White Pills

Today I picked up the new prescription for Daughter’s Abilify. Instead of taking one 30 mg pill in the evening, she’ll now take one 20 mg in the evening and half of a 20 mg pill in the morning. When I opened the bottle when we arrived home, I groaned. They are white. Lithium, Trazadone, and Vasotec are also white. Daughter now takes six white pills in the evening and two and a half in the morning. To make it more challenging, the Trazadone and Lithium are about the same size.

We fill pill boxes for four weeks a time. I handle the more challenging pills—the ones where she gets multiple pills or they are all white. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to take all the white pills out of an evening box and carefully read the microscopic numbers to make sure I didn’t drop an extra pill into that particular compartment. Daughter gets to handle the colorful pills—like the orange Simvastatin, the formerly pink Abilify, and the green iron supplements. I can easily check to make sure she has one in the appropriate compartments.

The day we fill the pill boxes just became more complicated. I needed more complications in my life.