A Bitter Pill to Swallow
It happened somewhere in the eight weeks that fell out of my life and almost took my life with it.
The other night we had a birthday dinner at our house. As I sipped excellent port and looked down the table, something in the china closet caught my eye. A magnificent blue platter.
“Craig,” I asked my husband, “what’s with the blue platter. I’ve never seen that in my life.”
He looked at me strangely and said we’d gotten it on a visit to Rio Maior when our Norwegian granddaughters were visiting. I hardly remember being in Rio Maior. It was somewhere in the eight weeks that fell out of my life and almost took my life with it.
Having finally settled into our lovely Portuguese life, in the third year we decided to avail ourselves of the stellar and cheap medical system by having all the tests old people should have. This was a major deal for me, a person with an acute phobia to doctors, who had not had any tests as all. The most medical I’d ever done was have two babies a long, long time ago.
I was nervous, imagining that all those tests would find diseases lurking in every organ, but the news was mostly good. I was amazingly healthy: normal blood pressure and blood sugar, all organs looking good, heart looking good, colon health looking good, blood—other than a vitamin D deficiency—looking good. I was relieved and about to dance in the streets until the doctor told me that my cholesterol was a little high. I said, “Okay, give me six months and I’ll see what I can do.” She told me there was nothing I could do in six months that would help.
I was outraged. I had, for years, eaten the model diet to mitigate cholesterol. Greens, cartloads of fruits and vegetables, especially the ones that fight cholesterol, seeds, fish, olive oil, nuts, legumes…. I ate what I called my Superfood Bowl nearly every day for lunch and now this! It was unfair.
She told me that, very often, it’s hereditary and simply nothing can be done but take the pill. I don’t like taking pills, but if I had to do this, there was a deal I was willing to make with her.
While our life in Portugal was safe, peaceful and full of friends and fun, the events in the United States didn’t just blip off of our radar like the sinking ship that it is. We still cared and followed the news throughout the day. The news, of course, wasn’t good; it was horrific and shocking and discouraging. I started to feel enormous anxiety. My mouth was filled with sores, and I woke up every morning wringing my hands. I knew that there were pills out there that could aleve these symptoms, so I said, “If I’m a good girl and take my cholesterol pill, will you prescribe something for me for anxiety? She asked what was going on and I said, “Well, we’re American—” she interrupted “—Enough said. Yes, I’ll get you some.”
I started my new pills the next day. I’ve no idea how my cholesterol felt about it, but I already felt less anxious. In fact, I didn’t feel much of anything. It was a busy time, starting with the “Hands Off” march in Lisbon where I spent the weekend in my friend’s lovely home. In addition to the march, I cooked an Asian dinner and we went to several interesting places, but nothing about it is sharp in my mind. I was dazed and confused the entire trip, not myself at all.
Then the daughters of my Norwegian exchange student, “my Norwegian granddaughters” who I love dearly came for a week over Easter. I was starting to feel really sick and spent most of that week in bed. I later found out that in my body was a perfect storm of infection and kidney stones. It was during their visit that we went to the salt flats of Rio Maior and I am said to have bought the platter. I remember almost nothing of their visit.
And then things started disappearing: my glasses, phone, pen, kitchen gadgets…. Craig started finding them in weird places. Worst was when my words started disappearing. I have a large vocabulary and, when I write, I’m delighted that I can shop this dictionary in my mind and always find exactly what I need. But not any more. More and more, I would asked across the desk, “Craig? What is that word for when the IRS checks over your work?” “Audit?” “Oh, yes. Thank you!”
Losing words made it difficult to write, of course, and I write every day. This was devastating to me, but so much was these days. I just didn’t feel well. I didn’t feel like myself. I didn’t like myself anyway, so what did it matter? Why should I even stay alive? I just want to die. And so the inner dialogue from hell started. I, a joyous person, was now determined to kill herself.
In those days, I carried my life around as if it was a cankerous growth, vile and useless. In those days, due to my change in personality, I started to have relationship problems, which only exacerbated the depth of my despair. One day, holding my big box of what I’d ironically labeled “Happy Pills,” I thought that if I took the whole box, it would be my way out. I stared at the box and, for a moment, my mind cleared. This! This was the problem! These pills! I suddenly, in that moment of clarity, realized that I was having a severe side effect to the very pills that were supposed to help me feel less anxious. I grabbed the box, put them in a baggie and wrote, “Anti-anxiety. DO NOT USE!”
About the time, my life came back to me, it reminded me of those cartoons where a ghost slips back into the body of an inert figure. The UTI and upper respiratory infections were healed and the kidney stones under control. I was going to live and I wanted to live. In the middle of May Craig and I went to a neighboring city to hear a friend’s blues band and I was radiant, healthy, in body, mind and soul. I now control my anxiety with meditation and it has been the best medicine I’ve ever tried.
Well done, you👏❣️