Chuck Hinman: IJMA. Pills, pills, pills

Chuck Hinman: Pills, pills, pills Chuck cautions, "Take it from me, DON'T GET OLD IF YOU CAN HELP IT!"

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Next earlier Chuck Hinman column - Waving - A Forgotten Gesture?

By Chuck Hinman

Pills, pills, pills

As you know, taking pills is for old folks as common as changing diapers on a baby. The "how and when" takes many forms.

My daily ritual of taking pills is simple, so simple that it is easy for me to become careless in getting the job done.


Being simple doesn't mean taking pills is not important. For example, I know that if I am careless about taking my coumadin, a blood-thinner, I put myself at risk for a stroke. I have had two strokes and I don't want another.

So it behooves me to make pill-taking a serious matter. Many residents at Tallgrass Estates use the services of Nursefinder's to make sure that nothing goes awry in this most important daily chore.

Pill-box with compartments a part of daily routine

I have a blue plastic, 7-compartment oblong pill-box, one compartment for each day of the week. When the compartments are empty, it is time for a refill.

I take a daily assortment of 8 pills divided about equally between prescription medicine and health-food type pills. Any one day's small handful of pills is quite colorful. The coumadin is an odd-shaped blue pill. The lutein pill for my eye health is a large red pill. There is a two-tone bright colored capsule for my blood pressure, etc. etc.

Noon meal good time for taking pills

Most medicines are best taken at mealtime. Quite often, I miss breakfast, so the noon meal is a good time for me to take my pills. I pour the appropriate day's pills from the pill box into my hand and from there into my shirt pocket with the intention of taking them with water when I get to the table.

If everything works properly, I will have taken the pills a few minutes before dinner is served and the ritual is over.

Every ritual can have a pitfall

Well, every ritual can have a pitfall and get you in trouble. I had overlooked when I put my daily pills in my shirt pocket that quite often I have tucked a new hearing aid battery in that same pocket in case one of my hearing aids goes down when I am away from my battery supply.

Last Friday noon, I was at the table preparing to take my pills. Now I know it is not chic to take pills publicly and especially in a chic place like Tallgrass Estates that boasts "gracious living." But I am trying to bring a whole new redneck culture to Tallgrass, such as drinking the milk from my cereal bowl instead of spooning it all over my clean shirt. I hate that!

Unfamiliar yellow pill pulled from shirt pocket

On this occasion, I just happened to be reminded I wanted to be absolutely certain I was taking my all-important blue blood-thinner pill. I noticed an unfamiliar yellow pill about to be dumped in my mouth. I was curious what that yellow pill was. When I turned it over with my finger, I gasped when I realized that I was about to swallow a new, size 10, metal hearing-aid battery with all my other multi-colored pills. YE GADS!

Then I wondered how many hearing aid batteries this old geezer had been taking along with his daily pills! I buy my hearing-aid batteries by mail and it had seemed they were disappearing faster than usual!

No "not to be taken by mouth" warning on hearing aid batteries

Well, in line with my recently adopted plan to try to laugh at aging problems which are constantly besetting me, I am racking my brain to decide what is funny about consuming a hearing aid battery daily with my other pills. It doesn't seem to be improving my hearing but I don't remember seeing a warning on the batteries "Not to be taken by mouth!"

Oh my! Take it from me, DON'T GET OLD IF YOU CAN HELP IT!

Written by Chuck Hinman. Emailed: Saturday, 6 January 2007



This story was posted on 2013-04-28 03:36:03