By Janet Di Nola Parmerter
Originally published in the Georgia Council of the Blind, 2020 Winter newsletter. Reprinted with permission of the author.
For sighted people, the simple task of taking medicine involves nothing more
than reading the label, checking the number of pills needed, filling a glass
with water, and swallowing the medicine. In contrast, for blind or partially
sighted individuals like me, the same task presents a variety of frustrating
problems.
Where in the world did, I put that medicine bottle? What new innovative
child-proof way has the pharmaceutical company invented to stop me from opening
this bottle? With so many items in the medicine chest, which bottle is this
one, and was I supposed to take these pills once or twice a day? Then when I
finally found the right bottle, I wondered, , how many of these tiny things do
I take right now?
Using our minds and common sense, I’m sure many of us discovered ingenious
ways of solving such medication problems, Yet some of those tested ideas may
have failed or even had a disastrous outcome. Therefore, before I tell you the
best solution, I found for safely taking medication, I’ll share one of my more
unsuccessful humorous, yet disastrous pill stories.
Being a European travel tour guide, I had packing down to a science. Many
items which traveled overseas with me never return home. In other words,
with the intent of having more room to buy things, I packed items to be thrown
away or used up before I repack for home. Then, there was always extra room to
pack any of those so called, ‘treasures I just couldn’t live without’.
For a few years, one thing I did to save space (that is until it almost
killed me) was pack a daily number of vitamins and medicine into tiny
disposable zip lock bags. As for my medicine, I counted out the pills for each
day I would be gone and added a couple extra pills if the flight home should be
delayed. For each of the two prescriptions, I put 25 pills into each baggie,
and for the vitamins, methodically, I took one tablet from all twelve bottles
and dropped them together into the 23 baggies laid out for my three weeks away.
Thus, I did not need to carry fourteen bottles to, and from HOME,
so my suitcase HAD extra room for gifts. Wasn’t I clever? At least I thought
I was, but, as it turned out, I wasn’t so clever after all.
Here's why. The first night of my three-week job in Italy. After various
cross Atlantic flights to Rome, I greeted all clients from different airlines
and gathered all the luggage and passengers onto the Mercedes tour coach and
headed south.
The breathtaking drive along the Amalfi Coast brought everyone to a
spectacular cliff hanging hotel. Though it was a long drive, everyone was
excited but exhausted from the jet lagged. Still, we arrived just in time for
the normal dinner time seating at 7:30 PM.
In most Italian hotels, dining room waiters do not begin serving a tour
group until everyone is present and seated. For that reason, I asked the
passengers not to wait for their luggage to be delivered to their room, but
just drop off their carry-ons, wash up and then go directly to the dining area
to enjoy the breath-taking sunset. As for me, I quickly touched up my makeup,
filled up a glass with mineral water, and since my vitamins were in my
carry-on, I took out one vitamin pack, swallowed a handful of vitamins and
rushed to dinner.
Later, during my little, ‘welcome to Italy’ orientation, my stomach felt a
bit queasy. Usually, because I sleep the entire flight, I don’t have jetlag,
but I wondered if this was an exception to that rule. After all, for me, I was
still on New Jersey time, so, it was actually 3:30 in the morning.
By the time I returned to the room, I collapsed on the bed with gripping
stomach cramps, began moaning and wondered what was happening. While in the
fetal position, my confused mind reviewed the day’s program, what I had eaten,
what I had to drink and what I could have done wrong. Could it have been my
vitamins? Perhaps, could my mistake have been the fact I took ALL TWELVE
vitamins on an empty stomach?
The more I thought about THE vitamins, the more I didn’t remember THEM
feeling different shapes and sizes. Immediately I opened my eyes and mentally
relived the experience of swallowing the vitamins. In a second, I jumped off
the bed, opened the pill case, counted 24 of the 25 bags, and all but one
baggie felt like they were different sizes and different shapes. Yes, all but one
bag.
Terrified, I thought, oh my goodness, I couldn’t have done that! So, one by
one, I closely felt each bag then placed it to my right. Could this be true?
Was there only ONE bag instead of two in which everything inside felt
exactly the same size? Yes, there was only one instead of the two medicine
bags. Oh no! That meant before dinner, instead of my vitamins, I had taken all
25 pills in one of the two medicine bags, a full three-week dosage of medicine
all at once. Tears filled my eyes, I began to sweat and instantly felt worse
than I did before.
