A Helpful Guide to Understanding Bitch Pill Side Effects

I Hope Your Potty Has a Bidet

Congratulations! Scars now occupy the place on your chest where your boobs were once. You’ve had chemo,and watched your hair drift from your scalp like autumn leaves. You may or may not have enjoyed daily visits to microwave your chest, but now you are finished.

You’ve run the race. You rang the bell. Posted on social media. Wore proudly your “fuck cancer” tee shirts.

YOU MADE IT!!! You Badass you!

Congratulations! Let’s break out the bubbly! (Make mine non-alcoholic, but no judgement if you want the real thing.)

Oh, but wait. There’s more. Not so fast on that victory lap!

The doctor will see you now…

Cue to ominous music.

Lemme tell you. When you’ve been through a cancer diagnosis and treatment, Freddie Krueger is child’s play. You befriend clowns now and wonder if maybe their hair grew in red because of chemotherapy. Axe murders are just misunderstood and need a little cuddle.

You are immune to any fears Hollywood may throw at you.

Bathroom scales, dressing rooms, dwindling bank accounts… nothing scares you anymore. Well, maybe not so much with these things. But hey, I’m only human, kay?

But when the nurse says you need to see the doctor-Hellloooooo! Welcome to true terror.

Your mind races. You envision walking into the exam room. That damn pink hospital shirt is draped over the exam table. The nurse is unusually quiet.

Then the doctor enters. JUST HURRY UP AND TELL ME THE BAD NEWS, I screech. Yeah, I’ll take Freddie Krueger over this suspense…

The nurse interrupts the horror movie in my mind.

“She wants to discuss hormone therapy.”

Oh wait, wat? My heart rate slows down. A bit. That sounds innocuous enough.

Oh, naïve little me.

But nonetheless, it is this little naïve me that shows up in the exam room which, thankfully, has no pink gown in sight.

After the initial check in, my doctor assumes her doctorly look. She sets her pen down, and regards me with, wait, what is that? Compassion? Sobriety?

The soundtrack in my head just went dark. It’s the music you hear when the horror movie heroine gets into car without looking in the back seat first.

She’s talking about hormone blockers. You’ll need to take them 5–7 years, she is telling me.

Oh, yawn. I can dial back the adrenalin response. Switch the sound track to something cheery. There’s no more cancer. I just need to take a little pill.

There are side effects, she says. Child’s play! I have been through fucking breast cancer treatment. If you look up Badass in the dictionary, you’ll see my picture, right next to the Terminator.

Okay, I say. I got this. I swagger off to Walgreens.

Narrator: This would be the last time Theresa swaggers.

Oh, simple me. My first little speed bump was reading the list of side effects. There were a lot. And I mean a LOT.

As I was to find, the list of side effects needed a translation. Sort of like Google Translate but geared toward cancer survivors. A Cancer Translate Dictionary, if you will.

Given my love of words, I graciously volunteered to assist with this worthy project, consisting of a team of, well, one person. That would be me. But I digress.

Let’s dive into those side effects, shall we? I will just highlight a few. To cover all of them would result in enough words to encircle the globe 15 times on a plane that offers no margaritas.

Diarrhea.

For starters, I must point out that this is not a noun, like the Oxford English Dictionary categorizes it. One does not “have” diarrhea like one possesses a cup of coffee. Or a souvenir spoon collection.

One DOES diarrhea.

It is a VERB. A very busy, explosive, all-consuming verb. Used in a sentence: “Theresa can’t come to the phone right now as she is busy diarrhea-ing.”

The etymology of the word is fascinating.

If we break this word down to its Latin roots we will find, Dia-meaning, your butthole wants to die, rreahus-run like a rabid monkey is chasing you. Put together, it means- run fast for your butthole’s sake.

Yes, this side effect should come with the warning, “You May Wish to Install a Bidet on Your Throne Lest Your Delicate Starfish Protest.”

Failure to do so will have dire consequences.

Your butt WILL become a Burning Ring of Fire. Music scholars have pondered that an encounter with dysentery might have inspired Johnny Cash to write his famous song, but the theory remains hotly disputed.

And for the love of all deities, stay the hell away from Starbucks dark roast. Trust me on this.

The Butt Trumpet Symphony holds nothing over this next side effect:

Joint Pain.

And no, it is not referring to a harsh doobie or the sadness one feels when all their stash has been smoked.

We’re talking JOINT pain. You know-where bones are connected to other bones.

We take our joints for granted when they are quietly doing their job. Like strolling down a path or flipping off annoying drivers.

This side effect would be more accurately described as: Old Ladyhood.

Now, having never been 80-year-old before, I can only imagine it is this decade. I softened my scientific rigor on arriving at a particular age. It could be what a 70-year-old feels. But yet I know many 70-year-olds who could kick my ass mountain climbing, so remember there are always outliers in any scientific research.

This side effect seems benign enough… until one needs to set down their dark roast, spring forth from their Barcalounger and hit the head. (See the aforementioned first side effect mentioned.)

One does not spring forth when one’s hip is suffering from this side effect. I recommend getting one of those helpful lift recliners. You’re welcome.

While there are multitude of other side effects (3,765 at last count), I will only highlight one other that.

Bitchiness.

Or, it doesn’t call it that exactly, But how the hell else would a woman feel after 2 hours of daily explosive diarrhea, hot flashes that could heat a Victorian era factory-complete with small children, and the realization that you now involuntarily grunt anytime you wish to move to a standing position.

I pray to God I don’t develop a resting bitch face. It is a real and present danger.

I rest my case.

And this, my friends, is the reason I call them my Bitch pills.

I was averse to calling them this lest I create a self-fulfilling prophecy as my hypochondriac tendencies are robust.

But there it is.

Now remember, ladies, you may or may not experience these side effects.

I hope you don’t.

In the meanwhile, if you run into me, tread lightly. You’ve been warned.

Thanks so much for reading. You can find me around the internet at www.theresawinn.com, on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. If you’d like to support my writing in a small way, feel free to buy me a coffee.