Pills Again

After a quick search, I see that I've already written nine times about Dean's pills since I began this blog. Our life seems to revolve around these little critters, so here's one more story about a "pill scare".

Last Friday night Dean hollered to me from the kitchen that he'd forgotten to take his pills that morning. He could see that pills were still in their morning slot in the weekly pill organizer he uses.

This happens occasionally, and usually it's nothing to worry about. But seconds later, he reports that he didn't take them the night before either! Now that would be something to worry about, so I dropped what I was doing and raced to the kitchen to verify what he was telling me.

We discovered that he was thinking it was the next night, Saturday night, so naturally there were pills in Saturday morning and Friday night that he hadn't taken yet. Whew, what a relief to see that although we had made a mistake in what day it was, it was not a mistake with great consequences, like not taking his pills would have been.

We've all made multiple mistakes during our lifetimes, but our merciful God races to our rescue to help oversee the situation, just as I raced to the kitchen. We can be sure in His capable Caregiver hands, our lives will make sense in eternity, if we've turned our lives over to Him and simply make the call for His help.

Remembering to Be a Husband

I was rather disgruntled when I woke up to find that Dean had forgotten to take his pills. Today was one of the three weekly days that he goes by medical van to an adult day structure, and normally the only thing I do physically to help him get ready is put on his socks.

This morning was one of the few times I was lazy and went back to sleep after putting his socks on, thinking that for once he'd make it out the door on his own alright. But alas, it seems about 90% of the time I don't remind him to take his pills, he forgets. This meant I had to drive all the way to the rec center, a couple of miles away, to give him the pills myself.

Just last night I was marveling though at something Dean always manages to remember. He never neglects to lock the front door of our house at night. I always check, just to make sure, but invariably he gets it done. It must be some manly, protective activity that he has held on to all these years. It's so sweet that he has honed in on that important duty. Well, I guess he does remember to put the trash can out to the curb once a week too. Very seldom does he forget that husbandly chore either.

God appears this way to me sometimes too. When it seems He's forgotten about taking care of me and I'm left in charge of getting it all done, I know in my heart there are some vital protections He still provides, including taking away my sin/trash. Lord, help me accept your never-failing love and mercies, and know that they are of far more value than my mere "busyness" of life.

I've always liked this picture. Is he leaning on me or protecting me? Maybe a bit of both!

Pill Panic

Don't know when I've felt such panic. The other day when we came home from the drug store with some new pain medication for Dean, I asked where the pills were. We had only been home a few minutes, but he announced that he had hid them. My heart must have skipped several beats when I immediately began every persuasion known to man (and woman) to get him to reveal the hiding place of his new powerful drug.

My first instinct for the hiding place turned out to be correct, but I didn't let him know that I had already located them in the top drawer of his dresser. I needed his willing compliance if I was going to be the administrator of this medication, a very necessary measure due to his memory issues.

And the "memory loss" argument finally won him over. By the next day, when he went to his adult day program, I had convinced him that I would put the amount of pills in the pill bottle that he needed just for that day, and hold the rest aside in another location (undisclosed to him, of course).

But then, I noticed that he was getting easily overdosed with the two pills he was allowed, resulting in slurred speech and being uneasy on his feet. So, I came up with an idea. A deceptive one, but necessary for his health and safety. I switched the few pills in the bottle to Tylenol. And if I felt he should have the "real stuff", I could give him one (just one) along with his daily pills in his pill organizer. (There's so many in there already he surely wouldn't notice one more.)

At one point I was wondering if my little "scheme" would be undetected. Because the Tylenol pills look totally different than the "real" pain pills. Different shape, different size. Would he trust me enough to accept the change without questioning the different-looking pills? Fortunately, I don't think he has so far even remembered that they are different. So, the crisis has been averted for this round.

