When it was time to load up my weekly pill box with the new prescription assortment, I decided it was also time to switch the pill box itself. The one I was using—which can be seen at the top of a post from just over two years ago—had one lid (Sunday’s) that was taped on where the hinge had been, and Saturday was about to need tape, too. I decided to stop making do.
At first, I was going to switch back to the pill box at the bottom of that post form 2019, which is still my favourite, if one can have a “favourite” pill box. However, when I was about to choose a new pill box, I was back to using those bread tags that were the point of the July, 2019 post, and I needed a pill box with bigger compartments than my favourite had.
The problem, as it had been in 2019, was that one of my drugs, this time my new anticoagulant, Rivaroxaban, was in a blister pack with the pills very close together, just as one of my 2019 drugs was. I resumed using the old bread tags—do they qualify as “upcycled” when they’re not all pretty and such?. It's kind of moot now, because I grabbed my tiniest scissors and (so far) have successfully cut the blister pack into individual days.
I opened the cupboard where I keep prescriptions and stuff to dig out my favourite (?) pill box, and I saw one similar to the one I was about to throw away. I’d bought it many years ago, intending to use it with all the supplements I was taking at the time, back in the days before I needed prescriptions. I found it again when I was unpacking stuff here.
However, in the back of the cupboard I saw another, fancier one (photo up top) that I bought last year to use for Sunny’s pills. I didn’t need it in the end, and it stayed in the cupboard. I chose it, instead of the oldest one, in case I resumed using the bread bags.
It turns out that I now have a second-favourite pill box, too: The new one. The new one has a button release for the lid which pops up into one of two positions: Fully open, as in Thursday’s compartment in the photo above, or partly open, as shown for Friday’s. When a lid’s partly open, I can glance at the pill box to verify that I’ve taken my pills for that day (through I still use the Reminders App on my phone, as I talked about in February, even though I only take medication once a day now). However, the big advantage is that the lid opens wide (like on Thursday), and that makes it so much easier to put my pills in every week. With the old one, after wrestling a lid open (it was often difficult), it remained part open. When I filled the pill box each week, I had to lift each lid to be able to put the pills in, and since I put each prescription in separately, I had to do that several times. Not any more.
Unfortunately, the old pill box did not survive the change: I had no choice other than to throw it in the rubbish, because it wasn’t marked for recycling (of course I checked!). I suppose if I really did upcycle things I’ve have turned it into something fabulous instead, but I’m actually not all that fabulous, so there wasn’t any real hope of that happening.
The thing that’s actually important in this tale, apart from the discovery it’s possible to have a first and second favourite pill box, is that this is the only change I’ve made because of my new prescriptions, apart from undoing some I’d made because of the side effects of my old anticoagulant. In most respects, things are more like they were before my blood became a chemical soup of prescriptions, and that’s a very good thing.
It’s still too early to tell if the quality of my life will be improved by these new prescriptions, though I’m still hopeful. Even so, right now the only adjustment I’ve made because of my new prescriptions is to start using what I’ve discovered is my second favourite pill box. As adjustments to medication goes, it doesn’t get simpler or easier than that. And that makes me I’m very, very happy.
2 comments:
traveling, I use the 7-day pill box I got at a church sale, labeled from a reset in Puerto Rico.
But when I'm home, I just use an ice tray. I only fill it once every 16 days. And since I've put 10 pills in each slot (inc vitamins, aspirin, calcium), I don't have to sort as often. And the ice tray had been rendered redundant because the newish fridge maks ice.
The reason I liked my favourite pill box so much is that each day was a "pod", so if I was going away for, say, a weekend, I didn't need the whole thing. But I don't travel anywhere, so that's not a concern anymore. At one point, I thought about getting a multi-week pill box, but never pursued it. I think it had something to do with worrying about humidity or something. I can't remember. In any case, since I don't travel, a 7 day one is fine, and doesn't take up much room if I DO go travelling, like when we went to Queenstown last year.
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