Feel Like Complaining

After I got home from my trip to Alaska it didn't take me long to get sick. Two days after returning I got a sore throat which transformed into a regular ol' cold and cough. I despise trying to sleep with a cough. So I chug cough syrup. I've always done it and always thought the red liquid to be innocuous. Then I got hives one night soon after dinner. I still don't know if it was the medicine that did it but I had to rule out any kind of food allergy. My upper chest, neck and face were covered with welts and although not red, they itched and burned like crazy. My face was significantly swollen, it looked like my fat days. The only clear way to get rid of them is an anti-histamine and I had plenty of that around here, so I initially elected not to go to a doctor. Just Say No! What surprised me though is in researching cough syrup in general, I found the ingredient Dextromethorphan to be a nasty drug. It was developed in the 1950's for cough suppression as a r...

I am kind of embarrassed to say that most of the time I love Walmart. It is only blocks from my home and overall I can find things cheaper than most other places. It meets my basic grab and go needs. But some days I shake my head and wonder why I even bother. Today I needed to pick up some medicine and grab a few things, quickly. First mistake to think it could be done quickly. Part of the parking lot was being re-blacktopped. Barricades made me go all the way back out to the street and then go all around the block to enter on the other end of the store. Went to pick up my blood pressure meds , you know the ones I didn't want in the first place. I transferred them from my clinic so I could take advantage of the $4.00 prescriptions. They weren't ready yet, big surprise. They hadn't even been transferred yet. I was sent to another window. I stood there for 10 minutes while the pharmacist called the other pharmacy to get it transferred. He said it would only take about 10 more...

I turned 50 last week. And what did I receive as a gift? A brand new bottle of high blood pressure medicine. Wasn't that nice? I have always been proud of myself for not having to take medicine other than Advil for daily aches and pains. My new doctor has only seen me a few times but she has commented on my high bp. I would make excuses of why it could be so high, 187/94 didn't seem that bad after all. After this last visit though, the hurried nurse took it and it read a respectable 133/87. I was thrilled and said I bet the doctor would be pleased. After the exam she asked if I was on any medication. I grinned and said "You have threatened, but haven't yet". Then I told her of my 'great' reading but added that the nurse was in a hurry. She, being the good doctor that she is, proceeded to take it again, 157/84. I then had to tell her about my father's heart condition and that he died at 54. CRAP, that clinched it, the prescription was written. My first ...