Hopefully It Was Just The Meds

I woke up yesterday morning sick to my stomach and with a headache, my eyes were very light-sensitive, and it felt like I had not slept in a hundred years. The feelings persisted all day and into the evening.

I suspected it was a reaction to a new medicine my doctor put me on called Duloxetine (brand name Cymbalta), the first of which I had taken the night before (Wednesday night.) While this is commonly used to treat depression, they have found that it can also help with certain types of pain, including lower back pain.

When the symptoms did not let up I called the doctor’s office and spoke to a nurse, and shortly afterward the doctor called and told me to stop taking it. I had already made that decision on my own. Hopefully, today will be a better day.

As for the whole coronavirus thing that so many are discounting, don’t waste your breath telling me it’s just a flu, or not that bad, or that something else is/was worse. I don’t want to hear it. It was announced last night the the U.S. now leads the world in the number of diagnosed cases. And for me, is getting close to home. Two friends of mine in different parts of the country, one in his mid-40s and one in her early 60s, have both have diagnosed with Covid-19 and one of my daughter-in-law’s friend’s 24 year old daughter died of it. Meanwhile, supplies are in such short supply that my daughter-in-law, who is clinical director at a hospital in Alabama, is wearing the same mask over and over again. Talk to someone on the front lines battling this pandemic and tell me not to worry.

The way so many people are ignoring or downplaying Covid-19 reminds me of when everybody thought AIDS was not an issue unless you were gay. I was in the small town newspaper business and lost quite a few readers and advertisers who didn’t want to read about the “queer disease” that I kept saying was going to become a worldwide issue. A pastor at on local church urged his congregation to boycott my newspaper because all I cared about were “degenerates.” My answer to that was an editorial that I would rather have what they called degenerates as friends and neighbors than hypocrites. Do we ever learn from history? I would love to be wrong and for the naysayers to be right. I really would. But I don’t think I am.

Be sure to enter our latest Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an audiobook of Cops and Writers: From the Academy to the Street by my friend Patrick J. O’Donnell. Patrick recently retired from the Milwaukee, Wisconsin Police Department, and runs the Cops and Writers Facebook page, which is a valuable resource for anyone writing mysteries or crime thrillers. If you have ever wondered what it’s like to be a police officer, this is the book that tells you how it all gets started, from basic training at the police academy to hitting the streets as a rookie patrol officer working with a Field Training Officer (FTO), along with a lot of other information about things like arrest techniques, different types of police assignments, and stories from Patrick’s own experiences in the trenches. Even if you’re not a writer, this is a book you will enjoy. To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening.

Thought For The Day – If I gave up sarcasm all I would have left is interpretive dance as my only means of communication.