What did I take? Was it the Levothyroxine or the Nexium? If I opened the
package, I was sure I could feel the difference. As soon as I opened the
medicine pack, yes, I definitely felt the difference and the package of Nexium
was missing.
Four o’clock in the morning, my groggy husband Keith answered the phone to a
hysterical, crying wife.
“Keith, Keith,” I screamed, “You have to call poison control and ask them
what I should do?” Trying to wake up and get the full story, my confused
husband yawned, then calmly asked,
“Janet, stop crying and tell me, what you should do about what?”
“About what? About what? I poisoned myself”, and continued crying. After I
sobbed through the whole story, I begged Keith to call the 24-hour poison
control hot-line.
In retrospect, that must have been a pretty funny conversation as they
probably suspected Keith tried to kill his wife. Keith phoned me back in
frustration and said,
“I called the number and told the lady I wanted to have information on
poisoning.” She asked what information. Then, I asked, ‘If my wife took a whole
bottle of medicine, what should I do?’ The lady asked, ‘Can I speak with your
wife?’ I said, ‘No, not now.’ She asked me why not, and I told her, ‘Because
she’s not here.’ She asked me where you were and I said, ‘In Italy.’ Then, she
asked me if I was calling from Italy and I said, ‘No, New Jersey.’ The lady
sounded like she was getting mad then asked, ‘Then how do you know she is
poisoned if you are not with her?’ I told her because you phoned me, so I
needed to know if you would be ok. Finally, she asked me what you took, and I
couldn’t remember so I just hung up on her.”
At that hour in the morning, my poor sleep deprived husband couldn’t
function, so, by the time Keith finished his story, I was laughing so hard, I
forgot how awful I felt. Quite frankly I’m surprised the police didn’t show up
at his door to search the house.
Fortunately, as I hung up, I remembered at dinner hearing one of my 49
passengers say she was a nurse, then Immediately phoned her room and explained
my foolish actions. In a minute she was at my bedside, took my vitals and
assured me what I took was not fatal. That alone dropped my blood pressure
about 100 millimeters, but the most amazing part was, for the past ten years
she worked in a gastroenterologist office. Not only did she know everything
about what I had taken, but she knew exactly how I was feeling at that time,
what I should do at once and how uncomfortable I was going to feel the next
day. With her help, advice, cups of olive oil, and gallons and gallons of
mineral water, I survived that very uncomfortable, difficult, and stressful
situation. However, from that frightening experience, I learned two very
valuable lessons.
First, I learned I should never take my medicine out of its original bottle,
and second, I learned using “ScripTalk” to read my prescription bottles could
one day save my life.
In the beginning of this article, I planned to tell you the best news ever,
so here is the information. Many pharmacies throughout the US use ScripTalk, so
we can manage all our prescriptions, and personally, I no longer have worries
(that is, at least with taking the wrong medicine).
Now, since my dear husband has developed Alzheimer’s, I not only have to
manage my own medicine, but in addition, all six different medicines he takes
each day. I keep them locked up in a toolbox with my ScripTalk and put
them in a day-by-day month container.
So, here is the whole scoop about the fabulous ScripTalk Station. It is a
free, on loan, accessible prescription reading device which allows print
challenged individuals to manage their own medications without guesswork, or
the need of a sighted person. Special labels incorporate radio-frequency
identification (RFID) chips, which store prescription data encoded by a
participating pharmacy. A rice sized chip is affixed onto the bottom of their
normal prescription bottle, then, after ScripTalk Reader scans the label, it
announces the medication name, dosage, refill date and other important
information.
The pharmacy provides this free service and En-Vision America will loan you
their ScripTalk reader, which comes with a Power Adapter, two AA batteries and
a practice pill bottle.
Documentation for the ScripTalk Station is available in braille, large
print, audio CD and a fully accessible PDF manual which can be downloaded from http://www.envisionamerica.com/files/scriptalk/Station_Users_Guide_1.3.pdf
.
To find out if your pharmacy participates in ScripTalk, call En-Vision
America at 800-890-1180 or go to, https://www.envisionamerica.com/products/scriptability/participating-pharmacies/
In addition, ScripTalk Mobile app is available on Android and iOS iPhone 7
and higher. For the iOS download visit https://apps.apple.com/us/app/scriptalk-mobile/id1317698388
.
For Android, go to https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mistral.scriptalkmobilev2
So dear friends, my advice to all of you is stay safe, happy, healthy and
stay alive with ScripTalk! 😊
