The pill counter

She sits down at the kitchen table. It's Saturday, the day she refills the medicine boxes. 

She does this every two weeks; it's important. Someone's life depends on it.

No really. There's already been a close call.

It took some time, trial, and annoyance to develop a system that worked for both the pill counter and the pill taker. 

Morning pills on the left.

Evening pills on the right.

Twice-a-day pills in the middle.

She lines up 14 multicolored AM/PM boxes. The week starts with red and ends with violet. 

It's not precisely ROY G BIV, but it's a system.

She opens both sides of the boxes as she looks for and counts missed doses. This time, there are five. 

Even the best system can't ensure reliable pill consumption. For that, she would need an actual nurse or perhaps a pharmacist in the house. She doesn't have one of those.

So she sits, sorting, counting, and organizing, making sure there is one or two of each, as prescribed. 

You could track time with these boxes, each marked with the day of the week and morning or night. But that doesn't happen. According to the pills, the days are repetitive, marked only by the occasional missed doses. Days are marked by other things: doctor's visits, trash day, and the gardener's schedule. 

The pill counter remembers a similar medication schedule for her mother. White and blue boxes for authorized medication, rainbow boxes for drugs that were not. It was such pretty contraband. It took the pill counter a minute to figure out what to do with all of the containers of Vicodin. Each bottle was supersized and filled to the brim with Vicodin. Who hoards Vicodin? Thank goodness for safe drug disposal options. If those pills had gone into the water supply, they could have poisoned the county. If they'd gone into the landfill, they could have been discovered by any random person for any random purpose, like consumption. Or overdosing. Or sales.

Today's pill counting doesn't include any opioids. No painkillers whatsoever. These pills -- and there are oh so many of them -- are in support of good health -- to stay alive. 

She puts the pill bottles away and puts today's pill box on the counter.