‘May cause drowsiness’

Yeah, I reckon!

Cyclobenzaprine – 1 tablet three times a day; hydrocodone 5/acetamophen -- 1 tablet four times a day; haproxen --500mg, 1 tablet twice a day.

That’s a lot of drugs. For me, anyway.

Here’s why I am taking the stuff:

Wednesday morning, around 9:20, on my way from the kitchen to the office, with a cup of coffee, I managed not to step all the way over Victor, our larger standard poodle. I thought I had lifted my foot high enough, but I had not. (Right side focal dystonia, caused by neurological damage, caused by cerebral aneurysm in 1986, means my right foot often does not do what I tell my brain to direct it to do.) I tripped over one of Victor's back legs.

As I began falling, Victor got out of Dodge really fast, probably thinking: 1. the man wants this space and since he is the man, I must move; 2. the man weighs more than twice my weight and since I do not want to be crushed, I must move; 3. Oh my gosh I don’t know what happened, but the man is falling and it’s not my fault but he might think I did it on purpose and be mad at me and I better move. Now.

When Victor was all the way gone, I impacted the tile floor, left elbow followed by left eyebrow followed by left rib cage. Somewhere in all that, my hand released the cup of coffee, and the cup impacted and shattered on the tile, resulting in coffee splatter on the office door, the hallway wall and (mostly) on the floor.

For a few seconds, I did nothing. Then I raised my head and stared at broken glass and spilled coffee. I said, “Shoot that hurts,” meaning my head, my elbow and my ribs.

Then the cut in my eyebrow dripped blood, four drops, slowly.

“Yeah,” I said. “That hurts.”

A fifth drop of blood fell, and I decided getting upright might be the order of the day. Getting up was difficult, with nerves and muscles complaining. I went into the bathroom and got a wash cloth and stopped the bleeding. I cleaned up glass and coffee and then went to my writing machine and did my usual searching and reading and writing.

On Thursday, everything hurt more. On Friday I dove 15 miles or so to the Little Rock Veterans Administration Hospital emergency room. A doctor and a nurse and X-ray and CT scan people took care of what needed doing. Each was professional and nice. At the end of my almost five-hour visit, the ER nurse announced, “Nothing broken. Beat up a lot, but not broken.”

So now I have 10 days of drowsy pills. And am I ever.