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I am sick of drug commercials.  Who writes these commercials?  They have to be horror movie writers who failed to get their scrips approved for the sci-fi channel. Considering that four Sharknado’s made it to TV, how bad were those scripts.  And just as an aside, if you get the chance to watch Trailer Park Shark, do it it’s a winner.  But really these commercials are like bad Godzilla movies.  Some monster disease is ravaging your skin, internal organs, or sex life.  But then out of the depths of a secret science lab comes a miracle to defeat it. I am not exaggerating here.  They follow the same script.  The drug cures some scary sounding disease that I have never heard of nor have any idea how to pronounce, and all you need to do is to tell you doctor to proscribe an equally unpronounceable drug to cure it.  Then after the protagonist is cured, they dangle a sequel teaser in front of you in the form of the listed side effects.  Just like in Carrie, when the arm comes out of the grave, or a single Godzilla egg survives a dozen Hell Fire missiles that destroyed Madison Square Garden, it’s not over. You may be cured but be aware of diarrhea, bleeding gums, and dreams about Donald Trump humping Queen Elizabeth on a ratty mattress laying on the floor of under construction house. That one actually happened to me once after taking a pain killer.   

Here is a list of side effects for a drug that treats an affliction I “suffer” from:

weak or shallow breathing

blue-colored skin, lips, fingers, and toes

confusion, extreme drowsiness or weakness

vision problems

skin sores (if you have diabetes)

easy bruising, unusual bleeding

swelling in your hands or feet, rapid weight gain (especially if you have diabetes or heart problems)

unexplained muscle pain, tenderness, or weakness (especially if you also have fever or don’t feel well).

The condition I have that this drug treats is diabetic neuropathy. I have little to no feeling in my feet. I guess it might be painful due to commercials staring some has been  Hollywood celebrity.  But it is not painful to me.  I fact my feet tingle a bit like they are in a pail of warm water. It’s really quite pleasant.  The only downside to my condition is that I can no longer drive my standard transmission Honda Civic.  The clutch pedal is small and really close to the break pedal which is also small. Several times in the last year I have missed the clutch and hit the brake instead. This scared the hell out of Judy.  I was okay with it as I always have clean pair of under pants in the glove compartment.  But because of this, I no longer drive the Honda.  I get to ride shotgun and look at the scenery, play games on the phone, and take naps when needed. This seems like a good deal to me, so screw the drug and its side effects.

Oh, and just as an afterthought, don’t take a drug if you are allergic to it.  Why in the wide world of sports would you intentionally ingest something that you are allergic too, no matter how compelling the commercial. And how would you know you are allergic to it if you never took it. This logic eludes me. 

“I have a peanut allergy, but the Pfizer commercial said that if I eat a whole jar of their peanut flavored gummies, I will be just fine, and my nose hairs will fall out without the need for tweezers!”

And did you ever think that there are some afflictions that are better left untreated. Who the fuck notices or cares if your toenails are yellow? Wear socks!  Laugh lines/crow feet around your eyes, may go away with Botox, but do you really want to have the face of a Japanese experimental sex robot? Sure, Viagra and Cialis might help with E.D., but remember it takes two.

“Hey babe look! Thanks to Cialis my dick works again! Want to rub pee things?”

“Sweetheart, I gave up liking that thing 10 years ago, but I wouldn’t mind a nice soak in a cast iron tub with an ocean view.”

Then there are the drug names.  Rather than referring to the drug by its actual chemical name, the marketing people have a brain storming session to come up with a name that has nothing to do with its structure or function.  It just has to sound like it does something wonderful. Here a just a few of the hundreds:

Lyrica does not make you a winner on American Idol. This is the drug that treats neuropathy which is replete with all the horrible side effects I listed above.

Celebrex is used to treat arthritis, acute pain, and menstrual pain. It does not enhance a celebration like a naked lady jumping out of your birthday cake. Listed side effects are:

pharyngitis

upper respiratory infection

rhinitis

dyspepsia

abnormal hepatic function tests.

What to hell is pharyngitis, rhinitis, and dyspepsia? I could look them up for you, but I am finally sleeping all night without the Trump/Queen Elisabeth image waking me up in a cold sweat. But go ahead if your stomach can handle it.

