Tag: medication

Over the Counter Meds

My father has a cold. There is an over the counter cold medicine that works for him, but getting it to him is an event.

The assisted living place he lives in has an in-house med staff that comes complete with a pharmacy. The pharmacy isn’t in-house, but it’s contracted some how so they always go through the same place. Residents are not allowed to keep non-prescribed medication in their rooms. Prescribed medications are kept in a safe so the nursing staff can distribute it when appropriate.

So for over the counter meds, they can’t keep them in their rooms without a prescription, and you aren’t going to get a prescription for that sort of thing so… what?

The what is simple. We bring it to him. He takes two doses of this specific med each day. Morning and night. So one of us brings him each dose. On Friday my sister in law brought him both doses. Saturday was my sister. Yesterday was me. Today I brought him the morning dose and my sister will bring him the evening dose. He asked if we could leave him his evening dose yesterday while we were over there for Easter lunch, but that would break the rules and we don’t want to break the rules. We’re good citizens. They take care of my dad, I don’t want to thumb my nose at them.

The downside for today was that I overslept a little. I was planning to get up at 5:00am, get my exercise in, have some water, have some breakfast, maybe watch a Star Wars: Rebels episode or two, then go to his place (leaving insanely early because the morning rush hour might make my 20 minute drive more like 60 minutes) with enough time to get there and back by 9:00am so I can punch in to work on time.

Today though, dumb ass over here slept until 6:00am and then took forever to get into gear and just skipped the whole exercise and breakfast and water thing. I had a protein bar in the car on the way over there. That passed for breakfast. I was able to get my exercise in during my lunch break, which was not ideal but got the job done.

Tomorrow I need to get up on time so I don’t throw off my routine. Wednesday is an in the office day so I won’t have time to deliver the meds. My brother in law will handle it on Wednesday. After that, will he still have a cold? I don’t know. We’ll find out. The moral of the story though is don’t over sleep, dumb ass.

Pills

It’s 10:37am. Did you miss me? I usually have a morning hello post hours earlier than this.

What kept me?

Pills. Yeah, man.

No, seriously. I just filled my parents’ pill caddies for the week. There was a lot of back and forth with my brother and sister. There are pharmacy changes coming in the near future and it’s affecting how we go about filling prescriptions and two of my mother’s 10000000 scripts need to be refilled this week because there aren’t enough pills to get us through to next week. Their primary care physician (who is also my primary care physician) is on the case though. All is well.

The bathroom is the other issue today. Not in an accident way, just in a there-is-only-one-in-the-house way. It seems like every time someone needs to go really bad there is someone already in there. I’ve been toilet blocked twice today, and I toilet blocked someone else once. It’s minor chaos.

My mother just shuffled into the room and asked me if I was her son and did she actually give birth to me.

I want to go home so badly I cannot put it into words. I am so tired of neglecting my family in favor of my family, you know? I was afraid to text Harry last night but Jen let me know that he was texting her, so I snuck in a couple. It’s only been one day and I miss him so much, and missing him makes me miss Bellana even more, and missing them both makes me so upset that I am here and not with Jen because I know she feels the same way, and it’s just crushing me so much I can’t even punctuate a sentence properly and I keep writing these endless run on things that when I go back to read these at some hypothetical point in the future are going to piss me off and now I am just doing it just because I am pissed off and I want my future self to also be pissed off at my grammar shenanigans and this is stupid and I am so miserable right now I can’t deal.

I think I am going to go upstairs and try to take apart a twin bed. No reason.

Fuck.

Still Quiet on the Parental Front

Things are still quiet here. All is pretty much well. Did I just jinx it? I seem to be doing that a lot these days.

I filled the pill caddies today for both of my parents. That is a job for whoever (whomever?) is here on Saturday morning. It stresses me out, but today was the first time I had to do my father’s pills and I was trying to use an outdated meds list. Nothing in the pill case matched what was on the list, and nothing on the list matched the case. The list I was looking at was from late 2020 and he did spend six months in and out of the hospital in 2021 so I couldn’t say for sure it was up to date. My sister straightened me out. There was a new list. I was all set from there.

Seeing as tomorrow there is a risk of us getting spanked by an actual hurricane, we thought it wise to get the grocery order in today rather than wait for tomorrow. I thought that my mother wrote the grocery list and it just got forwarded on to me and then Jen used her super deluxe instacart account to place the order. I’m still 99% sure that’s how it worked, but when I asked my mother for a list today she got really nervous about it. She was happy to do it, but kept asking me to double check her work. I guess she doesn’t generally do it alone? Or she just forgot that she does it alone? She put a couple of things on the order that she probably didn’t need, and left a couple of things off that would probably be good to get, and she put one thing on the order that she’s not allowed to eat. I called her on it and she said it wasn’t for her, it was for everyone else. Riiiiiight.

