At least it's not meth, right?

Guess what I've found out about childhood cancer…one of the long term side effects is apparently a raging case of hypochondria.

It's not hard to figure out, but Peyton is addicted to pills.  Not in an Amy-Winehouse-Betty-Ford-bound sort of way…but I suppose that's what happens when you take daily medications for thirty months.

Now that we're done with the chemo, I'm all NO MORE PILLS!

And she's all JUST ONE MORE PILL, PLEASE!

The weeks after Peyton finished treatment was a series of sicknesses. Just normal kid stuff…sinus infection, upper respiratory infection…stuff that might seem major to the normal family but are a walk in the park in my world.

However, these mild bouts of crud brought antibiotics and cough syrups and pills for aches and pains…and she loves them.

She CRAVES them!  Every night, she asks for medicine, she tells me how she can't sleep until she has something.

Her port surgery last week brought a new bottle of pills, a nice healthy dose of painkiller.  And she got them for a few nights because I know she did ache from the surgery.

However, eleven days later?  I don't believe you, little girl! You can put your hand over the scar and moan all you want about how it hurts.  You're fine, you minature junkie!

While part of me cracks up every night as she comes up with a new ailment that needs to be medicated, another part is so sad.

I wanted to be finished with the pills so we could go back to a normal life.

She wants the pills because that's all the normal life she's ever known.

You can also find me at Hope4Peyton, The Mayhew Review and Twitter, you should come by, it's nice…we have cookies! Feel free to email me at Anissa.Mayhew (at) gmail (dot )com.