After dad left in 1986, and all the way up to when I left home in 92, mom would plow through a 60 count bottle of Excedrin a day.\u00a0 She always complained of headaches and other aches and, of course, 60 Excedrin a day eventually led to a ton of other problems that\u2026required more Excedrin.\u00a0 She\u2019d wash it all down with a stream of Coors.\u00a0 When recycling began in our neighborhood, we used paper grocery bags (the dedicated recycling containers took a couple years to catch up) and mom would fill three bags a day with crushed cans of Coors.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think all that Excedrin liked that behavior.
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I\u2019ve always been curious:\u00a0 Why Excedrin?\u00a0 Naturally, because I\u2019m scarred by my youth, I\u2019ve avoided the drug and have assumed a forced ignorance as to what it contained.\u00a0 The other day, as I related mom\u2019s charming dietary habits to a friend, he told me that Excedrin\u2019s big hook is the caffeine.\u00a0 An ah-ha moment that led me to the internet.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just a little bolt of caffeine hidden away \u2013 it\u2019s 65 milligrams per tablet.\u00a0 A Mountain Dew has 54 or so.\u00a0 A cup of coffee hovers around 100.\u00a0 So, let\u2019s see, sixty pills times 65 milligrams\u2026. Oh my god!\u00a0 So mom was hopped up on almost four grams of caffeine a day.\u00a0 According to the internet (my only friend) two grams is a potentially lethal dose.<\/p>\n
Poor mom, eh?\u00a0 There are many rumors surrounding her suicide in 1999.\u00a0 One is that health issues led her down that path.\u00a0 We\u2019ll never know.\u00a0 When mom killed herself, she cleaned her apartment of anything questionable.\u00a0 No booze, no drugs (prescription or otherwise).\u00a0 Important documents, wallet, ID, credit cards stacked up on the kitchen table with her purse.\u00a0 It was a weird experience going into her place.\u00a0 She and I hadn\u2019t talked since I ran off to college, and the whole cleansed space was a bit overwhelming.\u00a0 The planning of a suicide is worse than the death itself, I think.<\/p>\n
I avoid pills at all costs.\u00a0 Perhaps some of that is the ever-present Excedrin of my youth.\u00a0 The bottles, today, look ominous and threatening to me.\u00a0 I also spent five years sucking down a few dozen pills a day to control my nerve injury, and my now year-old miracle operation has freed me from those.\u00a0 Those two elements \u2013 a little dash of childhood PTSD and a former reliance on medication \u2013 have put me in a position where my reaction to a headache is to just lie down and let it run the course.<\/p>\n
In March, I picked up a nasty flu.\u00a0 My fever was topping 104, and I spent a day in bed, delirious.\u00a0 I remember spending several hours during the day trying to remember the \u201cfour races\u201d from Stargate<\/em>, and getting stuck on the Asgard.\u00a0 And becoming frustrated and angry in a sort of pseudo-dream state\u2026unable to get up and even check the computer.\u00a0 And how could I forget the Asgard?\u00a0 And why was I thinking of Stargate<\/em> in such an intimate way whilst on my deathbed?<\/p>\n My uncle woke me the next morning.\u00a0 He knew I was sick and, when I dropped out of touch for 24 hours (which is not my way), he came over to check on me.\u00a0 Or maybe take my stereo.\u00a0 He found me wrapped up in blankets, sweating, muttering incoherently, and he took my temperature, which was at the 104 mark for the 30th straight hour.\u00a0 Then he said, look, take a Tylenol.\u00a0 And that broke the fever, cleared my head, and had me up in bed about 20 minutes later.\u00a0 At which time I laughed and talked about the Asgard as if everything in Stargate<\/em> was real.<\/p>\n It had crossed my mind to pop a Tylenol, but that neurotic dislike for pills convinced me to spend a day and a half in the grips of a brain boiling fever.\u00a0 Now that\u2019s dedication to a mental illness.\u00a0 At least, when I drive my car into a tree and kill myself, I won\u2019t be doing it with a ruined gut and bowels.\u00a0 Nope, my bowels will be packed with 100% Real Brand(tm) Cheese and Pillsbury Cinnamon Buns.\u00a0 Mmmm-Mmmm!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After dad left in 1986, and all the way up to when I left home in 92, mom would plow through a 60 count bottle of Excedrin a day.\u00a0 She always complained of headaches and other aches and, of course, …<\/p>\n