by my two doctors, two psychiatrists, chiropractor, acupuncturist, psychic, friends, family, and random strangers on the street (my stress was palpable).  Not going to happen.  I worked too long and too hard to get there, and loved too many things about LFL to let something as common to me as stress mess it all up.  I was determined to stick it out and make it work.  Clearly, self-medicating would have been my next best option.  But no.  The only vice this Girl Scout enjoys is a rueful addiction to Diet Pepsi.  I proclaimed to the heavens every afternoon from my desk, “This is the day I start drinking!” in sincere, fist-clinched, Scarlett O’Hara fashion. My unphased supervisor once replied, “You should have started a long time ago!”  Sadly, I never did.

 

So, four years of unrelenting job-related stress had levied a myriad of symptoms upon me including chronic depression, intense stomach pain, dramatic weight gain, painful rashes, lowered immune system, excruciating sinus infections, constant colds, pneumonia, insomnia, teeth grinding, and a permanently malfunctioning thyroid.  Suddenly, I was seeing the doctor every-other-week.  Yay, health insurance! I was being prescribed every drug legally available in pill, spray and ointment form.  Virtually overnight, I had two giant freezer-sized Ziplocs full of meds.  Many had side effects, which necessitated more adverse symptoms, necessitating even more drugs.  I was in an endless loop of Western band-aid medicine. Some of it helped.  A lot of it didn’t.  I hated taking so many pills and eventually stopped.

Now, completely against my will, I’ve been off that crazy Lucasfilm train for four months.  As you may have predicted, I feel great.  Apart from not having a job, and the hell of finding one, swiftly running through our savings, and facing imminent poverty.  Other that that, it's all good. Which brings me to this morning.

Today was a brilliant sunny day of optimism and activity.  Today was to be the day that I finally purged unnecessary clutter and organized my home! Where to start?  Easy!  The dozens of prescription and holistic pill bottles littering the shelves, tables and medicine cabinet.  I’m better now! I don’t need all of these drugs anymore!  They are all going into the trash!  Plunk!  Plunk!  Plunk!  Into the can they go!  Oh, the triumph!

Then it hit me, like the shock of a cold wave.  I am no longer insured!  I don’t have any money!  What if it takes four more months to find a job?  What if I get sick?  Ack!  I might need these! 

So, like George Costanza with the chocolate éclair, out of the trash those horrible pills came.  Every last damn bottle, neatly placed in a colorful container, tucked conveniently under the bathroom sink.  No longer crowding the medicine cabinet but within reach, just in case.  

Hopefully, it will all be for naught and, in time, I will forget the box of prescription pain relief hidden behind my toilet paper and tampons.  I look forward to working again, to finding that perfect job, where I am happy and have great health coverage again.  Not that I’ll need it.