The Unknown Side Effects of Accutane

Written by Meg RuoccoPhotography by Calder Sell Sophomore year of college I went on Accutane. In case you don’t know, Accutane is a tiny, pill-sized, nuclear bomb of vitamin A you ingest to get rid of your acne. Side effects may include all of the moisture being sucked out of your body, insomnia, heightened emotions, and chapped lizard elbows. But when you go back for the holidays your extended family will say, “your skin looks better! Not nearly as splotchy! Still red though.” So it’s worth it. As a woman on Accutane, I had to get my blood tested once a month to check my vitals and make sure I wasn’t pregnant with a conehead baby. A conehead baby looks like exactly how it sounds, so whatever you’re picturing is correct. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it—I escaped the process conehead-baby free. But, for six months, I did get to witness something equally as exciting: the inner workings of the UW-Madison University Health Center. After going to UHS more than anyone should, I came to understand that exactly two women run that clinic: an old-old woman and a not-as-old woman. The old-old woman is very no-nonsense. She put me in that reclining blood-testing chair, took my blood, told me I was all set, and shooed me out. The not-as-old woman… you know that girl in middle school who loved horses? Like, maybe she didn’t even ride horses, but she carried around a bunch of those small chapter books revolving around horse-based literature and wore those shirts with glitter on them that said “Peace, Love, Horses?” Well, that horse girl has grown into a Horse Lady, and now she works at the University Health Center. To this day I do not know this woman’s name but—and I don’t mean to be hyperbolic—this woman has been the biggest influence on who I am now and who I will be forever. The very last time I got my blood drawn I had Horse Lady. To be clear, I don’t know if she actually likes horses, but if I found out she did I’d be like, “yeah.” So it’s my last time getting my blood drawn, I have HL, and at this point I’ve had her three times before, which adds up to about 12 minutes total that I’ve spent with this woman. Over the course of those previous 12 minutes she has said the following things to me:“You and my husband have the same birthday! He builds LEGOs and professionally supervises people who wear ankle monitors. We also do archery together at the renaissance fair, when we have time.” I do love a birthday buddy. “I love penguins!” My dad does too, so I feel like that comment only strengthened both my relationship with HL and my relationship with my father. “My daughter recently came back from studying abroad in France. She also recently came out of her slutty phase.” I mean, we’ve all been there, right?This last meeting, I’m ready. What more could she possibly tell me? Does she have a grifter living rent-free in her attic who’s trying to become a professional waiter? Maybe she uses her archery skills to act as a Madison-based vigilante at night. Is her daughter going through another slutty phase? I don’t know, but I’d like to find out. I’m sitting in the blood chair, left arm out, looking up at the ceiling and nodding politely at whatever small-talk HL has for me that day. “Did you know you and my husband have the same birthday?”“Haha yeah you actually told me that last time!” All of a sudden there’s a lull in her monologue, and I realize that HL asked me a question. It’s unprompted. It’s unheard of. It’s about my major. I respond. “I’m an English major!” Another pause. I can feel the electricity in the air. “English you say!” This is how she spoke. “I studied English way back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Have you studied Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales?”I had. I told her as such. HL: “I memorized the prologue to that poem when I was young. Still know it today!” “Oh that’s fantasti-”And I was interrupted. Mid-compliment. By this woman, sitting to the left of me with a needle in her hand, reciting the old English prologue of Chaucer’s 15th century The Canterbury Tales, a poem famous for being really long. And I’m sitting in the blood chair, looking at this woman projecting from the diaphragm:“WHAN THAT APRILLE WITH HIS SHOURES SOOTE // THE DROGHTE OF MARCH HATH PERCED TO THE ROOTE // AND BATHED EVERY VEYNE IN SWICH LICOUR // OF WHICH VERTU ENGENDRED IS THE FLOUR.” I’d now like to take this time to remind you that I was in, for all intents and purposes, a doctor’s office. HL’s performance took 2 minutes. And I didn’t know what to do, so, at the end of it all, I clapped. HL told me, after all that, that she also studied music in college. And I mean, at this point, part of me wanted to see what else was gonna happen. So I asked.“What was your focus?”And she said, without missing a beat, “vocal performance.”“That’s gre-”Once again I was interrupted. This time, by this woman still holding a needle meant to stab my arm, singing an old Italian love ballad. Sung, no. Belted. In Italian. In the university health center. And when she was done, I had no choice but to clap again. HL bowed, genuinely bowed, still holding the needle that was supposed to enter my body, and finally stabbed me. I left that day changed. For the better, I like to think. HL was the completely sung hero I’d always dreamt of meeting. I knew so much about who she was and what she did, and during our last interaction she told me to have a good day and called me “Maggie”. Close enough, I thought. Close enough.