MEDICATION

MEDICATION

Overnight stay

After a simple fatty

Lump removal

Which bled and bled

They confined me to bed

Then woke me up to take

My blood pressure

Blood pressure

Rising steeply from

Overnight worrying

About the parking

When no more than

Six hours stretched

To twenty-four

Finally discharged

As long as I promise

To visit my doctor

To get medication…

Medication’s what you need

If you want to be

Dad’s record breaker

Initially

He prescribes to me

The standard option

Ramipril Capsules

Ten milligrams

But it makes

Little difference

Then he adds

Bisoprolol Fumarate

Ten milligrams

In tablet form

The name reminds me

Of the gunpowder

Ian Fleming used to take

Still not low enough

The cocktail mix

Gains another

Chemical ingredient

Amlopidine

Five milligrams

In tablet form

Also in tablet form

Two point five milligrams

Of Bendroflumethiazide

They tell me it’s

A water tablet which

Either makes me pee

Or prevents it

Finally added

Into the mix goes

The national drug of choice

Simvastatin Tablets

Twenty milligrams

It used to be forty

Then there was an “issue”

Seven years now

I’ve been taking this stuff

Four in the morning

One in the evening

Keeping me alive

Wonder if I’d still be

Here without them

Martin A W Holmes, Dec 2016