2007-09-01
the days of Halcion and roses
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As I mentioned before, Ambien CR sort of behaved like the Hare in the "Tortoise and the Hare" fable winning the race in the short term, but failing me in the long run. So now I am trying Halcion. The dosage is just .125 mg and I started it on Wednesday night. Thursday and Friday morning left me feeling tired as well, so I took a risk (for me) and downed two last night. I told my husband before I took them, "Tell everyone I love them and I am not afraid to meet Jesus."
He rolled his eyes.
While it wasn't a dramatic improvement, it was better than Ambien CR. I slept from 9:15-ish until 4:00 am. That's almost seven hours, which is more than I can say for the restless five hours I have been getting for the last month or so. I did bust a move over to webmd to check out the info on the drug before I began and I thought this sentence was hilarious.
"(Halcion) can also result in abnormal drug-seeking behavior (addiction/habit forming)." It just goes to show it's not what you say, but how you say it. (I'm not a strung-out junkie, I just suffer from abnormal drug-seeking behavior.)
Time for a side note. About five years ago, when I was 34, my husband mentioned I wasn't quite as young as I thought I was and that pretty soon I was going to find myself in the position of being as old as or (gasp) older than my doctor. My husband is five years older than me and I think we were talking about how the doctors he sees are his age or just a year or so older. But when he said that, I couldn't wrap my head around it.
I have the same doctor now that I had then and he does look pretty young so I just had to know if I was older than him. I'll tell you right now, it was going to crush me if he was younger. Turns out he's a year older than me; not quite the answer I was looking for but beggars can't be choosers.
So since he's young (relatively speaking), I sometimes get the feeling that my bar-hopping college friend is prescribing my drugs. It's kind of a weird feeling, like, "Are you sure you know what you're doing? I saw you nodding off in Biology 201 Fall term. I also watched you down three beer bongs the night before you got a 2.0 on that Chemistry test."
This is a stereotype, of course, but I think (hope?) most med students don't have the time or inclination to get stinking drunk the night before an exam. I think if they're going to blow off a class, most of those students might do it because they pulled an all-nighter watching "Star Trek" re-runs.
Of course you always have the exception to the rule. I'm hoping the students who routinely got drunk at the bar are the doctors who now work at the free clinics around town.
Really I guess that feeling is a testament to his bed-side manner and his ability to read his patients. He must adjust his approach to each of his patients accordingly.
As usual, I digress.
I am hopeful that the Halcion is going to go Ghostface Killah on my insomnia and beat it back into submission. Of course the fear is that once it beats the insomnia, it might turn on me and incite "drug-seeking behavior."
If that is the case, I suppose I will experience some uncomfortable treatment effects while searching for inner peace. (Read: I'll shake and sweat through withdrawal like a nervous Chihuahua.)
I'm willing to take that chance.
2007-09-01 at 6:27 a.m.
