Suburban Goddess

I have a pretty low tolerence to all things narcotic. Two glasses of wine & I’m stupid. Tylenol puts me to sleep; Tylenol PM quite literally, knocks me completely out. So I tend to shrug off anything heavier than a couple of glasses of alcohol or stronger than over the counter. But this past week I’ve been struck with some kind of super-crud that has totally incapacitated me, so after a lot of denial, I finally realized I’d have to go see a doctor.

Because I waited so long, a simple cold has manifested into a sinus infection, an upper respiritory infection, and a pretty severe case of bronchitis. When you cough and your chest rattles, it’s not a good sign, not to mention that you’re barking like a seal and your voice disappears. Okay, okay, I MIGHT be sick. Sometimes my stubbornness gets the best of me. But nothing cuts through stubborness like a completely irrational fear of bird flu, so I marched into the doctors office with a death rattle and marched out with four prescriptions. A decongestant, an expectorant, an asthma inhaler, and the subject of this post; a hybrid of Robitussin with codiene. “So you can sleep,” says my doctor. Um, yeah.

So knowing my low tolence and the consequences I face because of it, I waited until I put my daughter to sleep and took my recommended dose. One teaspoon. Do not operate heavy machinery or drive while on this medication.

No kidding.

Within fifteen minutes, I was PASSED OUT on the sofa, a pile of drool on my pillow. Sometime about an hour later, I zombie-shuffled to my bed. I slept harder than I have since, hell, I can’t even remember when I’ve had such a sound sleep. My alarm went off sometime around 6:30am, and I wandered into the bathroom and took a shower. I vaguely remember the water streaming across my face. Somehow, I made it back to my bed with my phone and called out (another sign that I am TRULY sick). I awoke three hours later, the phone still in my hand, another pile of drool on my pillow, and my hair poking out in a million different directions because I slept on it while wet. Upstairs, I could hear Alex chanting, “Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy….”

I jolted awake, bringing her downstairs and getting her breakfast. The rest of my day is pretty much a blur. I’m pretty alarmed that something with such a low dose can do this to me; I can’t imagine what would happen if I took something stronger. Tonight, I think I’m going to tough it out with my standard Robitussin formula and just deal without the sleep…

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