Only one memory issue today, and it was a common one. Mom mentioned that someone was having a birthday this week. I said it was my baby brother. She asked how he was my baby brother. I said I was six years older than he was so he’s the baby. Then she asked who our parents were. Did we have the same parents? Yes, you and dad. She asked if she gave birth to us. Yup. We’ve gone over this quite a bit over the last four months. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s sort of normal.

On my home front, my beloved bride told me she woke up with a bad headache today. I was I could be there to help her out. I hate that I am not there for her. I really hate it.

Just keep focusing on home, Robert. Something like 6-7 hours before the next shift starts and you can go home. Just hang in there.

Stressful Task

I wish I could express how stressful filling the pill caddie is for me. It’s a terrifying experience. Especially when I drop one of the main prescription pain pills. I found it. No worries. Still… fuck me.

Things Might Be Ramping Up

Things have been mostly quiet tonight. She did need the doctor approved supplemental pain med about half an hour ago. I thought that would be it, but she’s starting to sound like it’s going to be a rough night. I’m still optimistic that the extra pain med is still in the process of kicking in and she’ll be able to get comfortable enough to fall asleep.

Fingers eternally crossed.

I Could Use Some Caffeine

So, nana sitting. Last night sucked. About as bad as it gets. Nothing I couldn’t handle, but it really sucked.

This morning was worse than most mornings, in my experience, but not too terrible. Last night I had to give her an approved extra sleeping med. Her prescription is for one and two third pills per dose, but we only give her one and save the two thirds as a reserve for bad nights. She got the two thirds last night. It seems like the morning after the extra two thirds can be a little confusing. That was the case this morning. She came into the living room a little before 7:00am (the latest I’ve ever slept on my overnight shift) and asked where Dad was. I told her he’s still at the hospital. She said no, he came home last night. No, he didn’t, I said as my heart broke once again.

On a purely selfish level, the worst part of today by far has been the lack of caffeine. I bitched myself out for forgetting to bring soda last time and then here I am forgetting again this time. What a moron. Next time I’ll staple a post it note to my head to remind me. Dumb ass. I got about five hours of sleep last night. That plus a caffeine IV drip would get me through the day without issue. Instead I find myself feeling like Homer J Simpson in that episode where he fell asleep driving. Remember that one? Where the hell did that image come from? I haven’t seen that in at least 4361432543 years.

I have, however, added a couple of songs to the 50/90 pool. There’s that at least. Might try to sneak in a little more before I leave. There is talk of me playing World of Warcraft again soon so I have to balance the music and the fictional fantasy slaughter. hehe

So Far So Good

Tonight’s a parents’ house night. My 24 hour shift started about an hour and a half ago. My brother was here when I got here and he said it was a pretty quiet day. Yesterday was a nightmare and I wasn’t here for any of it. Will the universe give me a shit day tomorrow to even things out? Goodness, I hope not.

I got them leftovers for dinner and I got them their 8:00pm pills. Apparently my father is supposed to have eye drops with his pills. I didn’t know that, and I didn’t give them when I was here on Sunday night/Monday. I guess now I know, and knowing is half the battle, right?

Dad is watching the Red Sox. They are losing to the Astros. So Major League Baseball seems to have a new cheating scandal brewing? Spider Tack? You heard it here last, just remember that.

I’ve got the Bruins radio coverage on my phone. Like a shit head I forgot my AirPods again. I have a set of ear buds that have a lightning cable and I have a pair of Bose over the ear, noise cancelling cans to use with my computer. I’m going with the ear buds with one ear open. I don’t want to use the Bose because I want to be able to hear if one of my parents calls me. The Bruins and the Islanders are tied at one in the second period. I need, need, need a Bruins win.

Shit… the Islanders just scored. We’re losing 2-1. Shit.

I had something else I wanted to write about. What the hell was it?

Don’t get old, kids. It blows. It’s better than the alternative, but sometimes it just blows.

Go Bruins.

Pill Distribution (Mostly) Complete

I did my Saturday Nana coverage duty. I filled the pill caddie for the week. Mostly. One med ran out so I technically filled the pill caddie for the next three days, and 99% of it for the rest of the week. The pharmacy should be calling for a pick up on the one remaining prescription later today. No problem.

Similar to last night, she was good until just about 9:00am and then, like a light switch flipped, she was bad. Probably not as bad as last night though. We will see. Hang in their, Mom.

Stressful

I just did something super stressful.

My mother takes a ton of medication. She takes various pills in four batches throughout the day. She has one of those pill caddie things that let you sort out pills for morning, noon, evening, and bed time for seven days at a time.

The stressful thing I did?

I filled the pill caddie.

Yikes.

Saturday is the agreed upon caddie filling day, and since I’m here today and it’s my first Saturday covering (save for one, but that day the caddie was filled early), today became my first pill distribution day.

Again I say, yikes.