My Wife Has Lupus

We’ve encountered a number of problems as far as dealing with medication is concerned. Today, I’d like to talk about was to store and organize the huge amounts of lupus medication you may have sitting around.

Since we have small children around, one of the first things that I did was to buy a small safe. I know that seems extreme, but I got it on sale at Harbor Freight on sale for $30. We had been keeping everything on a shelf in a cupboard with a child safety lock, but I decided to go with the safe for a number of reasons.

• Many lupus medications are deadly if taken in excess or with other medications.
• You would be surprised how some of this medication, especially the narcotics, can suddenly sprout wings and disappear. We’ve never had a whole bottle stolen, but we noticed a few pills missing here and there when we would travel or had lots of people in the house. I know that’s sad, but it is true.
• I think it makes a difference for the kids to understand that the medicine that mommy takes is not like the medicine that they take when they get sick. By putting it all in the safe, they know that it’s dangerous.

Now that the medication is stored safely, you need to have a way to organize it so that you can keep track of it throughout the day, without spending too much time on it.

We have tried a number of pill organizers over the years, but the MED SUN 7 Day Large Medication Planner that we use right now, has been the best of the lot. It has seven large detachable bays with sliding tops that are labeled with the days of the week. Each bay has four compartments to place medication that is taken at different times during the day. All of the bays fit into a tray with a lid that keeps everything together for the week if you are traveling.

My wife and I sat down and went through all of her medication and I typed up the name and dosage information and put it on the top of the lid so that we don’t get confused about what she’s taking. I don’t know about your situation, but my wife’s medication gets changed often.

I usually put together all of the medication for the week and then my wife takes out her medication for the day and will carry that around with her. Having to do it only once a week makes it easier for us. It also helps to keep track of what medication needs to be refilled. If a particular medication is going to run out during a week, then I take the bottle out of the safe and set it on my dresser to remind me to refill it.

I hope that this was helpful. Please feel free to contribute some ideas on how to deal with stuff like this, and thank you for your support over the past few weeks.

There are times when I just can’t do everything. My wife is still having some flu symptoms and is having a hard time. I had to take a day off of work at a very bad time for me. This is really the busiest time of the year for me, and I don’t mean this time in general, I mean last week and this coming week specifically is the most stressful and busiest time of the year for me.

We will get through it and everything will be fine; however, I have put some posts on hold until I can have some time to sit down and write again.

Today was not a good day. My wife starting throwing up early this morning and was soon also having really bad diarrhea. This kind of thing is awful for anyone, but for a lupus patient, it’s even worse. The major problem was that she couldn’t take any of her medication. If you are used to taking high doses of pain medication throughout the day and you don’t get to, that’s not good. Really not good.

I did my best to keep her from getting dehydrated, using ice chips before moving on to water. She seems to be feeling a little better, but now she has a whole day where she’s missed most of her medication.

I’m working on a longer post about different ways to keep track of medication, but my wife is having problems with one of her doctors, who is refusing to refill a prescription at the moment.

We have a great prescription plan with my medical insurance, so the cost is rarely an issue. I have a certain amount of money taken out of my paycheck each month before taxes, and that gets put into a flexible spending account, which I then get reimbursed from throughout the year. This is the only way we can get a break on taxes as far as our medical expenses are concerned.

The most difficult problem is keeping track of what medications need to be refilled, so that we can order the refill and pick them up before we run out. I know that sounds like a no-brainer, but when you are dealing with over a dozen medications that have to be approved by four different doctors, coupled with the insurance company that will not re-fill a prescription unless you order the re-fill within a certain window of opportunity, then you have a situation that can get ugly very fast.