Saturday, July 5, 2008

To Pill or Not to Pill, That is the Question.


I'm still here. I thought I would give up by now on spewing out my mental musings. I am surprised and disappointed that I have still some synaptic activity not yet suppressed by the Vicodin from last night. I've finally taken something during the day today. I was avoiding it, wanting to listen to my body tell me how it's doing. It told me: lousy, take some damn pain meds, fool. I finally decided to listen and obey. As luck would have it, my mind was still stubborn so I took only 800mg of Ibuprofen. It has been enough to take some of the edge off but I am still feeling the pain. I have an ongoing internal conflict, a war if you will. Do I take advantage of modern science's pharmaceutical horn of plenty? Or, should I be stoic, take it on the chin, be a man, buck up, stiff upper lip, what, what? On the one hand, drugs are a gift, accepting them would be gracious, and easy. On the other, toughing it out would be better for my self worth (thanks be to the protestant Jesus), and I would be more in tune with my healing, learning more about myself and who I am. (That may be more than the hip would be worth and scarier than the surgery).

I wrote that yesterday. Funny, today is starting out almost exactly the same. This morning I awoke from a very similar night, decided to take 800 mg of Ibuprofen and realized that I never published what I wrote the day before. I just reread that blurb and realized, deja vu style, that today is very much starting out like yesterday. It's the same internal battle: should I or shouldn't I take those pesky happy pills. Now the Ibuprofen is not the happy pill the Vicodin is reputed to be. Naturally, my protestant mind said, take the anti-inflammatory not the happy pill, suffer like a man. So, of course, being of more mind over matter, I chose the former. It just seems the body doesn't matter and I shouldn't really mind.

We'll see what/who outlasts what/who, the drugs or the pain. It's anyone's guess.

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