Eliquis does not help you understand Shakespeare, but it is does prevent the formation of serious blood clots. Side effects are:

unusual pain/swelling/discomfort

unusual bruising

prolonged bleeding from cuts or gums, persistent/frequent nosebleeds

unusually heavy/prolonged menstrual flow

pink/dark urine

coughing up blood

vomit that is bloody or looks like coffee grounds,

severe headache

dizziness/fainting

unusual or persistent tiredness/weakness

bloody/black/tarry stools

difficulty swallowing.

I was just fine with not having to look up any of these side effects till I got to the bloody coffee ground part. Also note the use of the qualifier, “unusual”. Does any of this look normal to you?

Humira is used to reduce pain and swelling due to certain types of arthritis. Common side effects are:

Infection

dehydration

upper respiratory infection

sinusitis

lupus-like syndrome

skin rash

headache disorder

nausea

injection site sequelae

reactivated tuberculosis

erysipelas

herpes zoster

fungal infection

malignant lymphoma

pseudohypoparathyroidism

hypercholesterolemia

hyperlipidemia

monoclonal gammopathy

ketosis

agranulocytosis.

Pseudohypoparathyroidism? Any side effect that requires 24 letters to describe has got to be horrible. And this is a common side effect??? Just shoot me, I would suffer less.

Xeljanz is used to treat… Who gives a fuck!  Any drug that starts with an “X” and ends in something that sounds like it might come out of your butt after having anal sex with a male stripper SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT ALERGIC TO IT!

Don’t get me wrong.  I am not one of these naturopathy nuts who would rather drink rose hip tea and smell essential oils to alleviate my symptoms. I take a whole pharmacy of drugs for my many age and lifestyle related maladies.  What I don’t do is rely on commercials to provide me with drugs to tell my doctor what I need to take. I rely on my doctor and pharmacist.  They went to college to learn this shit, I didn’t. If I told my doctor that I needed to take Xeljanz and he said, “sure thing, anything you want”, I would fire his ass. Knowing my doctor, if I tried to tell him that I think I need to take a drug that might give me unusually heavy and prolong menstrual flows, I think he would refer me to a shrink.  If you don’t trust your doctor, then get a different doctor.

One final point before I signoff on this latest rant. They are not stopping with the suggested drugs to tell your doctor you want to take. Now it is surgical procedures. Awhile back I wrote a blog about my TAVR procedure. I just now saw a commercial about how this is a good idea to plant in your doctor’s mind if you have a bad heart valve.  Like your doctor would be ignorant of a procedure that has been done for 20 years and has been performed on over 300,000 people.  If you need to inform him of this procedure, then guess what…you are going to a chiropractor.

I live in a beach shack.  That is not quite true.  I live in three beach shacks that were haphazardly shoved together to form most of the floor plan of my home. How this all came about is unclear.  According to an old former neighbor of mine, there was a logging railroad that ended across the alley from my present abode.  On that property were two railroad shacks.  These buildings were added to a large tent platform which is now Judy’s sewing room and our laundry room. When this was accomplished, I do not know, but the logging railroad was abandoned in 1935.

The architect responsible for this combination should have been fired, imprisoned for life, then have his dead body eaten by rabid dogs.  None of structures were leveled to each other, nor can they ever be. When we moved into our home, the laundry was connected to the kitchen with a ramp. A large portion of the house is supported on creosoted 20-foot long 6X6 railroad tie stock. Need ventilation under the house, why just put a two-inch notch in the 6X6.  Who needs to have a crawl space under the house when the average male in the late 1930s was 5’6” and weighed in at a whopping 140 soaking wet.  Oh, and let’s put the 4-inch sewer line directly under railroad tie so that 60 years later I have to exhale and shove with all my might to get my fat body to the water pipe leak.

I have had to crawl under the house too many times. When Carter was president, I stupidly signed up for the weatherization project.  To take full advantage, I dug out the crawl space to provide and extra 6 inches needed. In the process I had to replace all the pillars (mostly bricks) with concrete ones, and all the old posts with pressure treated ones that were 6 inches longer.  Took weeks even with the help of my two sons and a German Shepard who would silently crawl under the house to check up on me.  I’m in the dark, on my belly, digging in a claustrophobic space, when I feel hot breath on the back of my neck. Damn! Time to change my underwear again. But after a few times I got used to it.  That was until I reached back to pet her and found that the hot breath belonged to a ferret who had escaped from the neighbor’s house. 

