DEMENTIA CARE: POPPING PILLS.

Cardboard is easy enough to recycle. It is harder to rip into pieces than paper is. A cut to the skin from cardboard is appalling. It’s no fun being cut by paper. Chainsaws are right out. There’s another cut, in a similar vein, that’s just fucking ghastly. And that’s the cut caused by a metal wafer layer protecting pills.
   You know the broad field you are playing across. There’s the evil plastic shroud. Rattling inside each sealed chamber is a pill. And keeping it all together: the dreaded layer of foil. Foil cuts are cuts you don’t even feel. There are only two ways to notice them. Your slashed finger comes into contact with vinegar, or something similar. Or…you spot a faint bloody trail on cups, plates, worktops, the frame of a door, handle on a drawer…
   You’d think a mini-murder just happened. Whoever died here was a tiny victim. Then you realise that’s your own blood, and the wicked culprit can be traced back to the guillotine hidden in the pill packet. I run two handy pill boxes side by side. The first one is for this week’s pills, and the second covers next week.
   That way, when the new pills arrive and go into their boxes, I know that there are two weeks of pills left in the big tub. We go from cardboard boxes of pills to the plastic shrouds with all the pills in their bunkers. And from there to the weekly boxes. After that, on a daily basis, it’s pills with drinks. Controlled. Safe. (Almost.)
   Once a week of pills is done, it’s time to fill the weekly box with pills from all over the place. From all the packets. I run a straightforward production line. This pill here is going in. Count up to seven. Done and dusted. Next type of pill. And so on, and on, and on.
   Interruption just now. The pharmacy called me to offer a delivery of a packet that was out of stock. I was going to talk about that exact packet later. Might as well mention the damned thing now, while fresh in the mind.
   There are horse pills. These are so bloody large that they’d make baby rhinos choke on the tablets. Tablets. Like stone tablets, brought down from the mountain in two pieces. Biblical. That big. If you hold them up for inspection, they block daylight in the room. For that reason, take extra care.
   They are worth mentioning, based on their submarine size. Flat, they could launch torpedoes against aircraft carriers. Upended, they’d be mistaken for national monuments. How are you meant to swallow those obelisks? Is your throat hoarse? No problem. They are horse tablets.
   The last time I had a problem with bloody fingers, I decided to stop having a problem with bloody fingers. It was time to pop as many pills as I could. By using a plastic pill popper. There were many designs and many many negative reviews. You have to take those reviews with a big pill of salt. A pinch won’t cut it.
   In the end, I chose a plastic machine that looked like it would do the job. It was very cheap and awfully cheerful, and I thought I knew what I was getting myself into. Yes, I received what I thought I’d ordered. Except, there was a deal going…and two pill poppers arrived. Well, if I broke one popper while trying to smash a weightlifting record, applying far too much strength, there would always be a second one I could break the same way. Cool.
   The horse pills, arriving later today, are far too big to pop out of their shrouds using the plastic gadget. But…they are large enough to pop out without having to go near the foil layer with your fingers. The problem with popping small pills is that you half-pop them out, and you wrestle with the failed result…
   It’s very difficult to pop the pill through from the plastic side, once you’ve failed. So you are using a bit of leverage with a nail on the other side, risking attack from the foil, to get at this half-emerged medicine. The giant horse pills are too big for the pill popper solution, any pill popper machine, but the horse pills always pop through the foil when your hands press on the sealed chamber, minimising the risk of slashing your fingers as you move your fingers around the plastic pill tray.
   I arrange many pills. Some of those come from a bottle. Most of them emerge from foil-sealed plastic tombs. One type of pill is way too big to pop. That leaves…three pills in some of the nastiest pill packets. The smaller the pill, the greater the turmoil. If I have to fill a fortnight’s supply of pills, then I’m popping 42 at once. That’s a lot of slashed fingers you don’t notice until half an hour later.
   Is the pill popper gadget any good? It can’t handle the jumbo horse pills. But then, even horses would be hard-pressed to deal with them. Other than that, the popper works just fine. I gather seven pills at a time, all popped and ready for distribution. Easy. I place them in the daily container sections, Monday, Tuesday and all that, then gather another seven pills for the next run.
   If I ever drop the machine or see it fail through wear and tear, there’s an extra one waiting to go into service thanks to that deal. What do you put up with, when popping pills? A slight cut you never felt, and only notice now you see the blood…once every year? Sure, you put up with that. Until…
   You sprinkle vinegar on your chips, and then…blazing fire runs up your ruined hand into your tender arm. What the fuck?! Oh. It’s a non-existent cut from the foil on the pill packet. That’s not good. How to fix that? Just be more careful when you are opening those pesky pill packets. Easy to say. Not so easy to do.
   Six months go by. Same shit all over again. What do you put up with, when popping pills? Not that. Find a better way. Well, here’s a handy gadget. It might not be the best one. Very hard to find the best one, as all of the reviews are harsh. The reviews are from people who seem to be taking less care using the pill popper than they were taking just attacking the packets. I’ll be careful. And I have been careful. The pills go where they are meant to – into the collecting tray without shedding blood.
   Blood was recently shed. This is another story. But it does feature pills. Tests. Needle in the arm. Checking for chemicals. And it looks like we’re on the borderline there, as happens from time to infrequent time. It’s been an age and more, but we’ll be altering the dosage of a pill once again. No big deal. It’s a tiny pill. And even with the dosage altered, the pill’s size isn’t going to cause problems for the pill popper. The new routine of popping pills faces its first challenge, and that’s not a challenge at all. Change a small pill over to a small pill. Call it a bonus.
   What were the popper reviews like? Pops pills. And for those who found this wasn’t the case…does not pop pills. It’s a one-size-fits-all device, which isn’t going to fit all. Not even close. It won’t take whale-sized medicines. The contraption is plastic, not stainless fucking steel, so mind how you go when exercising the use of extreme force.
   Train up. Improve your dexterity. Become nimble. Use the Force. Just not…brute force. Pop the pills over a counter, and not in mid-air over a carpet. Don’t stand on one leg. Remember not to juggle flaming torches while you pop these pills. Keep out of the reach of children, dogs, baby dogs, cats of all descriptions, and mice.
   What are the dangers? You break the pill popper and slash the fucking shit out of many fingers and maybe even thumbs. Defeats the purpose of buying that pill popper in the first place. It’s all about saving your fingers from sly foil daggers built into pill casings.
   You might ping the odd pill out of the popper basket to infinity and beyond. There’s a chance that the oddest of pills somehow manages to make a break for freedom by catapulting itself to the back of your throat, requiring assistance if you start choking on it and even more assistance if you swallow the pesky projectile.
   It’s possible to break the pill as you pop it out. But that’s likely if you are pressing hard against the medicine with your fingers. My report so far? No broken plastic gadget. And no pills pinging into the upper atmosphere. One pill broke in two pieces. But I’ve broken plenty of that type of pill by applying pressure from fingers and thumbs.
   Why do these gadgets receive appalling reviews? People with arthritis find the gadget no better than using their own fingers. Of course, I didn’t buy the gadget for reasons of arthritis. I bought the pill popper so I wouldn’t slash my fingers on foil. No slashed fingers to report. I can put vinegar on my chips in safety.