Isn't it nice that our great God-Caregiver has the power and knows us well enough to give us substitutes when we need them? I pray that I can trust God enough to look out for my welfare, especially when my ability to make wise choices is seriously impaired. God has the situation under control, but we do need to reveal our "hiding places" and willingly allow Him to administer His will.

our trusty pill organizer, where one more pill won't be noticed

Escaped Pills

This morning when I was filling my own pill organizer, I noticed Dean's pill organizer had one of the little boxes open just a little. Much to my chagrin, Tuesday night's pill door was not only open, but there were three little "escapees" on the loose! Did they fall on the floor somewhere that only a curious dog or child would be able to locate and put in "solitaire" (i.e. their own mouth)?

Dean came into the kitchen at about that time and when I asked what he knew about the "pill break", he informed me that he had noticed that pills had dropped to the floor when he took his pills the night before. But not to worry, he found them and taken them along with his other pills. Well, there's a whole new thing to worry about...what pills were they?

They ended up being "significant" pills, but evidently Dean was able to weather the storm overdose, because, after all, here he was at five in the morning, wide awake and telling me about it with coherent speech and everything.

When bigger things start falling out of their prescribed places in our lives, we follow a similar pattern of wondering, worrying, questioning, and searching. How patient a God we have, who allows us to experience these very human responses. In the end, we often don't get our questions answered, we never find what we're looking for, and it's especially then that our worry can spin out of control.

But God has given us a special tool to help us weather these very real storms of life. It's called faith. Nothing gets the emotions under control better than a healthy dose of this worry-buster. When we turn the controls over to God, He never steers us into waters we can't handle. Things find their perspective in the bigger picture that God Himself controls.

I needed this little reminder this morning. God has the answers and He's in control.

That BIG Tractor

I almost hate to write about Dean's pills again, but it is the all-consuming thing in my life right now. Instead of being awake all night, now he's sleeping night and day. He slept through breakfast. But it blew me away when he wouldn't wake up when his Meal on Wheels arrived. It was time to try and reach his doctors and nurses on the phone again.

He got up an hour or so later though, ate lunch, and then I had him help sign some Christmas cards, just so he wouldn't go right back to bed. The notes he wrote on them were a bit undecipherable, but I got a laugh, hearing him read one out loud as he was writing it. He was reminding someone about the big tractor that ran over him. "I mean it was a big, Big, BIG tractor," he wrote. Just comical how he said it.

At least I did have two small accomplishments today, since I seemed to be a failure at trying to talk to anyone about his pills. I got some Christmas cards ready to mail, and I gave the dog a bath.

Jesus gives me small spiritual victories too, even while there's these big, Big, BIG ones out there waiting for me to tackle. I'm not in the battle alone, even though it feels like it some days when no one seems to return my calls. I'll just "make do".

Pill Plethora

Dean's medicine regimen has become somewhat of a nightmare lately. We saw his psychiatrist a few days ago and he is concerned about Dean's weight gain recently. Honestly, I'm getting tired of re-attaching his suspenders which keep popping off. Since we know which medicine is most to blame for his added girth, he thinks it wise to wean him off of it and try something else.

Unfortunately, this has been very upsetting to his sleep schedule. The second night he was up about every hour or so. Without medicines, Dean would never sleep, due to his brain injury, so in addition to decreasing his agitation and impulsiveness during the day, some of the medicines are there just to allow him to sleep at night.

But then we got a call from the home health nurse saying that due to his increased blood pressure readings this month, his primary care doctor wants to increase the blood pressure medicine he's currently taking. This is really throwing a monkey wrench in everything, because the blood pressure medicine can cause weight gain too, and even memory loss and disorientation. Do we really want him to have more of that?

So I am really waiting to hear what both doctors decide. I give them my input, but know that they will probably have the final word on what we end up doing. There are many options and I am just here to make sure they look at all of them.

In a way we have the final word on our salvation. God can present me with all the options, but it is up to me to decide my eternal destiny. Wow, it feels good to be on par with the doctors for once.

