It Has Come to This

I have written often about the medication struggles that families like ours have.  This morning we had a fabulous reminder of how G's Focalin sure isn't like a baby aspirin.

To give G his medicine, we take a little yellow capsule and open it up.  Inside are several dozen white balls, quite similar in appearance to nonpareils that you find on SnoCaps candy.  We open this capsule and pour the "sprinkles" into a spoonful of applesauce.  Then we give the spoonful to to G.

The spoonful has to be done a certain way, per G's directions.  You have to make a little hole in the applesauce, pour in the "sprinkles," and then bury them so that he only sees applesauce.  Sometimes the applesauce is a nice consistency for the hole, but some days its like trying to bury treasure in quicksand.

Sometimes it goes wrong, even with the years of experience and best of intentions.  Like today.

When I opened the capsule, I must have pushed in a side of it, because as I removed the top, there was a "sprinkle" explosion.  Little balls of Focalin bursting into the air.  Oh shit.

It would be one thing if I could just throw away the partial capsule.  But that's not an option I like to consider.  First of all, that's like throwing away $2.  Secondly, we get one per day.  Our prescription isn't written for mulligans.  You don't get a do-over.  If I throw away that pill, that means there'll be a day when he goes without.  So I have to try to salvage it.  And giving what's in the pill isn't an option- its usually not enough.  His dose is precise, and any less means noticeable behavior changes.  You can't just pitch this expensive and hard-to-get medicine like its an ibuprofen that fell on the floor.

I happened to have opened the capsule over a tomato I was cutting up to go with my breakfast.  Some some "sprinkles" were in the capsule.  Some were on the cutting board.  Some were all over the tomato.  I was reduced to picking "sprinkles" off of a tomato.

So like a madwoman, I was using a knife to quickly pick off the "sprinkles".  G is at the table, and I fear that he will come over and see what I'm doing.  If he sees "sprinkles" with tomato particulate on them, he will refuse the entire thing.  I'm cursing under my breath as I examine pieces of tomato, using the knife and my fingers to transfer "sprinkles" to applesauce.  There must have been 20 or so, and I was determined to get them all.  Every last one.  I felt like a gold miner.

Well, I did it.  I was victorious.  Although I did find a bit of Focalin in my breakfast.