Happy Halloween from my ghouls

I've known about this for a very long time

Twice this week I've seen media coverage about the problem with prescription drug abuse - most notably opiate painkillers - in our country.

CBS Sunday Morning had a very interesting segment about the problem with "pill mills" in Florida. Law enforcement interviewed in this piece talked about people driving from as far away as Ohio to procure painkillers from these places. Mothers whose children died from overdoses of prescription meds shared their heart-breaking stories of having to bury a child.

The very next day I read an article in the latest edition of Parents magazine about mothers who'd become addicted to prescription medications such as Xanax, Ritalin, OxyContin, and Vicodin. One mother featured in the article reported spending $500 for a bottle of pills that - had she obtained it through legal channels - would have cost about $25.

Both the news segment and the magazine article used the word epidemic to describe this problem that touches every segment of the population. I was left thinking that's a pretty accurate word to use for a problem that I've been well aware of for going on 20 years.

In June 1992, I took a job working at a locally-owned, small town drugstore of which my family had been patrons for many years. My favorite part of working at this store was getting to prepare prescriptions with the pharmacist. I quickly discovered I was more interested in medicine than I ever imagined, and I spent a good deal of time reading the product inserts that came with each bottle of medicine on the shelf.

I started reading these because I wanted to know what so many of the drugs I saw prescribed over and over were designed to treat. A lot of them - like Cardizem, Lopressor and Norvasc - turned out to be used to reduce high blood pressure. Others - like Glucotrol and Diabeta - controlled diabetes while some - such as Keflex, Augmentin and Veetids - were just run-of-the-mill antibiotics.

Occasionally,  I'd see a prescription for something I'd never encountered before like the time a woman came in needing to get a prescription for Thorazine filled for her son. After she left, I looked up the information on this drug and discovered it's most often used to treat symptoms of schizophrenia and severe bipolar disorder. I felt bad for her and her son from that day forward.

However, there was one drug I helped fill prescriptions for every single time I worked. That drug was Lortab. Some people know it by the name Vicodin or Norco, but they're all variations of the same thing: hydrocodone with acetaminophen.  This drug combination was approved by the FDA in the late 1970s for the relief of moderate to severe pain. By the time I was filling prescriptions for it, it had become the go-to drug for everything from post-surgery pain relief to sinus headache pain.

There was one doctor in town who wrote hundreds of prescriptions for Lortab. At the end of every work day, we - the pharmacy technicians on duty - had to bundle the filled prescriptions in stacks on 100's and file them away. I know Lortab prescriptions from that one doctor made up a significant percentage of those bundles.

While the number of prescriptions for this one drug was shocking to me, what bothered me even more is how quickly it became apparent which customers had become hooked on it and how their addiction didn't seem to bother anyone else.

I suppose someone might have had an issue with these customers' apparent physical need for these drugs had they been bums who slept on the street and sold aluminum cans to make enough money to get their next score. However, this was not at all the description of these people who obviously had a problem.

No, by and large, the people who seemed to me to be most addicted to Lortab and other narcotic painkillers like Mepergan Fortis and Percocet were white middle to upper-middle class women the majority of whom I could predict with scary accuracy when they would come in for their fix. So many of these women were considered to be "somebody" in the small town social strata either by way of to whom they were married or the family from which they came.

When I saw them out-and-about, they were always well-dressed in the best fashions of the day and always seemed as though they were living a charmed life. However, after a few months of filling their prescriptions, it became very clear to me what a facade all of this was and what a sham each of them were. While I felt sorry for their children, many of whom I considered friends, I felt angry at these mothers for relying on these drugs to get them through the day and even angrier at their doctor who prescribed them over and over without bothering to notice these patients had a problem.

I must confess, part of my anger was rooted in the fact I was at the time living with a mother addicted to alcohol so I could - in a sense - imagine what life was like for the kids who had to see mom when she let down her guard at home and let the drugs take over. If it was like my home, there was a lot of slurred words, stumbling and continued proclamations of "I'm alright."

