Did You Take My Little Red Pills?

So, the medicine saga continues. My grandmother called last Tuesday morning (Sept. 29th) and asked, "Did you take my little red pills?" I told her no, and she said, "Well, I can't find them." She sounded horrible and said she was in pain. She then added, "I thought to myself... 'Well, Debbie took those so I wouldn't be taking them.'" I assured her I had not done that. "Did you take one the other morning when you called us?" "Yes." "Well... I have not been to your house since then, so they must still be there. Did you hide them again in the cabinet behind your dinner plates?" "Yes, but they aren't there."

I told her to go move the plates and look - maybe they fell over behind and she couldn't see them. She said she would do that, and I could hear her moving into the kitchen with her cordless phone.

Then I heard her housekeeper say, "Ms. Polly, is this them?" They were in her "box" on the kitchen table with her other pills. Yes, that was the ones. She said again, "Well, I just figured you took them so I wouldn't have them here." I assured her that no, I picked them up at the pharmacy and took them to her and set them on the kitchen table, and that was the last I saw of them!

I asked, "You will only take half a tablet, right?" "Well, I'm gonna call him and see what he thinks." "Him who?"I asked. "The doctor." I told her, "I can tell you what he thinks, because he wrote it on the bottle... he wants you to take one tablet every six hours, but you said you had never taken a whole tablet, so we agreed to start with a half, right?" "Well," she said... "these are different... they don't look like the last ones he gave me." "Then you should definitely start with half a tablet," I told her. "There is no need to call the doctor." She said okay...and I assume that she only took the half. I do know "through the grapevine" from another family member that she told her a few days later she had not taken any pain medication in two days! So hopefully this is on the mend.

My sister took my new great-nephew to visit Mam-ma on Sunday, and Mam-ma cooked lunch. She and my sister fed the baby mashed potatoes and homemade chocolate pudding. He's only 5 months old, but he has just started eating mashed table foods. My niece was not thrilled with the chocolate pudding sampling, but you would never convince my grandmother that there was anything wrong with it! My sister said that Mam-ma got down in the floor to play with the baby and was able to get back up without any assistance, so that's pretty good for 97 years young!

The "wrinkle" yesterday was dizziness. My grandmother told my mom she was "drunk" and that she thought it was her inner ear. She insisted she had not taken medication that could cause this... but she did take some medicine she had on hand for an inner ear infection. Today she was much better... but now her teeth are hurting again. Mother talked to her about eating better... perhaps eating peanut butter for the protein. She IS having me buy her Ensure at the store now... I guess she uses it to wash down her chocolate chip cookies and Three Musketeers bars! We have laughed... my grandmother hardly ever ate anything chocolate, and now she is getting the candy, the cookies, chocolate pudding mix, and chocolate Ensure... and a six-pack of 20-oz. Cokes nearly every week. On the other hand, a friend told me that if she makes it to 97, she is going to take up smoking and sky diving! I guess at this stage, Mam-ma has earned her chocolate and colas... but I'm still not sure about the little red pills.