Sunday, November 7, 2010

Putting things in their places

We've been wondering for a while what to do with all of Joe's left-over chemo meds, truly disgusting substances whose names I can't mention without Joe groaning and reliving the pain and nausea and horror of that experience.  There they've been sitting in the medicine cabinet, next to the dental floss, since the conclusion of chemo last January.  I turned the bottles so the names weren't visible, especially on the dreaded super-fucker Prednisone.  I'm not sure we've been clear about what to do with them - do we have to keep them, just in case?

I've done a few Google searches, trying to figure out how to dispose of them.  Used to be we could have just taken them back to Kaiser and they'd get rid of them, but no longer.  Apparently there's a pharmacy in San Anselmo that takes back unused prescription drugs, but the thought of driving there and finding out they no longer do it, has put me off.  But now here's the perfect solution.

For $4.95, the prepaid TakeAway envelope means we can drop these poisons in the US mail and be done with them.  Awesome.  On the other end, the pills will be inspected, then incinerated.  Which is better than them finding their way into our water or into some unsuspecting fool's mouth.  And certainly better than them sitting there as a reminder of a super-painful time.

As I was piling the pills into the envelope and remembering that whole interlude of misery, I realized that DUH, if my vata is deranged, if I don't have a routine anymore, it's because my old routine got blown up, completely obliterated, as did Joe's, by lymphoma, and supplanted by the routine of fear and chemo for 6 months, from which we have still not, it appears, completely recovered.  Amazing that I could lose sight of this -- sometimes I am such an idiot, it surprises even my idiot self!  We are still trying to get our footing, still feeling at a loss even as we make gentle progress toward taking back the full territory of our lives.

Getting rid of these pills, sending them to their fiery hell, is such a relief.  It really is a way of marking the end of that time, erasing the remaining traces from our surroundings.  From here, we can keep going, a little more space freed from the cancer and reclaimed.

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