The Po Show

Running on Empty

Well, I seem to have run out of time. Or maybe not time, exactly, but my grace period for seeking professional treatment is coming to a close.

I'll explain: a year ago I went to see a GP in Belmont for a physical. I mostly went because I was running out of Paxil, from my prescription refills given to me by my therapist in Davis. I had stretched out that refill as long as I could, by breaking the tabs in half and by skipping days. But by last January, I'd come to the end of what I could do, so I went in for a physical. I was given a prescription for Paxil, with 3 refills. Again, I stretched out the prescriptions, by breaking tabs in half (harder this time, since she had prescribed 10mg tabs instead of the 20mg tabs I'd had before).

I had one refill left when we moved here in August. I had it filled and found, to my surprise and delight, that the bottle still said I had one refill! A month or so later I refilled it, and again it listed one remaining refill! It was like some children's fairy tale, with the neverending bottle of happy pills. (Of course, they aren't really happy pills, or else I'd be a lot happier. But I've found that my attempts to wean myself off entirely have been very very bad.)

However, all good things must come to an end. The prescription did have an expiration of 1/29/05, a year after it had originally been submitted. I refilled it on the 27th (and the bottle came back stating that I still had one refill!) and then I waited a couple of weeks. I called the auto refill number at the pharmacy, punched in the prescription number, and was promptly told that they couldn't place that refill order because the prescription had expired. The automated voice helpfully offered to take a message so the pharmacist could call my doctor for a new prescription. Well, that wasn't going to happen, so I hung up.

So now I have to actually get off my ass and do something. Find a new psychiatrist who can write me a new prescription (and possibly suggest a new drug that would help me more). Or make an appointment with some random GP again and get another prescription that I can eke out as long as possible.

But I have to do something, as soon as we get back from our trip to CA that begins tomorrow. I snapped most of the pills in half last night, and counted them. They are not going to last forever.

Special Person Day

Last Thursday was Special Person Day at Tessa's school. On this day, the kids are supposed to bring an adult who is special to them. Most bring in a grandparent, or aunt or uncle, or occasionally the child's dad will come in (since it's almost exclusively stay at home moms bringing the kids to school each and every day). Tessa has a pair of twins in her class and both of their parents came in, which was special since their nanny brings them to school everyday.

Tessa brought me. Boring old Mommy. Hardly special, since I drop her off and pick her up every single school day. I felt terrible that we have no special people here in our lives, no family members, no really close family friends that the kids think of as family. We are this little nuclear, isolated family. There was no one to be Tessa's Special Person. Even Ross couldn't come, since he didn't have any vacation days free to take the day off. I was constantly apologizing for being there, for being unable to furnish my child with a Special Person.

Of course Tessa didn't care. She was happy to have me there, happy that I stayed to play with her at school rather than rushing off to do my usual myriad of errands. What I usually do during the two and half hours she is at school, three days a week. She didn't realize that she didn't have what the other kids had, an outer circle of people in her life who are important.

They are there, the grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and family friends, and they all love her dearly. But they aren't HERE. They are far away, across the country, and might as well be on the moon. Tessa writes letters to Grandma and Grandpa everyday, scribbles on paper, sometimes with darling drawings. She asks for envelopes and stamps to mail them. She wants to keep in touch with her Special People.

It really hurts me that it has to be pretend play.