When home computers were still pretty new, there was a lot being said about the dangers of inebriated emailing.  Speaking for myself, I believe the same can be said of muscle relaxants.

 

After a pretty wicked car collision last Friday, the doctor prescribed a pain pill and muscle relaxants to help me deal with the sharp twinges and constant ache of a fractured rib.  The pain pill proved to be too much for my lawn ornament-sized frame, so I stopped taking them by day three.  As a rule, I have a pretty vivid imagination and sleeping usually provides marvelous entertainment for my over-active brain – but much like those “This is your brain /This is your brain on drugs” commercials, the frying pan effect cooked up some imagery I have no desire to see repeated.  Each one of those three nights was filled with strange fitful dreams that can only be described as Salvador Dali meets Sandra Bullock at the State Fair kind of weird.

 

Daytime waking hours aren’t much better.  Sitting down at my computer keyboard yesterday, I found myself unable to find the proper placement for my fingers, positions they have memorized since high school typing class.  Somehow, the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog turned into something about slick boxes and hazy fog.  It was all very Seussical the Musical and odd to behold, because it never occurred to me that muscle relaxants wouldn’t know the difference between what they were supposed to relax and the other five vital organs that really didn’t need their help, thank you very much.  My heart doesn’t particularly care and could probably benefit from a little mellowing these days, but not my brain.

 

My kidneys either.

 

Medications make a body terribly thirsty and I manage to down three liter sized BPA free environmentally conscious bottles of water by 11 am.  This is in addition to the ginormous mugs of coffee and tea that also happen to make their way onto my desk.  Not to go all TMI on you or anything, but this combination makes for a lot of footfall in the hall between the office and the bathroom.  It starts to resemble a track and field hurdles meet out there.  As someone who began her computer days during the dark time known as “dial-up”, I have to admit that I sort of miss the long pauses involved during information downloads.  Those pauses were once used as permission to take a break or for the input (or output) of beverages.  Instead, searching for something on the web now means it immediately pops up, leaving no time to exit the room for any reason, often ending in the universal tell-tale I Gotta Go dance of toddlers.  Too late for the TMI thing, I know.  Sorry.

 

Scopolamine was a pharmaceutical that was once used in criminology to elicit confessions and information from those withholding the truth.  I’m pretty sure that muscle relaxants could serve the same purpose.  I’m already an open book – so the world will seriously not benefit from me unhinging my jaw and calling ‘em like I see ‘em.  I found that out on day five of this bizarre science project known as my four to six weeks “healing process”.  At this rate, by the second week of January, things could get kind of ugly around here.  Prior to the arrival of the evil muscle relaxants, I really and truly believed in my heart that sometimes, the truth is better left unsaid.  That was before Dr. Jekyl signed his name to my prescription.  Now, I’m in the middle of this strange mutation, leaving my personality somewhere between Blanche and Sofia of the Golden Girls – a little bit sassy, with no discerning filter.  Bad combination, that.

 

So, to those who have communicated with me via telephone or email recently, I am sorry.  Not that I have any solid idea of what was actually said, but I’m apologizing just in case.  According to my physician, I will most likely be done in a couple of days with the tiny transformative yellow pills.  By Saturday or Sunday I will switch to Motrin, an over the counter pain reliever that does not have the same potential to ruin relationships and reputations that will call for a whole other kind of healing when they’re finished. 

 

Sticks and stones (and vehicles ramming into your car at 60+ mph) can and will break your bones, but I hope that my words (of cyclobenzaprine) will never hurt you.