Solipsis

Can it be ever understood how many people are on drugs? Not the recreational illegal business, but the doctor-prescribed medications that are not hinged too tightly on getting us better. First I was on a high blood pressure med that zombified me. Then I was on cholesterol med that started dissolving my long muscles. Now I am on a diuretic that creates a ghostly, drowsy weakness that has me tripping over rugs and my own feet.

The online stats say that over two million people take this particular cholesterol drug, not all of them successfully. They are as woozy as I was, and maybe this is a good time to let everyone know not to tailgate. God knows what the person ahead of you is on. If it's a prescribed drug, we think the side effects are legal and try to go on with business when we should be sitting at home with a pillow under our head. No, no, I'm fine. I can do this. Getting used to a new drug and finally deciding that it is doing more damage than good is a long struggle towards normalcy. Getting used to a drug that works for you is just as nerve-wracking, for you never know the outcome until weeks have gone by. My life, a good chunk, has been spent getting used to drugs.

Just realize folks, that too many of us are dealing with pharmaceuticals and what they do to body systems. I feel way better now than I did this morning and hope that with time this new med will be tolerated at the get-go. Friends who take it say it will, and it eliminates the other two meds that were debilitating. Plop one foot in front of the other and there you go.

The rhabdomyolysis causes the muscles to waste, and so I still ache while the meds are flushed out. It hurts to lift, walk, and breathe. But I am peeing oceans of bright yellow, better that the weak brown from dissolved proteins that would have caused eventual kidney problems. If anything, I have learned to be insistent with doctors and ask questions and do web research. Most are doing their best to be good people, but that's just it, they are people.

The night is cooling and I look forward to laying my long bones flat. Over the next few days the Perseid meteor shower takes place, and perhaps tomorrow evening, I will see some. Never have. But I will be near the southern border of New York State, in the woods with a couple of girlfriends, a mother and daughter who have a cabin there. Nowhere near city lights, at the top of an Allegheny mountain.

Sleep well and keep trying. Don't give up, too many people think of you when they say prayers. It is a privilege to be part of the struggle. Today at the grocery, I overheard a cashier speaking with a customer. This cashier is a man, a refugee from an African nation who had one arm chopped off possibly when he raised it to deflect the machete, which also left a deep dent in his skull. The customer asked, how are you, man? The cashier said, any day above ground is a good day. Think of that.

Dreams are for everyone, particularly for those who worry, push against the flow, or collect cans to supplement food on the table. An eccentric man used to run a bookstore, and lost it to a devious partner who came in and sidled his way legally into ownership, booting out the original owner. I see him up and down Elmwood on occasion, trailing a wire cart while searching for cans and returnable bottles. He refuses help from the government, and is intent on self-sufficiency, his long white hair and beard flopping out from under a baseball cap, his fingernails curved and yellow. His college degree is in physics.

What can we do but dream. Replenish with sleep tonight, let the body systems do mysterious workings unknown to the conscious mind. Sleep well, sleep tight. Hold on to something, it helps. Good, unknown night. Wait for me, Perseids.