i want a new drug
for the past month or so i have been playing around with cocktails.
manhattans, cosmo’s…how unutterably 2003. we’re talking drug cocktails, anticonvulsant ones at that.
it really was time, and so i started one called lamactal. it seemed to work rather well, with the exception of the double vision. however, i justified the double vision with: it’s not like a drive, and wtih four kids, seeing eight didn’t seem like such a stretch.
the blinking red light with lamactal was a red rash on the neck and face. if it appeared, cautioned my neurologist, whom i know wants this to work, stop immediately. but if nothing happened after four weeks, chances were very good that nothing would.
i wrote about the early days of the drug, when all was pretty good, and after four weeks and c ontiually upping the medication while lowering the epilim, i was thinking i had found a long term cocktail and was pretty content. that next day, i noticed a rash on my lower chin. thought it was the new face cream and ignored it. it spread upwards. was itchy.
reluctantly i dialed the dr who said STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP.
so i did.
i am now on topamax, which sounds like a denture cream. it’s been two weeks and today mc and i were flipping through the "WELCOME TO TOPOMAX" guidebook and evaluating the sideeffects.
i am extremely tired and have no energy. we thought that was the clinical sideeffect of children, but apparently in the anticonvulsant world, we call it asthenia. i definitely have that. and also, my fingers go numb at odd times, but if i lived through a caesarean section and feeling numb for a year around the incision site, what’s an hour or so on my tingly finger? my concentration seems to be okay, and there seems to be no slurring of speech that either mcharles or i have noticed, which took us to mood swings.
well i guess we’re okay there, i said and shut the book
what do you mean okay there? asked magnificent
well i don’t seem to be suffering from those, i said, and then caught sight of his face, oh crap.
that’s one of the things i dislike. everyone knowing but me. "have i?"
he shrugged and smiled and tried not to make me feel worse but of course did because in becoming even a better long suffering victim spouse i was the cruel mood swinging on a vine like tarzan on speed tess taking advantage and psychologically cowing my entire family.
"think over the past couple of weeks, tess, and you tell me" suggested mc, who lets his wife draw her own conclusions…less painful and confrontational that way.
i thought about the past 10 days or so, remembered certain incidents and my reactions. but still…it wasn’t making sense.
"huh" i shrugged. "i thought that was just you guys."
