Red Bottle

The little upside-down triangle shaped bottle opens at the bottom. While every other prescription bottle on my dresser is yellow-orange with a white screw cap at the top, one red bottle sits atop its screw cap in a perpetual headstand. It's appropriate that this bottle is red, because its contents are for emergency only. I was given the prescription for it at the ER on New Years' Day, when I left a lunch gathering at my aunt's to go to the nearest hospital. I had gone into status, having seizures one right after the other, pausing like a chain smoker, only long enough to light up the next one. The doctor gave me some Atavan, which made me loopy and knocked me out, but it worked and the seizures stopped. She sent me home with a script for a few more in case it happened again. So far it hasn't, but it's definitely nice to know that if it does, I won't have to sit in a waiting room between a guy hacking his lungs out and a girl bleeding out her eyes and ears as my arm jerks about uncontrollably. Maybe that's a little over-dramatic, but still, next to grade schools and college dorms, hospitals are the easiest places to get sick. And also they smell bad and are exceedingly expensive, especially when you're unemployed and are in no position to hold down a job yet.

Tomorrow we leave on our Big Sigh of Relief Vacation to the Bahamas! I definitely believe that we've earned a little vacay time after the tense anxiety of the past five months. As per usual, I left my packing until the last minute, but if summer camp taught me anything, it was how to pack for every possible situation in one small suitcase in roughly ten minutes. I set out the things I'll need in the morning in a couple small piles so I know where everything goes and don't forget anything. One pile is a gaggle of pill bottles that sit on my dresser, between my door and my nightstand, where I keep a glass of water. After washing my face and before climbing into bed, I took my nightly line up, selecting what I needed from the thirteen or so bottles there. Tomorrow morning, before we're picked up at eight by my godfather (whom we'll be thanking with a few Tupperwares of leftovers), each bottle of medication that I'll need will be dropped into my purple backpack to spend the next ten hours bonding with my computer. It's funny though, because looking at that red bottle of super-seizure pills that make me nauseous and a little off in the head makes me smile just a bit. They're still coming with me, but they, along with the other handfuls, might not be necessary anymore. I might, just possibly, never have another seizure. I might, just possibly, be on a third of the epilepsy drugs I'm on now this time next year. It's not likely, but someday I might even be off pills. I can't actually imagine that. I can't imagine a life without medications, frequent doctor trips and an intimate relationship with Walgreen's pharmacists in both Minnesota and Colorado, where the "Cheers" theme song plays every time I walk in. It hasn't sunk in yet that all of my follow-up tests this week and last were clear and, more importantly, the implications of that. It's pretty amazing. I think that warrants some well-tanned cabana boys carrying virgin daiquiris to me on the beach, don't you?