39 Dud Painkillers
Upon leaving the hospital, I had been given a prescription for painkillers.
I was to find out they were duds. How did I come to this knowledge?
Well, in Peru, instead of getting a 30-day supply, prescriptions are filled on just a four or five day basis.
And after three nights of taking these painkillers I had recognized a pattern. At about 12:30 a.m. every night I was awoken with intense pain shooting through my ankle, extreme enough to keep me awake for the next several hours.
Since I only had two days of pills left, I had given Berta, the maid, my prescription, and asked if she would go out and buy me the next installment. Unfortunately the first day she forgot. The second day something else came up.
That night I went to bed wondering, “Oh man, what’s the pain going to be like tonight, when it’s already so bad with painkillers?!”
Well, like clockwork, at 12:30 a.m. a stabbing pain in my ankle awoke me.
The only difference was that I woke up so much more clear-headed and without the chemical headache byproduct that prescriptions often provide.
I decided to give it another day, and held off pestering Berta to get my prescription filled.
I woke up in pain at the customary 12:30 a.m., again clear headed and without a headache.
So as far as I was concerned, that was the end of those painkillers.
Much later, a medication specialist told me, “Those weren’t post-procedure pain killers. That’s something that would be prescribed for a bad headache!”
I was to find out they were duds. How did I come to this knowledge?
Well, in Peru, instead of getting a 30-day supply, prescriptions are filled on just a four or five day basis.
And after three nights of taking these painkillers I had recognized a pattern. At about 12:30 a.m. every night I was awoken with intense pain shooting through my ankle, extreme enough to keep me awake for the next several hours.
Since I only had two days of pills left, I had given Berta, the maid, my prescription, and asked if she would go out and buy me the next installment. Unfortunately the first day she forgot. The second day something else came up.
That night I went to bed wondering, “Oh man, what’s the pain going to be like tonight, when it’s already so bad with painkillers?!”
Well, like clockwork, at 12:30 a.m. a stabbing pain in my ankle awoke me.
The only difference was that I woke up so much more clear-headed and without the chemical headache byproduct that prescriptions often provide.
I decided to give it another day, and held off pestering Berta to get my prescription filled.
I woke up in pain at the customary 12:30 a.m., again clear headed and without a headache.
So as far as I was concerned, that was the end of those painkillers.
Much later, a medication specialist told me, “Those weren’t post-procedure pain killers. That’s something that would be prescribed for a bad headache!”
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