The Beviad–musings, mutterings and myths

   On April 28, 2008, I asked my doctor for a prescription for Lyrica. I did so because it was the only medicine I knew about for treatment of fibromyalgia. I had seen the ads in magazines, and although I had been a bit put off by the two pages listing all the terrible side effects–ranging from weight gain and dry mouth to drowsiness, swelling of the legs and stroke—I felt that I was at the end of my rope in terms of pain and needed to at least try this medication. After all, my other meds have certainly helped me to be symptom-free for asthma, for example, and without stomach pain due to taking corticode steroids for athritis. 

  I was despairing because, a year after my right knee had been replaced, I still couldn’t walk more than a block without needing to sit down. And I had to lean on something while walking: my ugly black cane (good also for getting a seat on the bus) or, for two awful weeks in April, my grand-daughter’s stroller, which acted as a kind of walker, but with which I still had to stop and sit on the steps of porches or the ledges of stone walls along the way (I chose ones where there was no car in the driveway, hoping that meant no one was home.)

   My legs and arthritic feet hurt so much that walking, even in orthopedic shoes, was like walking barefoot on sharp rocks, with the pain going up my leg at every step. And my left knee, the one without a new replacement, was hurting a lot, but mainly in the tissue around the kneecap. 

April 28, 2008–10 pm:  Took first Lyrica tablet before bed. I was a bit afraid, and told John that if I was still sound asleep when he left for work, he should put the phone next to me on the bed and then phone me after his class. I was worried about the ‘it might make you drowsy’ warning on the enclosed papers.

April 29, 2008, 7 am:  Well, I woke up in the night to pee and didn’t feel particularly drowsy or drugged. I went back to sleep easily, but not with a sense of being drugged. And now I’m completely awake, and have just taken my first of two Lyrica tablets for the day. Ooops! Even as I typed that sentence, I remembered that I’m only supposed to take one a day for the first week. Arrg. As far as the pill is concerned, is it my imagination, or does my left leg already feel better? 

April 29, 2008, 8:30 a.m: Am I just imagining it, or was climbing the stairs  easier just now? BTW, no sign of drowsiness. Maybe the three cups of coffee I had for breakfast counteracted that one. Or maybe I’m just not the type to get drowsy from this pill.

The Back Garden: Spring At Last?

I stand upon the filthy porch

And squint at the unaccustomed sight–

Sunshine coming through unleafed boughs–

As if I’ve emerged from endless night.

With ten degrees of Centigrade,

Plus melting snow and warmer sun,

I almost can believe it’s true,

That Springtime has, at last, begun.

Now is revealed what winter hid,

The detritus of the season’s blight:

Dead plants of brown, dead grass of grey,

A quite ironic sort of sight.

Spilled from a weathered bird feeder

Down to the waiting squirrels below,

A winter’s worth of sunflower seeds

Blackens the piles of melting snow.

Much like Atlantis, rising up

From under the destructive sea,

The patio furniture now appears

With peanut shells as its debris.

Old cat turds dot the dingy snow,

And urine streaks; some pots arise,

Shattered by cold one winter night,

Still caked with soil, to my surprise.

The cats now venture down a walk

Freed from its winter wall of snow;

They can’t believe that spring has come,

And sniff out paths they used to know.

I wish for blossoms or for buds

(While, dressed in winter black, I stare)

I wish for robins on the lawn—

But settle for this warming air.

There may be blizzards yet to come

Before the blossoms on the trees.

But my request is still the same:

“Could winter now be over, please?”

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