I need to head to Mom’s today.  Her pill box needs attention.  We had a little bump in the road last week.  The doctors have changed her meds several times over the last month.  I’ve taken away all pills that she no longer needs.  I don’t want her to take any by accident.

Her pill regiment had been the same for years, but last month, after she got really sick, the doctor stopped two of those meds.  He put her on a different regiment.   It was confusing — even to me.  As we sat there, figuring out the dosages and dropping them into her new pill box, I knew she wouldn’t “get it”.  So I took one of each of the two pills that were stopped and actually taped them onto her hospital discharge papers.  ‘See, Mom, these two pills — you are no longer taking them.  I am going to write that here underneath them’.  DOCTOR STOPPED THESE TWO MEDS — I TOOK THEM WITH ME and I signed my name.

The next morning, she called, ‘did you take some of my pills?  I can’t find them.  They are not here’.

Last week, after she was feeling short of breath for several days, we realized that she had set one prescription bottle up high in the  medicine cabinet, thinking she wasn’t suppose to be taking those pills.   I hadn’t filled the box that last time.  Things had settled down a bit.  She had been on the same pills for a couple weeks.    She told me she could do it — by doing it before the boxes got completely empty.  She would just follow suit.  Well, that didn’t work.  Lesson learned.

It’s hard to tell right now how much of this is forgetfulness or just not listening or the “confusion” .  I just know that I have to do the pill box.  It is important.  She is taking meds for three different “ailments”, two of them are life-threatening.

And I pray to God every day that the pills themselves cause no harm.

God, help me help her.  Amen