An old man with a bag of pills
Not a story about a sick man, a story about a bag.
He came for a check-up. In a plastic bag he carried all his pills, and I mean all: eleven boxes, some empty, some with the leaflets in three languages, one without any name at all. He took them, he said, "when the head hurts, or the leg, or when the neighbour says".
I sat with him for forty minutes (my senior resident stood in the door and looked at the clock). We wrote a list on a sheet of paper: this one in the morning, this one at night, this one never again. He folded the paper into his shirt pocket like a banknote.
Later I thought: how many bags like this are in Talas? I think thousands. Every family has a "pharmacy cupboard", and the pharmacist's advice, the neighbour's advice and the old Soviet leaflet advice are all mixed in it. If I could give one thing to my city I would give everybody a list on a sheet of paper.
1 Comment
My mother has a bag like this. I am going to sit with her this weekend and make the list. Thank you.
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