Christina Frangou is a special contributor to the Globe and Mail. In her article with them she speaks to the effects of becoming a widow in your thirties. This week's blog post speaks to the younger widowers and widowers.
"I sit cross-legged on a white mat spread on the bathroom floor and examine the rows of medication lined up on the shelf of the vanity – neat piles of green-and-white boxes of blood thinners, a rainbow of pill bottles, painkillers worth thousands of dollars. I study the labels: Percocet, Zofran, Maxeran, dexamethasone. Take daily. Take twice daily. Take with food. Do not crush. Do not chew. Take as needed.
I wonder if a one-month supply of drugs intended to save a sick person's life is enough to end a healthy one's. It probably is if you consume them not as directed. Chew them, crush them, don't take with food. Take handfuls at the same time. But the order matters. You must swallow an anti-nausea pill first so you don't vomit up a $248 cancer pill. This, I know. I've watched someone take cancer medication when he was trying not to die.
I remember the day we brought these drugs home. On the afternoon of June 1, 2013, my 36-year-old husband, Spencer McLean, was discharged from Calgary's Tom Baker Cancer Centre. As he changed from his hospital gown to his jeans, he let out a sob; he'd grown so thin that his jeans kept sliding down even with his belt cinched as tight as it could go..."
To read the rest of the article, check it out at https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/relationships/the-widowhood-effect/article33344335/
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