How the Stars Aligned My Meds

I don't volunteer much due to my unpredictable body. But for the second year in a row I've helped with the annual KMHS swim banquet by writing names on stars. Over 80 names on more than 80 stars.

It's a brainless activity. I write while half watching NCIS or The Mentalist, so on banquet night every team member is represented on "the wall".

Pleased with myself, I delivered the box of stars to the banquet chair well before the deadline last year. What I didn't expect was the blessing I received chatting outside her front door.

As we spoke I learned she'd battled a brain tumor. Surgery removed the growth but left her in pain. She completed an education degree anyway and was moving forward with life. But daily depended on pain meds.

I was in the midst of experimenting with my pain meds. Tired of feeling groggy in the morning, I'd given a medicine I'd not had a good experience with a second try. Too much of it created problems by summer, but by fall I found a combination that worked.

Through the turmoil I remembered my conversation with the banquet chair. It took time for her to sort out what medicines worked best. While I'd rather not be on any, I found comfort knowing someone had searched and found the right combination and was living life beyond the limits of pain.

Finding pain control that doesn't alter your person or weight is next to impossible. But I've come to accept there's not a perfect combination, simply balance.

So the stars didn't align my meds in grand order. Rather they led me to someone who helped me understand that alignment is more a jagged juggle.

There's talk of medical breakthroughs for mitochondrial patients in the next few years. Those meds, I'd really like to try.