Sunday, January 03, 2010

altered state

Any kind of medication alters my mental state. If I take even as much as a baby aspirin, I can feel the effect on my mind. It is no wonder I feel "crazy" sometimes. I am on two meds for hypertension, one for high cholesterol, one for diabetes, and a couple of months ago the doctor put me on insulin injections. Just keeping up with taking, ordering, counting all this medication is a chore, but with insulin, you have to eat something every couple of hours or you get dizzy & spacey! Today Angela & I were in the grocery store and I got a little dizzy. Suspecting low blood sugar, I got a Life Saver candy to suck on and went to sit down on the bench by the check out counters. "Just leave me alone" is my usual mantra as I sit quietly trying to feel better. Little did I know as I sat there on the bench that sign was on my forehead. You know the one, the cop sign I used to have, "TALK TO ME, IT WILL MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER" An old man asks if he can sit on the other end of the bench (old, I really mean he was probably my age!). I say "of course", (of course) and he sits down & immediately says, "I had to put down my best friend today". "Oh, no", I say- hoping he meant his dog & that he is not a crazed killer making a confession. He proceeds to tell me the whole tear-jerking story about how they hoped the dog could make it through the weekend, but that this morning she was just so sick with liver cancer that they had to take her & have her euthanized. He relayed to me that he is restoring an old car in his garage and that everyday when he worked on it, the dog stayed right there at his side. He said that he thought when he finished that car, he would have the dogs name painted on the back of it as a tribute to her. He told me that he loved that dog. Finally, Angela rescued me from the bench when she finished paying for the groceries. The dizziness had passed but then I was an emotional mess from the damn dog story and people were staring at me crying as I put the groceries in the trunk!