fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

The Shelf of Shame

Round bottles of pills fill one shelf of my medicine cabinet. Only one bottle contains a rather harmless drug: a prescription pill used to fight nausea; that bottle tends to stay full for a long time. The other bottles hold stronger drugs: one for my hypothyroidism; two to reduce my anxiety and stress and allow me to sleep at night; and one, the largest one, whose contents somewhat alleviate the chronic head pain I have suffered for almost two decades due to five jaw surgeries.

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July More Voices: Pills

Dear Pulse readers,

An elderly patient walks into an appointment with her new doctor and empties a bag of medications on the doctor’s desk.

The doctor looks at the heap of bottles and says, “I have some good news for you! I’m going to take you off of all these pills except for three.”

“Doctor, that’s wonderful!” the patient exclaims. “Which three should I keep taking?”

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