Medicines
A map of how common medicines can affect memory and clarity after sixty, and what to do about it.
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How to Run a Brown-Bag Review
I once threw away a woman’s cough syrup because I thought it was past its date. It was not past its date. She had written the year in her own shorthand, and I read it wrong, and I was so sure of myself I tossed the bottle in the bin at the centre before she…
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Too Many Medicines at Once
” She was not confused. She was tired. There is a difference, and I have seen both from my side of the counter. All those years in the basement pharmacy of a county hospital, and the thing that still surprises people is how ordinary this is. A heart pill from one doctor. A stomach pill…
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Checking B12 on Acid Reducers
Most long heartburn prescriptions deserve a second look at the blood test. The little purple counter I stood behind a hospital pharmacy counter for thirty-two years, and the acid reducers never stopped coming. First the one that calmed the burn, then the stronger one, then the one you took every morning before your feet even…
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Medicines and Memory at Sixty
A woman at the senior centre on Elm Street leaned over the sign-in sheet last month and asked me, low, so the others wouldn’t hear: “Is it the pills, or is it me?” She had driven herself there. She runs the rummage event. She is sixty-two and she had forgotten the name of her own…