I know I'm losing it when I once again think I'm seeing personal messages in the advertisements on the El train. My mood was certainly setup for this. Sybil was crabby back at our apartment. A crazy guy paced about the platform, talking to himself, pretending to talk on the phone, smoking, and really the only part that bothered me was his hacking up green phlegm and spitting it everywhere. The car I picked was full of gangbangers and bums. I sat in one seat for a stop before I realized it reeked of urine. Here's a valuable El tip that I knew but didn't follow -- whenever you see a car that is full of people standing on one end, yet with empty seats on the other end, there's usually a good reason. As soon as possible, I move to the safe end of the car and notice an ad that pictures a woman standing in front of a clock, floating through clouds while purple pills rain down on her:

It's Prilosec Time.

Time to ask your doctor about the purple pill they call Prilosec

www.purplepill.com

The ad is strange enough to grab attention on it's own, but I was caught because I'd just picked up some Prilosec for Sybil. The Decadron chews up her stomach terribly. She was also taking Celebrex (and just recently stopped) which is also hard on the stomach. Her doctor had described Pepsid in an attempt to counteract this. However, Sybil recently asked them to switch her to Prilosec (which she used in New Hampshire when she was on the massive Decadron dosage) because she preferred it. The "purple pill" does seem to work better.

Her other recent drug change is Melatonin. As I've mentioned, the Decadron keeps Sybil up all night. I wanted her to try taking Melatonin but first we had to check the drug interactions. I should add here that we have to do this for everything we give her, including herbs and vitamins. You can't rely on your doctor's advice or the printed materials that come with your medication for this. Fortunately, you can get good information on the web about possible interactions between different substances.

Anyway, it turns out that Decadron depletes Melatonin, along with Vitamin B6, Potassium, Magnesium (No wonder she gets muscle cramps. We give her dulse for her mineral depletions.), Calcium, and Vitamin D. You'd think someone would mention this before putting her on it long-term, but no.

To make a long story shorter, the Melatonin helps a lot! We give her .5 mg and she can actually get some sleep at night. BTW, I tried Melatonin years ago for jet lag and didn't like the way it made my head feel -- foggy and weird. Then I read a book about it and discovered that most of the dosages they sell Melatonin in (1-5mg) are too strong for most people. I've found that taking .25mg-.5mg works great for me. I'm sorry but I don't remember the authors' names for this book, but I remember that one of them used to work for NASA on a project to put astronauts into suspended animation. I learned a lot about Melatonin from this book, but will only leave you with this gem of advice: get plenty of sleep at night in a very dark room and go outside into the light during the day.

 Sybil's been well enough to receive visitors. Her uncles came over last week and my family visited yesterday. Her mother is still staying with us, which has been a big help.

Matt Donath

Mdonath@yahoo.com