For a long time, Zine would just carry bottles around with him. But as MS has progressed, so has the amount of drugs he takes. And...we have arranged medicines at different times to give him the best help during the day time hours as well. So it began to get hard to keep all the medicine straight as to when you took what when. Also as Zine's fine motor skills have declined, it became harder and harder for him to get his pills out without dropping them. So...it took us months to come up with a system for how to make it all work smoothly but I think we finally have something that works! Geesh! Some things should not be so hard!
On Saturday evenings, I fill up the containers. If a refill is needed then I take a sharpie marker and write on top of the medicine bottle the date that the refill needs to be called in. We always want to give a three day in advance notice to ensure we have meds when needed. And then on the side of the bottle I write the day and time that it needs to be input into the container. I found that even after the refill, it was sometimes hard to know where I left off putting medicine in the container. So a note on top of the bottle and a note on the side of the bottle seems to be working!
Zine puts the refill dates in his calendar and he is responsible for calling in the refills! Or rather scanning in the refills! I get a text message from pharmacy when the medicine is ready. I pick it up. And on Saturday evenings, this is what I do!
I would never swallow all these pills! It would take me a gallon of water to get the morning meds down. Swallowing pills is not a gift I have been blessed with. I must swallow them one at a time and it is quite a difficult task! But Zine...thank goodness he has been blessed with the swallowing gift!! I laugh at this next statement but it is really not funny...When Zine was on his antibiotic, I literally had to strategically place all the pills in the morning container very carefully or they would not fit. So it was not a matter of dropping the pills in the square. They had to be strategically placed so that they would all fit! I guess sometimes it's better to laugh than cry though!
And I assume if we get many more medicines, I will have to get some more containers and we will use two containers per one week!
Truly, after numerous frustrated discussions between Zine and I, I am so grateful that we have finally figured out a system that works for us! It has taken awhile to perfect, but it's working at the moment and for that I am very grateful!!!
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