I had an appointment with Dr LeMauviel, my primary care physician, yesterday for a blood test to make sure the thyroid medication I’m taking is the correct strength. The appointment usually takes all of 10 minutes but this time she wanted to talk to me. To my chagrin, I waited for an hour for she was running late. I couldn’t help asking myself, “Who does she think she is, keeping me waiting like this?”

However, I gave her the benefit of the doubt because I like her immensely. Years ago in Atlanta I had tried many migraine preventatives for my post-traumatic migraines which are common after brain injury. The side effects were unbearable until my neurologist there suggested an unconventional preventative which worked. A couple of years ago, Dr. LeMauviel pointed out that this preventative medication was raising my heart rate and wasn’t good for my body. She suggested I try alternative therapies which I did and they worked.

So at my appointment yesterday, the first thing she said to me was, “I didn’t get your records from your hospitalization in Canada.” “Oops,” I thought. “She remembered.” I had told her about the hospitalization when I had my physical back in the fall and she asked me to have them send her my records. The truth is, there wasn’t anything in the records since it was a brain injury meltdown although folks there didn’t know that. They ran two cat scans and both were normal.

LeMauviel is a good doctor. In spite of being behind schedule, she took the time to listen to me and then suggested I have some medication on hand in case I ever get into another situation like that. I balked at this but she wrote me a prescription for Alprazolam anyway which I planned not to fill.

However, the person checking me out wanted to set up an appointment in one month so LeMauviel could check to see how the medication worked. She told me I could always cancel it which I had every intention of doing. However, this afternoon I took out my husband Michael’s copy of the DR guide to Prescription Drugs to check it out.. It turns out it is generic for Xanax which is a fairly strong tranquilizer used for short term relief of anxiety.

As much as I dislike taking medication and am very aware we live in a pill popping society, I’m going to try it. If I decide to keep some on hand I will use it very sparingly in the hopes I don’t go through my Canadian experience again. One thing I have learned about this world of brain injury is, I have to try many different things for each person is different and nothing works for everyone. It’s a good thing I’m creative and willing to try new things!