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Oh Julia - sounds just like my father-in-law.
Had him down recently as he'd had a fall and needed 'supervision'. Now, he's starting to lose it and forgetting to take his tablets so the chemist has put them into blister packs marked with the day and also the time (AM, mid morning, PM and evening) when he is supposed to take them.
Bear in mind I have read all the chemists directions 10x over just to make sure I've got it right!
Day 1
Me- you have to take these three 1 hour before breakfast Dad and then the rest with your breakfast.
Dad - no it's not that one its the yellow pill.
Me - yes Dad, this yellow capsule is for your gastric problems.
Dad - no, not that one the other yellow one, the doctor said the yellow PILL. And I have to take the big pill for my memory problems.
Me - no Dad, that's the one for your diabetes. And the print out from the chemist says you have to take the yellow CAPSULE 1hour before your breakfast.
Dad - I'm not diabetic - that's just to control my sugar levels. My mate down the pub IS a diabetic and his pills are different from mine.
Me - they're probably the same pill - just made by different manufacturers so they look different.
Dad - no, I definitely don't have diabetes. My pills are different to his.
Lunchtime
Me - Dad you have to take these pills now with a sandwich.
Dad - but I'm not hungry
Me - you still have to take them, the directions say with food and this is your beta blocker to help prevent a heart attack - if you don't take it you could have another heart attack.
Dad - but I'm not hungry!!!!
Day 2 - the same.
Day 3 - the same but when we take him back home he hauls out a huge bag of pills that he says the chemist is coming to collect. But then he says he'll just keep back 'some of those, and some of those'.......just in case.
Just in case of what - all the pills he needs are in the blister packs!!
Then we find out that he hasn't been taking his Warfarin!!!!!! They're not in the blister packs as the dosage needs to be adjusted periodically - because he keeps forgetting to take them!!
Now, I love him to bits but I dread the day OH says he'll have to move in with us.
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Aaw Julia, he is still being Dad to his little girl. But how lovely he is still lucid at 88, who knows what we will be like.
My daughter once threatened to take me to the vets if I ever got like my Dad was at 93, lucid but forgetful and repeating himself.
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a stiff Gin and Tonic, or both.
On Tuesday, we lost my aunt, the last of her generation. God Bless her. This morning me dad, 88yrs and very lucid, rang to tell me the arrangements. So far, so good. Then he asks me to sort the flowers out from us all. Yes, I'll sort it, I told him, just leave it to me. This is where I could feel me nerves beginning to jangle. Well, they'll have to have them ready early enough at the funeral parlour, because we have a forty minute drive. Yes, I know, they will know how to deal with all of that. I mean, they do it for a living.
Well, he starts again. They are having the road closed through our town, starting next Monday, because they are building a new A*da, and the're doing some demoliltion work. Yes Dad, but I am sure the funeral parlour will know all about that.
By now, me nerves are on double crunch time. Err, when you go shopping next week, you'll have to go down the by-pass, you'll not be able to get straight through. Yes dad, I know.
Oh, bye the way, are you picking me up. Yes, dad, (Here I thought, I might be kicking you out half way down the motorway).
I mean,how old am I???, Sixty f***** four. Please somebody, shoot me if I get like that, should I live to be 88, with me nerves intact.
In the end, I didn't have a pill or a G+T. OH took me a nice drive out to a garden centre.
Julia in Derbyshire
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