An Inconvenient Tumor

I've been doing a lot of thinking about drugs lately. Not chemo drugs, anti-nausea drugs, or any other drug that Bryan is taking. Rather, I've been doing a lot of thinking about drugs for ME.

Now, I've never been a big pill taker (see The Pill Sergeant, if you're just catching up). If I ever have to take a drug, it's either a Tylenol or Advil. Done and done. If I'm feeling wild and crazy. I'll take a Tylenol PM to help me sleep. It never, ever occurred to me to look into prescription drugs. I'm just not that kind of person, I guess.

Actually, truth be told, I'm a complete pansy-ass. I'm the type of person that will hear horror stories about people becoming addicted to pills or taking too many pills and dying from an "accidental overdose" (hello, Heath Ledger), and become convinced that's going to happen to me. Maybe that's dramatic, but that's how I used to think.

I still remember the first time I took an Ativan (an anti-anxiety pill, for you newbies). It was last year, right before I had to make a seven-hour long presentation to a roomful of 25 clients in Texas. You heard me right, I said seven hours. I had to keep these people educated and entertained for an entire day. When you think about public speaking, forget about seven hours; 20 minutes can be a long time to speak in front of a roomful of people. I had grown used to giving big-time presentations over the years, but an entire day is too much. I don't want to hear myself talk for seven minutes, much less seven hours.

I'll never forget what the presentation was about. Our client was a private jet company, and I had to prepare a presentation on the "Mindsets and Lifestyles of the Super Affluent." In non-marketing speak, that means "tell me everything I need to know about SUPER RICH people so that our advertising can convince them to buy one of our planes."

I spent a month creating an agenda for the day, an entire day's worth of workshops, activities and presentation materials. Finally, when the time came to get on a plane and head to Texas, I freaked out. I had a moment of pure panic. I knew my presentation backwards and forwards, knew everyone that was going to be in the room, had anticipated all the questions that they could ask me, but I think the month-long anticipation finally caught up with me. My colleague, John, saw me and knew something was wrong. He told me to stay in my office and wait five minutes. He came back, closed my office door, and handed me two tiny white pills. I looked at him and said, like every dutiful 15-year-old should, "I don't take drugs." Except I wasn't 15, I was 28. I felt like I was in an anti-drug commercial where someone teaches you to "just say no." I felt ridiculous. Adults are allowed to take pills, I told myself. So I decided to hear John out.

John explained that the pills were Ativan, a low-dose anti-anxiety drug that wouldn't make me loopy, dizzy, drowsy, etc. Rather, they would help calm me and make sure that I was able to present to my audience with no problem. He made me promise to take one before I got on the plane so I could have a "dry run," and if I liked it, then I had another pill waiting for me before my presentation.

I took the pill. I didn't feel much of anything. Truth be told, I was oddly proud of the fact that it didn't have a big effect on me. I suppose I was a little less anxious, but it made me realize that I wasn't going to die if I took an occasional pill.

Which brings me to my point. Bryan and I go to so many doctor's appointments for him that making my OWN doctor's appointment to get a prescription of some kind (anti-anxiety, sleeping pill, you name it) seems like a gigantic pain in the ass. I don't want to be in a hospital more than I need to be. That said, I didn't know where to start in terms of getting my own pills. Friends were telling me that I needed to try Xanax, Ativan (again), Valium and Klonopin. First of all, I had no idea that my friends' had so much experience with prescription drugs. But thank God that they do. Without getting my own prescription, I've been able to "test drive" Xanax, Ativan and Valium. No Klonopin yet, but I'll find it somewhere.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a pill popper. In the past month, I've taken 2 Valium and 1 Xanax. And I cut them in HALF. So I've technically taken Valium four times and Xanax once. I didn't like the Xanax, as I was able to sleep but had a dream that I witnessed a plane crash. And not just a tiny plane, but a jumbo jet crash. I rarely have bad dreams, so that wasn't fun. If you're fans of LOST, it was similar to when their plane breaks apart over the island, but in my case, I was driving on a highway and watched it crash behind me. So, no-go on the Xanax. Valium does the trick for me. It calms my nerves, doesn't make me loopy and lets me sleep. Plus I can only take it when I REALLY need it, like last night. I got 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep and was able to wake up and function like a normal human being today.

I asked Bryan's neuro oncologist if he could write me a prescription for Valium, but they said "no" because I'm not one of their patients. Listen, it makes sense and it's totally responsible of the doctor to say "no," but I've got a bit of a beef with that. Everyone knows how hard this is for the actual "patient" (in doctor's terms) to go through, but there's an insane amount of stress on the patient's spouse and family members as well. I truly believe that there should be some sort of system where, for certain uber-stressful diseases (e.g. a brain tumor), one doctor is allowed to dispense a responsible amount of prescription medication to the spouse/family members of said patient. But they don't, so in the meantime, I'm without Valium.

I'll call my doctor and get a prescription, but the bigger lesson learned is to not only let your friends and family help you, but let prescription drugs help you, too. While Tom Cruise may disagree with me, I think that the responsible, periodic use of an anti-anxiety or sleeping pill is truly the responsible (excuse my redundancy) thing to do. Because every moment that I'm exhausted or upset or scared, I'm no good to Bryan. And at the end of the day, that's my entire purpose here: to help get him (and me) through this.

Loading mentions Retweet