But my worse under the house experience was time that the sewer pipe leaked. Actually, the pipe itself was fine, the leak was at a “T” in the pipe that had one time been attached to a toilet. It looks like the location of the toilet had been moved 3 times before I bought the place.  Take out the old shitter, then stuff some newspaper in the hole and secure it in place with plaster of Paris.  Worked just fine for 50 years until the once in a hundred-year cold snap.  Plaster cracked and popped the makeshift plug out of the “T”.   The really bad part of this break was it was under the plastic moisture barrier (thank you Jimmy Carter) and I did not know anything was wrong till the following spring when sewer files started coming out of tub drain. I looked under the house while Judy flushed the toiled. The plastic moved slightly upward right in the middle of the house.  The next day I had to follow the sewer pipe till I found it.  Yep, the same sewer pipe that was dead center under the railroad tie support beam.  I crawled along, cutting through the plastic ground cover to expose the pipe as I went. This was made so much worse, not by the smell, eventfully you get immune to the smell, but by the presence of a gazillion sewer flies that coated every surface just inches from my face.  Judy and kids were worried about me, bless their hearts.  Every minute or so, one of them would pound on the floor over my head asking if I was OK.  To reassure them I needed to open my mouth, at which point in time, several flies would enter my mouth. Somehow, I survived that one.  And no, the German Shepard did not follow me.  Even a doggie love for her best bud has its limits.

I’ve reroofed the house twice.  The big storms come in from the southwest.  Three-tab roofing does not hold up to 100 MPH gusts.  After a particularly bad winter storm year, every summer thereafter I was up trying to replace damaged tabs without doing more damage myself. After 10 years of doing this, I replaced that 15-year-old three-tab with metal. This finally solved my wind damage roof problems but added some other issues.  If I ever need to go up on the roof, I can’t, without the aid of mountaineering paraphernalia.  I am not joking about this.  About a month after the metal roof job, I heard an awful sound just as I was taking the garbage out.  I looked up just in time to see a cat falling off of the roof, screaming the whole way to the ground.  I do not know cat languages, but I think it was something akin to the Will Smith, Chris Rock exchange at the OSCARs, minus the slap.  My climbing on the roof gear usually consists of a rope with loops tied in it at one-foot increments.  Up the ladder, grab the first loop, pull my self up on the roof far enough to get a foot in a loop, then manage to turn myself onto my back and inch, or more precisely foot my way up to where I need to paint an eave or fix a metal chimney support that has rusted out.  After the job is done, I need to reverse the process working my way down to the ladder.  The up and down climb usually takes longer than the actual repair job.   Seems like a nice compromise from having to spend hours each summer fixing broken 3-tab roofing.  Did I mention that I am 74 with an old man’s bladder?  Did I mention that I also have occasional problems with explosive diarrhea?  I can live with pissing myself but shitting my pants too!  At least the roof is a dark red to hide the skid marks.

The interior of the house also has its stories.  Every room has been down to studs, some more than once.  I’ve rewired the whole house, added 200 square feet to the living/dining room, redid the bathroom twice, remodeled the kitchen, put in an on-demand water heater, and added a sunroom.  I’ve had to dig a new drain field, replace the septic tank, redo the water pipes. I even added a half bath in what was once a closet when my mother had to move in with us. I raised 4 kids in that house with only one bathroom, but when Dorcas moved in, we never got to finish a shit or take a shower before she was banging on the door telling us to hurry up.  I hired a good friend to put in the bathroom, but he refused to do the plumbing citing some shit about certifications.  So, there I was under the house again, sweating copper pipes together, catching the insulation over my head on fire with the propane torch, and generally having a good time.  Lucky for me that infamous sewer fly “T” was in the perfect spot to hook up the toilet.  There is a God in heaven and he had punished me enough.

Hardly a year goes by without some major indoor or outside project. Being on the coast is hard on structures.  Being 74 is hard on my body. It’s been several years since I have been under the house. I’m older, fatter now, with arthritic knees.  Although I don’t believe that there are jobs that Americans won’t do, I have come to understand that there are jobs that Americans can’t do.  But there are millions of Central Americans who are willing to and can squeeze between a 6X6 and sewer pipe without having to exhale. So, I am in favor of opening the broader and letting as many of the asylum seekers in as possible, as long as they are skinny and not claustrophobic.  Mountaineering experience would be a plus as well.