The War on Drugs

I’m starting to sound like an old person, but…remember the good ole days? The days when you went to the doctor & got diagnosed with a specific illness & were given medicine to make you feel better. A shot in the ass perhaps that made you feel like a superhero or something to put you to sleep & maybe even induce hallucinations so you weren’t aware of who or where you were until you were well…

Our children don’t know that luxury, my friends. Nor do we, anymore.

In fact, these doctors today are just downright stingy with the good stuff. For example, just TRY to get some good cough syrup for your child. You know, CODEINE! This fall, during the Great Waverly Street Strep Epidemic, one of my kids developed a nighttime cough on top of having strep. I said to our pediatrician, “Remember when you prescribed Histex for Wyatt’s nighttime cough? We’re out and would like some more for Brooks. It’s handy to keep around.” I might as well have said, “Where can I score some smack, because we think it would help him sleep better?” She looked at me & said, “We would NEVER prescribe that anymore. It’s just caused by drainage from his nose (nevermind that his nose isn’t draining) & Claritin will do the trick.” I knew better. Oh, how I knew better. Wasted $15 on Claritin & guess who was still up coughing for many nights…. And it’s hilarious, by the way, that two years ago you doctors thought Histex was great, but suddenly if he takes it he could meet an early end???

But it wasn’t as humorous as the time one of my little darlings had the stomach virus. I mean, can we all agree that there is no greater hell on Earth with the exception of food poisoning & helping them do homework? It was fairly early in my parenting career and always making lighthearted, happy conversation I mentioned that I remembered as a child when my family doctor would give me this green stuff called “Corrective Mixture with Paregoric” & it was a cure, baby! Oh, how I wish we still had that option! It knocked you out and you woke up WELL & you didn’t remember much that had happened in the meantime. Oh, what a funny girl I think I am! Doctors do not laugh often enough. Apparently. Her head spun around and she stared at me with her steely, grey eyes & you would have thought I said, “Sometimes we take the kids camping and for fun we sacrifice goats to the glory of Tony Alamo & his followers while speaking in tongues! That’s the kind of parents WE are!” She said, “Do you KNOW that’s a derivative of OPIUM? Which is basically a form of heroin, you know!” Now I didn’t say, what went through my head, which was, “Dude! I did heroin at age FIVE??? Word! And everyone thought I was such an ANGEL! I was way ahead of Slash!” I just said, “Well, I guess that’s why it put us out of our misery! So they don’t make it anymore?” She was not amused. My child ended up getting Phenergan that you apply to the wrist & was soon resting peacefully. But not as peacefully or joyfully as I once was.

Soooo……imagine the next time one of my kids was spewing at both ends. What does “innocent mother Noelle” do? Of course, she wears her “Just say no to the hard stuff!” button to the doctor and requests some Phenergan. And I kid you not, I get, “Oh, we’re trying to get away from Phenergan because it’s just so strong and knocks them out so now we try to give Zofran. They don’t get as sleepy and aren’t knocked out for as long.” And right then & there I want to scream, “HOW in the HELL am I supposed to get the laundry done, people???” I mean let’s make this a win-win! I have time and peace to clean ALL the soiled bedding while they lie on the couch & hallucinate rainbows. Apparently not. The last time one of my kids had the stomach virus the doctor assured me that they needed to get all “yucky germs” (aka puke & poop in layman’s terms) out of their system to get better. First of all, by the time most of us get an appointment the kid is down to dry heaving anyway. And I got better when the “paregoric/heroin” was coursing through my veins & it stopped that stuff in it’s tracks. I call bullshit.

Now, you know what this means? Most annoying of all is that you irritating people out there, you people who utter the phrase, “Oh, I don’t like to take medicine! I can tough it out!” or “I don’t like to put medicine/chemicals/WHATEVER in my body!” now have an army of allies in the medical field! They have totally taken your side! And they look at us like we walked in with arms tied up ready to inject our next fix, LOSERS THAT WE ARE. And some of us, quite frankly, want our drugs. Am I alone here?