Drug Crazed

Last week when I had chemo I read a novel by Martin Cruz Smith. Wolves Eat Dogs, if you want to know which one. It was excellent for chemo, a murder mystery, police procedural set in Moscow and Chernobyl. I always get paperwork when I have chemo--a summary of my chemo, my blood work, appointment reminders, all sorts of stuff.

The week of chemo, as I've mentioned before, is the week where I feel queasy. The second week of the cycle is neuropathy, or nerve pain week. Mostly I can keep it under control with Motrin, but there are usually two or three nights where I take a vicodin. Last night, I took the last vicodin and thought to myself that today I would get my prescription renewed. This morning, I realized that I had taken Wolves Eat Dogs back to the library. I don't know if you can see where this is going because you may not have my tendancy to use whatever is at hand--appointment reminders, summaries of treatments, prescriptions for controlled narcotics--as bookmarkers. Okay, you probably don't have my tendancy to do that. You're probably a grown-up.

What should I do? Call the doctor and tell him I left the script in a library book? I'm lying in bed thinking Vicodin is one of the most abused prescription drugs. Is Dr, Schnur, my own very good Dr. Schnur, who likes me, going to think I'm abusing prescriptions? And how is he going to feel about a vicodin prescription with his signature on it lying in wait for any drug abusing librarian or mystery reader to find? Didn't they notice it? The book was in the new book shelf, so if they didn't, has it already been checked out? Should I ask?

In any event, I dressed carefully to insure I looked like an upstanding citizen instead of like a member of the Osborne family and drove to the library (dutifully dropping off my copy of Gilead which isn't due for days yet, see, see, this is the kind of person I am, I read books about parsons and bring them back early!) For a couple of heartrending moments I couldn't find the book, but there it was, and still neatly tucked into it, my Vicodin prescription. I pocketed the script and sauntered out of the library as if nothing untoward had happened. Then I did four errands just to prove I was a responsible adult who could be counted on to maintain a normal suburban middle-class existence. Only one of those errands involved dropping off the prescription at the pharmacy.