Whoa

So, my scary new medication says DON'T GET PREGNANT (along with some other rather frightening "don't's" & "you coulds" (like, um, I could GO BLIND. Jesus) in 12 million different places. But this is truly priceless:


I am saving these. Every last pill-encasing NO BABIES one of them. A wonderful, yet-to-be-imagined destiny awaits them.

Also - dig that price:



So, I took my first pill last night. This is how much it cost to get to that point: $1,118. Pre-health insurance. For a drug that could make me go blind, hear voices, burn a hole in my esophagus if I don't swallow it completely, &/or give me Flipper babies. Nosebleeds are the most innocuous side effect on the list. Post-health insurance? I've dished out $30. I cannot imagine trying to exist in this country without health insurance. Holy crap.

Also, note to self: DO NOT ignore recommendation to take with food. Learned that one awful quick!

Scary!

So, I'm going to start taking a medication.

A month from now.

Because they have to really, really, really make sure I'm not pregnant before I can take it. Twice from piss and once from blood (the kind they take out with a needle. Sheesh). I had to fill out two consent forms. And they sent me off with a shiny red-covered coloring book. Nah, not really; but it's the shape & size of a coloring book & has all sorts of elementary diagrams. I also have to promise to use two forms of birth control the entire time I'm on the meds. Pssst, book-makers: I have, by now, sussed out how condoms work. But I sure am looking forward to breaking out my crayons tonight.

And then, the entire time I'm on it - which could be anywhere between five to eighteen months (!) - I have to go in every month & get a needle stuck in my arm again to prove I'm not pregnant. Plus go on a website & take a little quiz (sample question, no joke: what is a primary form of birth control?). Also, I can't give blood. Which makes me wonder how my organ donor status is affected, then.

See, the medication causes all sorts of nasty birth defects. Honestly, if I had any intention of shooting babies out of my uterus, like, ever, I would think once or thirty times before taking it.

Oh, and beyond that, I had to solemnly swear & initial in two places to tell my doctor if I start seeing things, hearing things, or feeling despondent, er, beyond the usual malaise. Like life-endingly despondent. So...not a medication I would have wanted to take as a tween. Or a teenager. Or when I was twenty two. Or anytime from about October '06 to August '07, when I was going through this super-fun thing called Disassociation for the second time. Tho' to its, um, credit, the second verse was mildly different than the first! Good times.

And after all this, can I tell you? I don't even have any scary medical condition. At all. Not like that time a couple years ago when my doctor thought I had cancer. Two weeks before I was set to move cross-country. Luckily, I was too busy to think, let alone despair; & then it was revealed to be naught but a false alarm.

We are awfully susceptible lot of miscreants.

Unbated Breath

Despite knowing next to nothing about it, beyond its truly marvelous title, I desperately* want to see Kung Fu Panda. Because of, well, its truly marvelous title.

Just in case you were wondering where I stood on that important issue.

* "Desperately" meaning "I will see it in three months when it plays at the Laurelhurst as long as it plays at grown-up times & not just at 1 p.m. on the weekend when kids are allowed in".