I've never filled your space on my shelf, dear Darvocet. For so many years I knew that I could reach behind me, to my left and slightly above my head, and you would be there, ready to step into the battle against mild to moderate pain.
Not that you would do particularly well in that battle, but if they gave out grades for effort my darling Darvocet, we all know you'd get an A+
Maybe that's why people liked you so much. Kinda like Pete Rose, you took the limited talent you were given and mixed it with an oversized work ethic, jumping into the fray day after day to improve your skills and gain a competitive edge. Except Pete Rose was successful, eventually becoming baseball's all time hit leader, and you worked just a little better than Tylenol alone. Now that I think of it, your addictive properties probably had more to do with why you were so popular.
Habit forming as you were though, I always loved your sense of humor. The way you would change from white to pink periodically. I'm pretty sure you did that just to fuck with the amateur drug dealers, more than one of which I witnessed trying to scrape off your pink coating in an effort to convince their customers nothing had changed. With every change of color we would get a spike of phone calls on Friday night from people who "found some pills" and wanted to know if we could verify what they were. You mischievous little narcotic you. You'll be happy to know Norco picked up on that trick of yours and continues to pull it off to this very day.
I'll also admit the adverse safety profile that eventually did you in was like a security blanket to me. For the better part of two decades, I knew that if things got too tough, that if the absurdity of the general public or the pressures of life in general became too much to bear, I could always just reach behind me, to my left and slightly above my head, take a couple handfuls of you, and be at hell's front door in about 40 minutes. I always make a note of where the phenobarbital is these days for just that reason, but it's not the same. I don't know why. Maybe because the phenobarbital isn't pink.
I hope you're doing well wherever you are these days dear Darvocet, and that retirement is as good to you as you were to my profit margins. Who knows, maybe if the teabaggers continue their rise to power it may be decided that the right to have a slightly effective, cardiotoxic pain reliever on the market is a matter of personal freedom, and that banning you from my shelves is akin to pissing on the grave of John Adams himself. Maybe that's why I've kept your spot open, because I wouldn't piss on the grave of John Adams.
I would recommend that people just use the Tylenol #3 though, or maybe some tramadol.
7 comments:
You've lost me on this one, DM. Having read David McCullough's excellent book on John Adams, I'm not sure what John Adams has to do with Darvocet. Adam Smith, maybe, but not John Adams.
No reason for John Adams in particular, I just picked a generic founding father 'cause the teabaggers are go gay for them.
McCullough is an awesome writer though....:)
I thought the potency of effect had to do with the 'real' Lilly product when it was neon orange, and that when the pink version came out, the addicted ones swore it didn't work as well, but got used to it for relieving symptoms of withdrawal. When the white similarly shaped tablet came out, by then the people in real pain had wisened up, and stopped taking for pain. By then, patients with real paint conceded it didn't work and went with something else more effective and generic Darvocet candy was being prescribed for its placebo effect or continue an addiction.
Now why'd you have to go ruin a perfectly good post with vile name calling. It's called the Tea Party and you know darn well how despicable it is to call someone a teabagger.
Hate to tell you my friend, but it was the teabaggers themselves that started calling themselves teabaggers:
http://www.politicususa.com/en/olbermann-teabagger
I just figured maybe they were really sexually liberated, being into freedom and all like they are....:)
Is it just me, or did y'alls waste a lot of time on the phone with the clueless dentists and doctors who would prescribe Darvocet with the sig "t1-2 q4-6h prn pain" to inform them if, indeed, the patient took the maximum dose as prescribed, they were endangering their (already probably overloaded) livers?
I probably started this as an intern...forgive me...I was young and idealistic about my ability to have an impact on improving health care outcomes. Most of the docs did not seem to care, or care to remember.
I finally just started changing the sig myself.
Ah, Darvocet...it may not have been the strongest opioid pain reliever, but it was the biggest, and the prettiest for sure.
This post is a thing of beauty. And I think the teabagger/John Adams thing was brilliant.
Post a Comment