The Pill Organizer

Having just retrieved Dean's new pill organizer that his nurse filled earlier in the week, and replaced it with the empty one I am reminded that today, Sunday, is truly the start of a new week. When you look at most calenders I also find that Sunday does not come at the end, but at the beginning. It's even referred to as the first day of the week in dictionaries.

When I read the Ten Commandments, it's like having a pill organizer. In the very center of it, we are told with great detail to remember something that involves a weekly reminder. The Sabbath reminds us of our Creator. The world was created in six days, and we are invited to share a time of rest with the Creator of the universe. We are able to rest on that day, because it was the day God blessed.

Daniel 7:25 speaks about a world power that will change times and laws. Don't underestimate the power of the master Deceiver. I believe he has been at work on this for a very long time, with much success.

Pills Come First!

Things were sizzling today, and not just temperature-wise. I had so many housekeeping and caregiving details to remember in preparation to leave Dean for the day, that I didn't remember the most important, crucial detail of all until I was on the way to carpool for an out-of-town board meeting.

To remind, er, watch him take his morning pills!

Dean's pills were still in the pill organizer when I got home. I'm assuming the adult day program survived any additional crankiness. I haven't gotten any calls from them yet. Thank you, God, for covering my neglect, and preventing any disasters.

This just goes to show that when we think we have everything in our Christian walk covered, we can still be overlooking a vital detail. But God has promised to "fill in our blanks". He covers our momentary lapses with His perfect love and shows us how to do better...next time.

Next time: pills BEFORE oatmeal!

Pushing Pills

I have come to see how really freeing it has been to have home health nurses visit our house every week. Our regular nurse, who usually fills Dean's pill organizer, wasn't scheduled to come last week and I forgot to ask the other nurse till it was too late. So Sunday morning I was up bright and early, sorting and filling the pill box. It felt odd doing it myself again. I had mixed feelings.

I had some guilt feelings about having the nurse do it in the first place a few months ago. It's not much work really. Plus at first I was worried she would make mistakes. It was hard to turn over the responsibility to someone else. I had so much ownership in it.

I slowly enjoyed not having to "push" the pills into that little box though. And then the feeling suddenly hit me this week that maybe I deserved to be free of the task. After all, I had done it religiously for over ten years. It's about time to turn it over to someone who will get paid for it.

The bath aides who help him shower three times a week have also been a blessing. They not only relieve my mind about him falling in the shower, but I don't have to argue with him about whether to shampoo. They keep track of it in their reports. How many years I have struggled with these issues on my own. It's nice to have reinforcements there to lighten the load even a little.

All I can say is that God knew when the time was right for the nurses to come on the scene. It wouldn't have happened if Dean hadn't fractured his foot last summer. Of all his falls over the years, this was the first one resulting in a fracture. Also, our case manager was temporarily changed, and she was experienced enough to know that we needed help around here, so she arranged for the home health agency to offer care.

All was ripe for this intervention and I have no doubt that God, our primary Case Manager, was overlooking the whole operation. And will continue to do so...

Double Dose

Last night I woke up around 2 a.m. and couldn't, for the life of me, get back to sleep. I laid there about an hour, then checked my blood pressure to see if it was running high--that sometimes keeps me awake. It wasn't high, so I decided a bite to eat might help me sleep. While I was waiting for the toaster, I took Dean's pill organizer off the microwave, as I'm accustomed to doing several times a day, and was shocked to see that he had already taken his morning pills! How terrifying to think that he must have double dosed himself earlier that night. As I went back to bed, after checking up on Dean to see if he was still breathing, all I could do was praise God for leading me to the pill organizer the way He did.

The nurse told me this morning that Dean may have more confusion and dementia symptoms for a few days following a trip like we had, but now I know to keep a much closer eye on his pills. What a wonderful God we have to keep me awake until I discovered what had happened.

Psalms 121:4 says "Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." What a comfort to know He's always there.