Only the cool kids...

... have colouring books, mushroom socks, glitter bobby pins and polka-dot hair clips, a seemingly endless supply of tea and chocolate covered fondant mice and frogs (kikkers and muizen. For those of you who speak Dutch, links here and here).

They also have pill boxes. Unfortunate.

Longtime readers might recall that I had a pill box in 2011/2012 when the chronic bone infection was diagnosed and treated for the first time. It was much like this one, with two compartments per day and text on each lid, but it was much smaller and completely black. I think the text on it was gold but it rubbed off after a while. I had covered the bottom of it in teddy bear stickers, thinking it would cheer things up a bit. Anyways, by the time treatment was finished and I didn't need medication any more I was pretty sick of it so I chucked it in a drawer and promptly forgot about it. Fast forwards a year or so when I was sorting through that drawer and I came upon it once more. I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to think see it. I didn't want to remember everything that it represent and that I had been through. I didn't want to have it anymore. So I ripped off the little lids to each compartment and chucked in the trash. Kind of cathartic, really.

Fast forward to the start of 2015 when the return of the bone infection was confirmed. For months on end I took antibiotics, usually four times a day. But, for a while it was only one medication, so no big deal grabbing for a pill bottle multiple times a day. Even when I was on two oral antibiotics a day doing so didn't bother me. After surgery I went back to one antibiotic plus another pill to help get things moving along and a month later the antibiotics was dropped altogether. So taking pills was a non-issue. No big deal. But then came the ex fix surgery and lots and lots of bottle of stuff. Not fun stuff like ginger bear and nail polish. No. Nasty stuff like narcotics, pills specifically for nerve pain, and more antibiotics. On the average day I take no fewer than ten pills - five in the morning and five at night. I take more if I need break through pain medication or a little something (okay, often a lot) to get things moving again thanks to the prolonged immobility and narcotic use external fixator require (more like demand) if you get what I mean. So there is a lot of opening pill bottles throughout the day. That has started to get on my nerves. And this week was the final straw because although my medications have stayed the same, I know take one in two different doses. And that means one more freaking bottle to open... Great.

So I gave in and bought a pill box - the very one thing that symbolizes everything that is wrong and that I have been through. You might think that thing might actually be my external fixator because it demands attention sticking prominently out of my leg 24/7 like the piece of dead weight it is, but no. Pills are the one thing that has been going on since the infection was first diagnosed. Thinking back now, they played a pretty significant role before I was diagnosed too, when no one would believe anything was wrong but they obviously had to prescribe things over and over again because pus kept leaking out my shin. And now, even though we hope to whatever gods there might be that the infection has now been completely evicted, I am still dealing with the consequences. Those consequences mean pills and pills mean a pill box. So there you have it - I bought a pill box and am both happy and sad about it.

On the on hand a pill box makes organizing my medication easier and allows me to avoid my hoard of pill bottles for a week at a time, but on the other it symbolizes the fact that I am not well... I am not healthy at the moment. I want nothing more than to be healthy again. I look forward to the day I won't need pills, and therefore my pill box, anymore. But at least for now I won't have to open what feels like a gazillion bottles everyday  or be confronted with a giant stash of medication on a daily basis. Now I just have to do that once a week. On the bright side, at least this pill box is much more cheerful than the last one, which can be seen in my post about this very topic (pill boxes) in 2012 (post can be found here).

Speaking of cheerful things, I bought a nice plastic container to keep my pin site supplies in. Up until now they have resided on the floor next to my chair in the kitchen in a cardboard box from one of the first batches of supplies I received late last year. It didn't look very nice, what with packing tape haning off it is and collecting the standard type of kitchen debris on the bottom of the box. It also wasn't very nice bending over to grab supplies each time I needed to do a dressing change - not easy with a bum leg. So I went to the dollar store (where I bought the pillbox too - 2$! I found the same one on several sites on line being sold from anywhere between 2 and 10$... robbery!) and picked up a nice plastic bin, which sits on the cardboard box I used to keep my supplies in, cleverly taped shut with medical tape, packaging tape neatly trimmed off.

A tiny bit of my stash of supplies.

See my craftiness here? I was not kidding when i said I used medical tape to close the cardboard box. I have also used it to finish cross stitch card projects when double sides tape just wouldn't do. You know you have been sick too long when...

I have at least 12 more bottles a sterile saline, around 1600 more sterile swabs, way to much medical tape than I could ever use, and a bazillion packs of non-woven sponges.

The bin is larger enough to fit enough supplies for about a week; I keep anything everything else in my room and fill replenish the bin when needed. It looks much nicer than the previous set up and, like the pill box, it looks neat and, more importantly bright and cheerful, something I can use a lot of during this difficult time.

Golly, you know you have been sick for too lone when pills boxes and storage bins for medical supplies become exciting!

Anyways. Back to what the cool kids have...

I went to the bookstore this evening and bought the last colouring book I wanted. Unfortunately the didn't have the cross stitch magazine I wanted with the Margaret Sherry card kits =( I love Maragaret Sherry designs XD

Mushroom socks found at the back of my sock drawer - got them as a birthday or Christmas gift from my best friend a few years ago.

I went to the dollar store on Thursday and hit the jack pot - polka-dot hair clips! Do you know how difficult those are to find?!?! Through in some sparkly glitter bobby pins and pencils covered in hearts and I am one happy girl XD.

Stopped at the Dutch store in Grimbsy on the way home from my hospital appointment yesterday. Teaaaaa!!!!

This is a Dutch thing from Sinterklaas Feest (kind of like the equivalent of Santa/gift giving in Canada and the US). They are made of fondant covered in a thin layer of chocolate.

Really, it is the little things getting me through each day. Unfortunately, I will have my fixator longer than expected ( will explain tomorrow when I update about my hospital appointment on Friday), so the little things really do help make my days a bit less dull and difficult.