Meds

Ari has recently been diagnosed with ADHD, and started taking a generic version of Ritalin. He is highly drug tolerant, our child, so the first, cheapest one worked fine with minimal side effects. The pediatrician explained to B at Ari's med check that these meds are hot commodities.

Who knew? Only in The County Where I Live Which Is Full Of Alpha Yuppies (not its real name).

"Do you keep it somewhere safe?" the doctor asked B.

One might think it was dangerous, or recreational. Nope. Just improves academic performance. Seriously.

I mean--the doctor said she has one patient who had a family-only birthday party, and his parents left his meds in an unlocked medicine cabinet. Some family member at the birthday party 

stole! 

them!

                 I made this myself.

The parents had to come back for a new prescription, which the doctor could only give them after all involved (except the thief, of course, since nobody knew who that was) had taken a polygraph and had an NSA background check and been sniffed by fire-proof dogs. Ok, I made that last part up. I think. I don't actually know what happened, or if they were able to get more meds for their son, and if so, how many hoops they had to jump through to get them. I worry for them. I cannot fathom how I would go about even the most basic of hoop-jumping while parenting my unmedicated son.

Recently, our state loosened the restrictions so that doctors are allowed to write more than one month of prescriptions at a time, but only if they are post dated, and each on a separate piece of paper, and not photocopied. I do not know how they tell. We cannot give them all to the pharmacy at once, or they'll throw the post-dated ones away. We cannot have it called or faxed in. We must hand the paper to a human being who works at the pharmacy.

I chafe at these intolerable restrictions. 

Mail order? 90 days? Forget it. And of course, we have to keep the post-dated prescriptions out of sight or Aunt Sally (not her real name) will make off with the pill bottle and the Rx. Or the dudes who fixed our home from the burst pipe will. Or Ari's play date, who is, by the way, six. However, our doctor told us we cannot discount anyone. Every human is a generic Ritalin thief.

Oh, I forgot to mention! It's also an appetite suppressant. Hear that, kids? Straight As and skinny! But don't look here because in this family, we don't play. You take our shit, and we will fuck you up.