A PILL ORGANISER FOR AN OLD CODGER
Doctors are habitually suspicious of their patients for being forgetful in the proper adherence to the prescribed drugs. When a patient visits the doctor for the second time, the inevitable question is,
“ Did you take the drugs regularly?”
The situation is worse when the patient is the doctors dad or mum.
“ I know you very well, you are crazy and careless. Do not expect me to treat you when things get worse”
She always forgets the fact that her husband is also a doctor who is more than eager to treat his father in law. Engineers always have a plan B.
The dad with the best of health becomes a patient no sooner their children passes out from the medical college. From that day onwards I have been a diabetic with high blood pressure on top of my memory loss syndrome inflicted by the family doctors. Guinea pigs are at least not abused by the researchers.
My memory had always been explicit since I started using the Facebook. I remember all birthdays of all my family members, thanks to the fb reminders and my wife thinks I am rejuvenated by her welpenela porridge. A handful of pills and capsules started entering my system twice a day with strict instructions on my daily diet plan coming from UK, sponsored free of charge by viber.
Almost on a weekly basis my fingers and arms are pierced and the results sent by viber to my daughter in UK. Sometimes the skyrocketing prices of drugs invariably makes me suicidal. My bucket list, although not very long, overshadows that pleasurable option too.
As a firm believer of my own unfaltering senses and mindfulness, I have never missed or confused my drugs. I have full confidence of my memory even though weekend trysts with the bottle and my two sons have had murderous results on my brain cells. Old farts smell the most.
Disaster in the form of a blessing struck when I reached London on a visit to see my two grandchildren. The checklist on my health sent from London was so long, I was supposed to carry an additional 40 kilos of luggage on medical reports. The exorbitant additional charges on extra luggage by the national carrier shouldered the blame for not carrying this non existent bundle of the requested medical check ups.
No sooner we hit Heathrow, my daughtet declared that, I have not been taking drugs as prescribed and I failed miserably on her subsequent cross examination. She reminded me of Indika Thotawatte who could exactly say what are inside 3 boxes by just touching them in front of a Sirasa audience. Just like any other wife, mine added fuel to fire by branding me as the most stubborn husband on earth (my son in law later agreed with this statement with total confidence) when it came to medications. At least the rest of the stubborn encounters in Sri Lanka forgotten.
On the way back home she stopped at ASDA a famous supermarket and among the things she bought was a pill organiser which can hold your weeks supply of pills in 14 tiny compartments, 7 marked AM and rest PM. End of the story and no stupid dad can miss a single pill. At least she would have thought so.
Weeks passed and the markings AM and PM vanished due to continuous usage. I am now taking extra precautions not to mix the two doses up. So far no complaints except for a few headaches here and there, thanks to English ingenuity and consideration shown in inventing pill organisers for old codgers like me.
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