Once a week I have to pull out my pill box and refill all of my medications for the week. I procrastinate on it every week. Right now, it is 11:45pm and long after my regular bedtime and I still haven’t done it. I am only awake now because I need to do it. What’s the big deal? Well, the big deal is that the pill box has twenty eight separate compartments in it and I have to fill it up with a grand total of 160 pills that I need to take throughout the week. That is right, by the way. I just counted them. 160 pills every week.

I stopped writing this post for a little while after I wrote that last sentience. That number freaked me out a bit. I never really stopped to count them before and although I knew it was a lot in the back of my head, it doesn’t seem like that much as I take them. They are broken up into morning, evening, and bedtime doses so I guess the portioning out helped my mind to cope with it. But now that I have counted them, and before I get depressed over it, I need to remember what those pills are for.

160 pills so that my muscles don’t turn to stone. 160 pills so that I don’t feel every single nerve ending inside my body. 160 pills so that I can get up from a chair or a bed on my own without help. 160 pills so that I can stand up straight and not need to hunch over. 160 pills so that my cat can brush her whiskers along my arm without me wanting to jump out of the way. 160 pills so that I don’t sleep for multiple days in a row or not sleep at all for weeks. 160 pills so that my friends and family can hug me and my nephews can still use me as their own private jungle gym without having to check with me first. 160 pills so that I can walk the city when my friends want to hang out, or even just walk to the kitchen for something to eat. 160 pills so that I can hold down a part-time job. 160 pills so that I remember to put socks on both feet and not just one. (Yes, in a fit of Fibro Fog, I did that once.) Above all – 160 pills so that I can laugh more than I cry.

Do I still experience Fibro symptoms even with this crazy amount of medications? Yes. I do. These meds are not a cure. There is no cure. But they DO help! They make my life livable, and dare I say it, even enjoyable. 🙂 So until they do find a cure, or even a better treatment for Fibromyalgia, I will keep on taking my 160 meds and be grateful for them even though I know that it is most likely going to be this way for the rest of my life.

I doubt I will ever enjoy filling my pill box though.