I stayed at this job for four years, worked at CVS for another three years followed by an almost two-year stint at another locally-owned store. With each job, I filled more and more of these same prescriptions for more and more of these same type of women. What changed, though, is that we began seeing obvious addicts who didn't go to the lengths the aforementioned "society ladies" went to to hide their problems. Nope - these folks could be spotted from a country mile as they epitomized the characterization of a drug addict.

It continued to amaze me that while these patients' troubles were so obvious to me and my coworkers they were apparently invisible to the doctors whose signatures were on the prescriptions that were presented at our counter. Through my work as a pharmacy technician, I became keenly aware of the fact some doctors just don't care about much more than making a buck and fulfilling their patients' requests for more and more narcotics made them plenty of bucks.

While I know these drugs can be a very good treatment option and there are some people who take them and never get addicted - myself included - I have seen first-hand the danger they pose. I've seen families torn apart because of addiction to these perfectly legal drugs, senior citizens become drug dealers and people turn to stealing from the medicine cabinets of family and friends in order to get more Lortab. I've even had to call the police to report a prescription forged by a relative of one of my in-laws.

What's worse is that ever since OxyContin was introduced to the market in the mid-1990s and people discovered they could crush them to override the pill's time-release mechanism resulting in an immediate heroin-like high, the problem with addiction to prescription painkillers has only gotten worse.

I don't know what the future holds with regard to this issue. Some seem to think the FDA should list these drugs as Schedule II controlled substance - a move that, in theory, would make them harder to obtain and easier to track. While others would like to see a national database developed in which every prescription for these and other drugs like them would be logged for review by doctors, pharmacists and law enforcement across the country.

I can't say whether these or any other proposals currently being floated about would work; but I do know for sure that as long as drug companies, lobbyists, doctors and pharmacies are able to make money from this product, it will continue to be available and abused.

My stylin' crew

These girls never cease to amaze me with their wardrobe choices. They are so brave and bold with their selections and wear their outfits with the kind of confidence I wish I could bottle and sprinkle on some grown-ups I know who are sorely lacking in that department.

Amelia is loving her new patent-leather boots she received recently on a shopping trip with her Auntie Tee. She wear them with jeans, leggings and dresses and has gotten tons of compliments on them, which has only served to bolster her already sky-high confidence since favorable attention is her love language.

Her coat is also a gift from Auntie Tee, who found this darling piece in the juniors section of the local department store. In case you're wondering, my seven-year-old is not extraordinarily large for her age making it necessary to shop in an area typically reserved for teenagers. No, the fact she can fit quite well into a juniors coat is to be blamed on designers who have declared teenagers need to be the size of a seven-year-old in order to fit into basically adult clothes. Makes me gag!

Moving on: Lola is continuing to get lots of wear out of the cheap Easter hat we bought way back in spring. She finds many occasions throughout the week to wear this chapeau and is not picky with regards to what she wears it with. Some days she finds it goes beautifully with a nightgown while on other days it works perfectly with just a diaper and sandals.

Additionally, she is crazy for the pink, glittered Mary Janes she's sporting above. Those shoes were adored by Amelia when she was about this age so they're looking a bit worse for wear. Lola has already informed me that we need to add "sparkly shoes" to her Santa Claus list. I figure that jolly old elf can surely find room in his sack for a few pairs of these sparklers for my little fashionista, who will have surely worn these slap out by the time he makes his annual visit.

Full-circle moment

Check out the shiny ear bob sitting in my dear Amelia's left lobe! There's also one in her right ear, but I was unable to snap a decent photo of that side of her head.

Nevertheless, my gal finally opted to have her ears pierced after many years of proclaiming she would never let someone punch holes in her lobes. Her fear was born a few years ago after watching one of the Gosselin twins get her ears pierced on an episode of the now-defunct "Jon and Kate Plus Eight." Mady produced copious amounts of tears after her ear-piercing causing Amelia to decide no fashion accessory was worth that much pain.

However, she's been curious about having pierced ears ever since a handful of her friends got their ears pierced last year in first grade. Jeff and I both have pierced ears, although he no longer wears earrings. I have four holes in my left ear and three in my right while Jeff has two in his left ear and one in his right. Knowing we've both been through the process of getting our ears pierced, Amelia has numerous times quizzed each of us about our experiences. We've both shared that it's a process that comes with pain, but it's a pain that doesn't last.

