This is the pillbox of my nine-year-old. You read that correctly: my nine-, not ninety-, year-old. Prescriptions for seven days of the week with am and pm dosing. Specifically, he takes four pills in the morning (although, for full disclosure, three are the same medication since that is the only way to get 30mg) and two in the evening. None are blue . . . not that that matters. More importantly and unfortunately, they are not magic.
Faced with a cornucopia of acronym diagnoses from the DSM-IV, medication is the prescribed remedy. We (or perhaps I should say he) have tried assorted meds from different pharmaceutical categories in varied doses, both short- and long-acting, in assorted combinations . . . without much success. We just can’t shake the right cocktail. As a result, my kitchen counter is a virtual pharmacopeia of current and rejected drugs.
I look at my stash and wonder how I got here. Just ten years ago, I scoffed at the notion of drugging my kids. My eldest tried sugar pills before Ritalin. Yes, we did ultimately go pharmaceutical, but not without a fight. Alas, there was no placebo effect from sugar. As time and children progressed, my anti-med resolve weakened. By the time we got to the third kid, I was asking for the narcotics.
Now, I beg that they work. With each new prescription, hope rises . . . and fades. My counter gets more and more crowded.
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