As has been noted on this site numerous times, I am a stupid person. Sure, I have moments of intelligence, but deep down, I know that I’m a dumbass, and I’m comfortable with that. I’m married, got a kid and a dog, even a stable job for a change, so I don’t need to pretend to be something I’m not. Since I am a fully disclosed dumbass, I feel comfortable sharing things that I should know but somehow never learned in life.
I have no clue how to take medicine.
Like, I understand the part about swallowing a pill, drinking some magical liquid, or getting a shot. The mechanics, I’m fairly good with, but if you gave me symptoms and said, “What should you take with these symptoms?” I would have no clue what medicine to administer to myself. I only know like five medicines. There’s aspirin, ibuprofen, Tylenol (which might be aspirin, but I don’t think it’s ibuprofen), benadryl, and cortisone. Coritsone somehow stops itching and helps with joint pain if injected. Is it the same cortisone? I don’t think so, but maybe.
My lack of knowledge really came to light when my wife sent me to the store to get medicine for our son for his sickness. I asked to get a specific item to get, and she looked at me like I was the dumbest boy alive. She told me to get something for cold and fever. Well, there were things that had cold, there were things that had fever, and there were things that had cough, which he also had. I just grabbed a handful of things and figured one of them had to work. It turned out the correct answer was “Pain and Fever,” so the other ones were all going back to the store on my next trip. But there was no way for me to know these things. I never learned how to take medicine, so how could I provide it for others?
The way that I have handled this for the most part is just to not take any medicine. This is a dumbass way of dealing with things, but alas, being a dumbass is my curse so I would just suffer with colds, headaches, and whatever other ailments my body went through. I probably took over-the-counter medicine a handful of times over a decade, because I simply didn’t know what would work best, and I didn’t care enough to find out.
My wife hated this. Mostly, she hated me not being at 100%, because I’m a little bit of a baby when my body is not right. She didn’t have time for my moaning and groaning, especially if I wasn’t doing everything I could to get better. That’s fair on her part, but her harshness did nothing to improve my spirits when sick.
So, due to her urging, I have started to dabble in medicine. Sometimes, I will have a head-splitting ache in my head, and I’ve learned that I can take medicine that is designed to alleviate this pain. I’m still not sure what is the best medicine for a headache, but ibuprofen seems to work best for me. I only knew about ibuprofen, because I would use it if I had serious pain after running. Is ibuprofen the new ivermectin, and it’s actually a cure-all for everything? Probably not, and that’s true in both cases.
The crazy thing is it actually works. Instead of just feeling awful, I start to feel better and can act like a normal human being again instead of just wanting the world to be incredibly quiet and dark.
But again, I’m a dumbass, so I haven’t expanded my repertoire of medicines. When my son brings home illnesses from daycare, I welcome those illnesses with no plan on getting them to leave my system. If I have a runny nose, sore throat, and cough, that’s just something to deal with. I mean, who takes medicine for those things? Probably smart people, but I’m not one of those, so I “tough it out.” It’s basically ibuprofen or bust for me.
But although I was dumbass-born, and dumbass-bred, it doesn’t mean that I have to end up dumbass-dead. I’m going to learn to take other medicine. If I get a fever, maybe I’ll find that Tylenol works better. I may even find out about new medicines. There are cough syrups. I have no idea what they do, but I’m intending to find out. I’m going to be medicine man, because no matter how old we get, we can all continue to grow.
Also, maybe my wife will be start being nice to me when I’m sick if I’m actually doing everything I can to get healthy.