22,995

22,995

22,995 what?

This is the number of prescribed pills I have taken in the last 6 years and 22 days. This is not including any antibiotics for things, or multivitamins. Why so many? I have heart disease and as such have had heart surgery and now I take these medications three times a day to stabilize my heart’s electrical activity.

They are required to keep me safe and alive. I am grateful to them, but as I lay in bed last night, I realized I had forgotten to take my nighttime batch. I was frustrated and I didn’t want to have to get out of my nice warm bed to go get them. I texted my husband and he brought them in to me. Lazy, right? I prefer the word efficient, actually.

He brought them in and I could see 0.001% annoyance at my request. I commented that in the last six years I have maybe forgot them 6 times…..in 6,000 doses. 6,000 times so far I have opened the hatch and swallowed these life saving pills. Then I did the rest of the math and came up with 22,995 pills in total, and I still have another 56 years to go before I hit 100! That is another 160,000ish pills to go, barring any additions to my med list.

I shook my head and had a ten second long pity party at having to take them and then was grateful to have them as I rolled over and went to sleep.