A Funny Story - With A Serious Message

The Fall Fairy has been pre-occuppied with duties such as report cards, preparing for Fall Break and other unfestive obligations. But yesterday at noon, Fall Break officially began and I'm all OVER this next week off! The weather here has taken a turn for Autumn with temps down (to the 70's people...the 70's !!!) and a delicate breeze which is the perfect scenario for .....
cleaning carpets.
Yup.
Carpets.

I had a date with a doctor yesterday...a famous doctor at that. You might have heard of him before. His first name is 'Rug'. Our date started early in the afternoon and rolled over into a 'one-night stand'.

Contrary to every fiber of my being, I cleaned my carpets as my first celebration of fall break. Pitiful, I know. I did the downstairs, first set of stairs, upholstery-cleaned the sofa and all six dining room chairs yesterday. This morning I did the upstairs, second set of stairs and touched up the sofa again. As soon as I turned off that machine for the hundreth time, my date with the good doctor was done. Over. Fini. Without so much as offering him a cup of coffee, I drove him back to where I had picked him up. I had used him for what he was good for, then shown him the road.

Needless to say, I'm a bit slow-moving this afternoon. Which brings me to my message. Thursday night I skipped to my yoga class ready to relax and 'let go of any emotions which no longer serve me.' (My wonderful instructor says this each time and it really rings true in my mind.) After a wonderful hour of stretching, posing and relaxing, I came home all energized and pepped up.... oh, and sore. My muscles ached. You know.. the deep ache that, when you finally crawl into bed, it makes every bone, leg, muscle gnaw at you and you find it impossible to fall asleep. After trying to fight it for a few hours, I rambled downstairs for the ibuprofen. In the darkness of the night, I got out my bottle and took three tablets, sure that they would finally beat the beast of ache and let me slumber for a few hours before having to get up for work. They were bitter going down, but I don't take ibuprofen often - I was 'blessed' with a high tolerance for pain - and I was too achy to care. Funny thing was, after another hour, even the ibuprofen couldn't dull my aching body. Out of sheer tiredness, I finally fell asleep about 3:30 am.

Yesterday's 'date with the good doc' wore me out (oh, the jokes that could be made about swinging from the chandelier, when all I swung from were the stairs, chairs, and a carpet cleaner cord). The stooping, standing, bending, lifting, moving, lugging, filling, emptying, stretching, pushing and pulling left me worn out, shaky and just plum beat (this house is 2300+ sq. feet - and seemed even bigger as I cleaned!!). Thinking I would outsmart the aches and pains, I reached for the ibuprofen during the afternoon cleaning fest to head off those villians before they blew into town. Hmmmm..... What's this? Uh... this is the bottle I used last night, but it doesn't say 'ibuprofen'. It's my perscription antacid.... zantac ... ?? I popped 3 antacids in the middle of the night instead of ibuprofen??!! No wonder my aches never went away!! My stomach was fine, but oh my gosh! That explained the bitter taste going down..and I couldn't help but think how lucky I was that I didn't get sick from taking something that I hadn't meant to - and 3 tablets, no less! I put that bottle back to the side, grabbed the other white bottle - yup, they look like the goods! - and popped three to take my pain away.

Last evening I manage to throw myself in the shower, put on fresh jammies, and plan my attack of the upstairs for today. I hurt. Boy, did I hurt. I laid in bed for a couple of hours, hoping the entire body ache would subside. Again, it didn't. It only settled in deeper. So I lumbered downstairs and, again, reached for my ibuprofen. As I started untwisting the cap, the label caught my attention for some reason. Hmmm....

This bottle isn't ibuprofen... it's..... WHAT ????

stool softener

Yup.

Those three tablet that I so smugly took in the afternoon to thwart the pain had no intentions of dealing with pain. Instead, they were headed straight to my ... well.... you know.

Crap.

That's twice now that I've taken medicine - thinking it was one thing - and it being something totally different!!

Needless to say, I was up a good deal of the night last night, as well....but for a different reason.
Needless to say, I am very lucky that I truly didn't hurt myself in some way by taking medication I wasn't planning on taking.
Needless to say... I've learned my lesson. All three bottles are white and the same size and shape. But oh, the contents are oh, so very different! From now on, I will always turn on the light, check the label and make sure that I really DO know what I am taking.
Needless to say, I feel like I'm about 83 years old.

Don't do what I did. Always, always check your labels. Even when you think you already know what you are taking - check them! Don't be like me - sitting in the bathroom in the dead of night with a fabulous tummy and a body that feels like it was trampled on by a stampede!

But boy, does my carpet look nice!