The Circus

The Circus

“Come, come, look inside!
See the marvels that abide in our most splendid tent of magic, wonder, and portent!”
So yelled the mad ringmaster, Louis the Crock,who flashed a gold tooth and twirled his baton as he circled the ring and enamored the crowd with a promise of wonders and feats of renown.

The people milled ‘bout him, staring in awe at elephants,tigers,unicorns,fawns,ballerinas in tutus that sparkled in joy, clowns in sad makeup throwing some pie, tight-rope walkers, the fat lady singing, Siamese-twin gymnasts, the bearded woman preening.

But closed doors hid secrets the crowd shouldn’t know:
broken fun-house mirrors,
elephant bones,
a clown’s suicide notes,
human skulls,
caged freaks-of-nature crying for mother,
a ballerina or two chained and shackled,
runaway children,
a chest full of drugs,
still-smoking cigars,
an angry armed mob boss.

So the people kept milling, smiling and grinning, holding hands and licking ice cream cones,watching the fantasy, forgetting reality,and not knowing the truth behind the jokes.

Meds

So after a long sabbatical of being off Ritalin I finally decided to go back on it. I went to a physician for a physical. I asked him to please write me a script for the Ritalin.
No can do. He doesn't feel comfortable writing it before I'm seen by a psychologist who he wants to have write it first.

Okay, fine, whatever. I get an appointment with the only local doctor on my insurance for March 9th.
She agrees to write me for 20 mgs which is a really low dosage (When I was 18 I was on 60 mgs) I take it, for two weeks and call her to say it's not doing much, can I please come in and have her write a new script.

I have an appointment which she calls to cancel because of illness. She will reschedule me for the Tuesday morning prior to my going away on vacation for a week.

I'm now out of pills. She writes me a script for the 40mg dosage and informs me that she will be going away on vacation and will be back on May 9th. I take the script and call every single pharmacy in Hoboken. No one carries it. I'm out of time and have to go on vacation with no meds.

I get home a week later to discover the script is gone. Thrown in the garbage by mistake. The Doctor is unreachable as she's on a cruise till May 9th.  I decide to call my physician and take the original bottle to him and explain what happened and see if he can write a new script for me.
Two weeks with no meds.

I get to see the Doctor on Wednesday he writes me a script for the lower dosage. (Fine, whatever) Today I took the kids to the pharmacy to fill it. They don't carry it. We go to a second pharmacy.
They won't fill it because the Dr wrote the wrong date and corrected it on the same script. (He wrote 20 and then corrected it to 21)
I go home and call the doctors office. They are closed for the weekend and will reopen on Monday.

I'm really and seriously a breath away from crying. I'd just started to feel better, pulled together, back on track with the meds. I could remember things, dates, places, events. I didn't walk into a room and wonder why I was there. Didn't ask the same question two or three times.

Now I'm back at the start.  I know this will get resolved and I'll get the meds started again. It just feels like an awful big effort and lots of walls being thrown at me when all I'm trying to do is get myself back on track!!!