Seventy-three a Day Keeps the Doctor at Bay
October Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Collections”
Twenty-seven in one go. My superpower.
“I’m rattling today. My doctor prescribed a new medication. I’ve got to take six tablets now. Six!”
I sat in the staff room at recess, listening to the chatter.
“It took me ten minutes to swallow them all.”
I leaned over and patted Ligi’s shoulder. “That’s not even halfway to rattling. I take over seventy a day.”
“But how?” Ligi asked.
“Twenty-seven at a time.”
I can classify my medications into three main sections.
- Creon. That’s the capsule with the little beads. While Cystic Fibrosis is known mainly as a lung disease, it impacts the whole body, particularly the digestive system. I can’t digest food on my own. I take handfuls of Creon whenever I eat. That’s where my impressive superpower to swallow twenty-seven tablets in one go comes in. It’s a necessity — if I took them one by one, I’d never get around to the actual eating part. (That said, my husbeast says I just have a big mouth 🤣🤣🤣)
- Immune Suppressants. These keep my body from attacking my healthy new lungs. So they’re pretty important.
- Everything else. Everything else may seem like a broad term, but ‘everything else’ I take counters the side effects brought on by the immune suppressants. They strip many essential vitamins, send my blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol sky high, give me (nearly) constant headaches, and make me more susceptible to skin cancers.
There’s a little white lie in the headline.
When you factor in painkillers, antihistamines, and snacks that may require extra Creon, the total medications I pop daily would be over eighty. But they’re variables that are hard to factor. Regardless, it’s quite an impressive collection of medicines that requires their own storage cupboard.
Want to know a little more about Cystic Fibrosis?
Sandi Parsons lives and breathes stories as a reader, writer, and storyteller. She lives with her favorite husband, two problem puppies, and a storage cupboard full of medication.
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