Those close to me tell me that I am a hilarious "druggie." I can't say for sure, as I am not usually amusing myself. But since a young age, whenever I have to take anything stronger than, say, Tylenol, I offer hours of conversational enjoyment. I ramble on and on about random things and I develop strong emotions about things that simply don't matter.
Examples abound:
The day I got my wisdom teeth out and woke up SOBBING that the nurse in the recovery room couldn't understand ASL (American Sign Language). The night after knee surgery when I fell out of my bed while my leg was still in it, and couldn't call for help because I was laughing so hard. The day (my freshman year of college) I explained to my French teacher why I had missed my biology class for surgery (note: I hadn't missed French).
In fact, when I was in college, my sister requested to spend the night with me after I had harmed myself or had surgery, not in order to take care of me (which she did as well), but more because she didn't want to miss anything I might do or say. She still loves to laugh about some of those nights! Ahenobarbus also enjoys these times. He will sit back, fold his arms, nod his head, and just laugh at me. Because of all of this, I am now very careful about when and what medication I take.
Apparently, I passed this trait on to Beemer.
Last night, through a series of unfortunate events, Beemer got her pinkie finger shut in the back door. She had creases down the front and back and lots of swelling. So, after a quick call to my sister, the nurse, we gave her some Tylenol, put ice on her finger and waited to see if she could move it after the ice numbed it. Through all of this time, Beemer was a trooper. She cried in pain, but let us ice her finger without argument. After we determined her finger wasn't broken, we wrapped it in gauze and Ahenobarbus read to her while I rocked her. By this time it was an hour and half past her bedtime. As she was starting to relax, I decided to sing to her to help her doze off before I put her in bed. That was when it happened.
Beemer started talking and laughing - and didn't stop! She told us that she didn't like having her finger shut in the door but that it was starting to feel better. She held up her injured hand and told us it was "the hand that was feeling better," and then holding up the uninjured hand said "and this is the hand that wasn't hurt at all." I sang two songs. She interrupted every few lines to share new insight. When I finished the second song, she requested "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" which was the first song I had sung. When I told her I had already sang it, she didn't remember. (I'm guessing she was talking too much.) She laughed and said, "Oh, I forgot, but my finger is going back to the way it was before it was shut in the door." This random chatter went on for about ten minutes, after which I gave up singing (because I could no longer keep a straight face) and put her to bed. (Update on her finger for those of you who are worried: no bruising yet, it's still a bit swollen, but she's doing great today).
After we got her to bed, Ahenobarbus said she was acting just like I do when medicated. But she only had Tylenol. Maybe it was the relief when the pain lessened. Maybe it was late and she was tired. Or maybe all of these years, we thought it was the medication getting to me when in reality it was the injury/pain and that is what affected Beemer. Whatever the cause, I can say that I now have a new appreciation from the non-medicated side of things and I can see what I couldn't before: what everyone was laughing at!
