Side effects may include ...

I just got home from the doctor's office with a new prescription (okay, it's an anti-psychotic, which makes me a little bit sad -- is there something I need to know?) and one of those booklets with bright colors and patient information written on a 3rd-grade reading level.

This booklet is very pretty. It's yellow and blue. The front of it has a picture of a woman in a red dress staring into a pretty green field, with cloud-covered hills rising in the background.

... And that's about the extent of its usefulness. As with most patient booklets, it's pretty, but all it gives you is some basic information and a Top Ten list of side effects, leaving all the rest of the pertinent info to the clinical booklets with the magnifying-glass-worthy print.

In this case, the basic information wasn't very informative ("The exact way [this medicine] ... works is unknown"), and the side effects mostly included the usual -- nausea, vomiting, thoughts of giving up one's day job and joining the circus. But one of the common side effects got my attention:

The most common side effects ... were: an inner sense of restlessness or need to move (akathisia), constipation, and accidental injury.

I'm not quite sure how doctors pin accidental injury on a pill (I mean, it is an accident ...), but in any case, it's a perfect cover for my innate clumsiness. I run into things a lot. Doorways seem to be a favorite target, even ones I walk through every day.

So now I have a good excuse when my inner sense of restlessness causes me to do something dumb, such as run into a doorway and/or bump my head. It was the medicine, I swear!