My Journey with Medication

Before my health took a turn, I was someone who rarely reached for medication, even for something as simple as a headache. I relied on essential oils and vitamins to maintain my well-being. Today, I find myself taking 14 different medications, and on difficult days, I question whether they are helping at all. It’s a strange irony when the very things meant to keep you alive make you feel as though you're fading.

Yesterday was one of those days. I spent the entire day lying on the couch, overwhelmed by pain. It felt as though I was experiencing a heart attack, with an intense headache and sharp, stabbing pains radiating from the left side of my body. Every attempt to stand left me dizzy, needing help just to make it to the bathroom. Thankfully, I have a medication that essentially works like a tranquilizer, allowing me to sleep through the worst of it. But it makes me question: what kind of life is this? What quality of life remains when the treatments meant to help seem to bring more suffering?

I’m not oblivious to the fact that adjusting to new medications is a process, and that these difficult days will pass. I trust that soon my body will adjust, and not every day will feel like a battle. After all, here I am, able to write this today (before my medications have fully kicked in). But in those dark moments, it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. How do you keep going when it feels like the pain itself, not the illness, is what could break you?