Techno-hell-no.

I’m gonna have to call a spade a spade: technology has ruined my life.

I know that’s hyperbole – my life is hardly ruined when it’s all said and done.

But in the moment, when I’m wrestling with some kind of issue, it sure feels like my head might explode at any minute and kill me dead.

I’m writing this on my iphone and not a computer. Why? I seem to have misplaced my laptop charger. Grrrr.

Yesterday was a good example of the price I pay to live in this futuristic world that looks less like the Jetsons and more like that post-body kid movie Wall-E.

Starting around Tuesday the code I use to send controlled substance prescriptions to pharmacies quit working. Once it quit working I tried various combinations of the code to no avail. I could only assume someone hacked me, the software malfunctioned, or I had a mini-stroke involving just the part of my brain involved in remembering such codes.

I have been using this passcode (they call it a passcode and not a password for some odd reason meant to confuse me further) for a couple of years. Suddenly all I got was error messages and notices that I would be locked out for 15 minutes as a punishment for getting the code wrong too many times. You get three tries before being temporarily locked out.

The fifteen minute lockout is annoying when a) you need to refill a damn prescription for someone and b) you know in your heart that anyone trying to hack in has fifteen minutes to spare AND YOU DON’T.

It’s dumb!

This went on an on with me trying to login to different computers, wracking my brain about the passcode and finally throwing up my hands and asking Kristine to help me figure out how to reset the whole thing.

When finally I got help from my medical software company (I hate them..more later on that) it took three phone calls and five people to reset the code because I needed to come up with an S/N code or credentials that no one could find anywhere (not on the back of my token like it was supposed to be).

What’s a token??

It’s a little FOB thing that generates one time codes (OTCs) that are used along with the passcode to tell the pharmacy that an actual person with a DEA license is drugging your children.

Why am I drugging our children?? I’m probably having to drug everyone in part because technology has created a world not everyone can keep up with.

Some people need more nature, more free relaxed brain time, less busy busy and less time living inside electronic devices. I’m one of those people and so are a bunch of kids and because we can’t slow down the world or change this predicament we have to find ways of calming down our brains enough to focus and get through life.

I have a fair number of kids on these meds because they work. I wasn’t a person who thought I’d whip out a pill for everything and mostly I don’t. But honestly if you can keep a kid learning and engaged and feeling some mastery over their lives, well, you do it.

I don’t want to hear it because my overriding commitment to medicine and kids is to do no harm and so I work hard to help everyone understand this is a tool to handle a brain/culture mismatch. Most people don’t “have” ADHD. Instead, the world has an accessibility issue. Not every brain can take the sort of stimulation we live with every day and it’s……technology’s fault.

By Friday I was desperate to get my passcode working. The pile of prescription refill requests was beginning to tower over me. Come on already.

As society’s legal drug dealer, the rule is I must send all the prescriptions monthly – every month – for each of my patients who needs this kind of help.

Again, I don’t want to hear how all this meth we are pumping into kids is wrong. Teeny tiny doses help their brains stay on task so everyone including the kid isn’t miserable. It might not be ideal but until you have a better idea get off your soapbox. I live it with these kids and families and no one is taking the easy road. Everyone is doing their best and none of us have the ticket to getting off this merry-go-round so meantime, we do no harm and we cope.

I don’t believe a computer prescribing system like this make us safe from drug abuse but the government eats this kind of thing up.

So every month I have to send a new prescription in for each person who takes these drugs and I have to do it by computer which is funny because technology has been a big part of creating the need for these meds in the first place.

Kids are supposed to run free like maniacs part of the day and sit still and learn some things for a few hours in school, too. They should do some chores, eat some fresh foods, talk to their family and friends in the neighborhood and get some decent sleep.

Those are the things that are good for kids. Those things plus some of what I call “face down in the shag rug time.”

FDITSRT is the time we used to spend prostrate, bored, napping or daydreaming on the floor – breathing in a ton of allergens before we all became allergic – face down on the avocado green rug while our parents were ignoring us.

Frickin’ ALL of this has been disrupted by technology.

And you aren’t supposed to have carpet anymore now that we understand dust mites but whatever.

I finally got my passcode changed using an OTC from the FOB token and some mystery moves the lady who finally was able to help me walked me through. And note…she struggled too to find just the right combo of buttons to click on.

We don’t push buttons anymore – we click on them. Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

I ordered three new laptop chargers. Not sure why three but I was jangly from all the technology wrangling when I placed the Amazon order and I just wanted to be safe. Like the time I ordered five iphone fast chargers so maybe just maybe I’d be able to find at least ONE at any given time of need.

I do not advocate raising kids in a world without screens when we live in a world dominated by them. Your son or daughter needs to know how to operate a joystick and a video thingie if they are going to ever become a surgeon or whiz inventor.

We can’t all be construction workers but I’m gonna say right now the trades are full of mentally healthy people who live in the real world and use their bodies the way God intended and not just the parts from the wrist down that type into search engines.

I’m sorry to start off the day so grouchy but dang it to hell I’ve had a week.

I am about to get up and start my day with nature’s remedy…pulling weeds.

Garden like your life depends on it because from where this technophobe stands, it does!