Pharmaceutical Garden
Today’s ritual for health: steroid topical ointment, only four days. After that a non-steroidal topical ointment. Then vaseline applied on wet hands to make a thin film, patting my hands dry on a towel. I take escitalopram (the left-handed version of citalopram) and birth control, little bitter pills as a nighttime treat.
When I have headaches or period pains I can take an ibuprofen. If I’m running a fever I can take an ibuprofen. Or even a huge combination pill of dextromethorphan, guaifenesin, and phenylephrine so I can sleep at night without drowning through my nose. Formulated to taste sweet, I drink it down instead of the peppermint oil gas I’d try to suck down my congested sinuses.
All of these names were family to me, but sealed behind glass picture frames. The medication was on a reachable shelf (I was 5’3 by 12), but my mother (a pharmacist) never suggested that they were for anything but the most severe fevers. When I cried from the contact of a lukecold blanket, she would measure out my temperature before administering a child’s dose of ibuprofen, liquid form, 30 mL, tasting like spiced grapes.
Then I watched my college roommate pop four acetaminophens on an empty stomach to preempt a headache. The next time I got a cold, I ran to the university nurse, who prescribed something to unclog my axiomatic tiny nose (and then charged me $300 for it).
Did you know eczema is curable? I sat on the dermatologist’s papered-over patient bed and felt my hands washing dishes without rubber gloves, felt my hands plow through the clay that once plowed cracks into my skin. When it tore open my mom applied L’occitane (how she said it was lo-chi-tang) hand creams that would feebly attempt to smooth over the rough terrain. Then it would react to create small bubbles under my skin, the bubbles which would oxidize, tiny combustions across my hands. Now I have steroids. Don’t let your skin get used to being chronically inflamed, the dermatologist said.
When I am hysterical I take my left-handed apples and even though god would strike me down, she can’t see me here. I use steroids (only for four days) and painkillers and anesthesia and birth control and antidepressants and I am down on earth with everyone else and I am happy.