A Dream Last Night

On this Christmas Eve, I am happy to be able to share a very profound dream with all of my blogger friends:

There were packages falling from the sky. They were dropping very slowly, drifting down all over the place. There were more packages than anyone could count.

There were people all around, but no one was paying any attention to the packages falling from the sky. They were going through the motions of their lives, oblivious to the gifts.

I was with some friends (although I have no idea who they were). One of them commented on the packages, but no one else seemed very interested in them. Finally, I saw that they were significant.

I selected on and opened it. Inside were all kinds of food and drinks and other "supplies". I pulled out a standing rib roast and a case of beer (of all things - haha) and looked around the rest of the stuff before moving on to another package.

I continued to open more packages, with a sense of amazement. The things inside were beyond belief. I was shouting to people "Look at these packages! There's more here than anyone could eat and beautiful clothes and money!"

Other people began to open packages, too. Everyone was thrilled with all the stuff. We all took what we could carry.

Then, as I was walking home with all my gifts, I started to wonder. Why were we the ones to receive these packages? Shouldn't they have been dropped in places where people had no food? There were a lot of people who needed more help than we did.

Suddenly I knew that people I've thought of as "worst off" already understood things I did not. The things in these packages were actually not what I wanted most, and I began to wonder, where are the packages I really want?

So, I woke with a new understanding of gratitude. I can be grateful for the things that have hurt me the most because in moving through those things I learn what is most important.

Without those things,
I would not be the person I am,
I might never have sought out the connection with God that I am finding now, and
I could have gone through life like all the people in my dream - not even noticing the "packages" that were dropping from the sky.

So, today, I hope you notice it all! As you open the packages, be grateful for all of your life because it is YOUR life, YOUR journey, and it has brought you to the place you are at this moment. No other path would have led here....

Merry Christmas to All!

Moving Back to the (Expensive) Name-brand Drug

Thanks to all for the comments, emails, hugs and encouragement. I am still here. Lots of racing thoughts and disconnects are making it hard to write coherently.

I was on name brand drug (from the previous post) for five years. Two years ago they switched me to a generic which still worked. Then, ten days ago the pharmacy switched to a different generic, and it does not work.  which did not work at all. I took it for five days, and each one was worse than the last.

Now I am back on the name brand. I believe it's already better than it was, but I'm just really pissed off that my life is so easily thrown in the toilet by a corporate decision  to switch to a cheaper generic - a decision over which I have no control.

Stupid Generic Drugs

I've been feeling very anxious for a few days. I set up my medications for a week at a time, in a dispenser. When I was taking my handful of pills this morning, I remembered the pharmacy had changed my Welbutrin - the antidepressent - from one generic to another.

I'm sure that the new manufacturer is cheaper for Walgreens, and that's why they switched. Since they can charge me the same thing, regardless, they make more money on it if they can get it cheaper.

And, it seems like one generic should be the same as another, but I was worried when I first saw them because they look entirely different. They are half as big, for one thing. They are also a chalkier consistency.

This is a slow release medicine, so I am concerned that it might not "release" the same way if they've used different fillers. I had an issue with this medication once before when I was in the hospital for one of my surgeries, a few years ago. The hospital gave me a different version of Welbutrin and I became extremely agitated and then, later, very depressed. It was hard to pinpoint that exact cause for my distress with all the other meds they gave me, but once I switched back to the name brand Welbutrin - my husband brought me some from home - it got better.

A couple years ago, the pharmacy started giving me the generic, and I was worried about it. The pills looked exactly like the name brand, so I gave them a shot. After a few weeks I decided that they worked just as well. The ones I picked up last weekend look very different and now I'm wondering if taking this different brand for three days (today is day four) is contributing to my anxiety level.

I keep a chart by my bathroom mirror. I fill in a number from 1 to 10 in these categories: How I've slept (recorded only in the morning); how I've eaten (recorded only at night); and my morning and evening levels of "connectedness", anxiety, sadness and irritability. At the end of the day I have 10 numbers filled in and I add them up. The total - a number from one to one hundred - gives me an idea of how the day was on the whole.

I write a little note next to each day as a reminder of what went on that day (meeting with C, CoDA meeting, writer's group meeting, daughter home, etc.)

On Sunday, the last time I took the old generic, my total for the day was 80. It dropped to 68 and 60 on Monday and Tuesday and to 47 yesterday.

Trying to get the name brand is going to be difficult and expensive, but I don't know what else to do. Wish me luck.