Even with our assurances, Amelia continued to remember the reaction she witnessed from Mady Gosselin and decided she'd rather live a life without earrings. Jeff and I told her the choice was hers to make and left it at that.

It was Amelia's great-aunt - Auntie Tee - who convinced Amelia to go ahead and get her ears pierced and she made the event possible thanks to a tube of Emla cream, a prescription-strength local anesthetic that deeply numbs the area on which it is placed.

Auntie Tee - who is the baby sister of my momma - keeps Emla on hand for when she needs to visit the orthopedist for a steroid injection to get her joints moving properly. However, it proved to be the perfect solution for Amelia's fear of pain from getting her ears pierced.

A couple of hours prior to visiting the jewelry counter at Walmart, Auntie Tee slathered Amelia's ear lobes with Emla. Her "trick" worked like a charm because Amelia reported she didn't feel a thing when Auntie Tee pinched her ears "real hard" a while after the cream had taken effect.

The piercing went off without a hitch, and Amelia didn't issue a complaint until several hours after Auntie Tee had brought her home. I gave Amelia some Motrin to ease the pain and reduce the swelling, but that's the only dose she's had to take. She's been good to go for over a week now and has done a terrific job of cleaning around her earrings and turning them three times a day.

Amelia being taken to get her ears pierced by Auntie Tee was, for me, a full-circle moment because Auntie Tee took me to get not only my first set of earrings, but also my second. I was not yet a toddler when she took me to get my first piercings so I don't recall that trip; but I can remember quite a bit of our trip to get my second set of holes seeing as how I was, I believe, six years old at the time.

I think it's just precious that this milestone event has become a tradition in our family to be shared with Auntie Tee. She's already got another eager girl waiting in the wings to get her ears pierced as Lola has announced she wanted to get her ears "pinched" too.

I told Lola she would be able to get earrings when she mastered going to the potty - something she's been struggling with for quite a while. Nothing has motivated her to master this task like the promise of getting some ear bobs of her very own so Auntie Tee may be making another trip to the Walmart jewelry counter in the near future.

I just hope she still has some of that Emla cream.

Auntie Tee is pictured on the left with her daughter Dee Dee and grandson Connor. I felt it important to show that while she is my girls' great-aunt, she in no way looks old enough to be anyone's great-anything. Time has been very good to Auntie Tee, and she is a master at keeping herself in tip-top shape. She could give lessons on how to go through life looking 20 years younger than your actual age. Her daughter has obviously benefited from her mother's ability to stave off the aging process as she still looks 25 even though she has a 16-year-old son.

New creations

Amelia and Lola have been exercising their creativity lately, and being the proud momma that I am, I just cannot resist sharing their latest works.

Lola was so proud of her lizard that she demanded I capture a photo of it so she could erase it and get back to the job of making her next masterpiece. I was thrilled with her work, but was curious as to why her lizard was equipped with as many legs as a spider. Upon questioning, Lola answered with an exasperated tone, "Momma, it's not a real lizard. It's imaginary." I guess that settles that.

Lola works almost exclusively on the Doodle Pad these days. If she had her choice, she would create works with crayons, pen, pencil, and Magic Marker. However, her use of those implements has been curbed since she decided to eat crayons, draw on herself instead of paper with pens, gnaw the erasers off of every pencil in the house and bite the tips off of numerous markers - an act that left her teeth and tongue a strange shade of gray that took a while to fade away.

This beautiful piece, titled "Playing with my Sister," was created by Amelia for a book she made at school. It's kind of an All About Me book in which she illustrated some of her favorite things. In this selection, she shows her and Lola playing on the trampoline while the sprinkler sprays them with water. This playtime fun was dreamed up by their daddy, and they never tired of bouncing around under the cool spray.

The fact Amelia took the time to draw it as one of her favorite summer activities shows just how much she enjoyed it. I love the details she put into her work right down to the shoe bag that hangs next to the ladder on our trampoline. She's a detail-oriented little lady, that's for sure. I foresee this aspect of her personality being a source of both joy and frustration in the years to come. I know this because she inherited this part of her personality from me, and I can say with certainty it is both a blessing and a curse.