Another Misadventure With Grandmother And Her Meds

Two days ago, Grandmother complained to me, yet again, that the pills she was taking weren't the same. I keep saying to her that it doesn't matter, that even though they may change shape and in numbering on the pills, it's still the same pills and she should take them. No, she insists, they're different, and she wanted me, for the first time ever, to go back to the pharmacy and ask if she could have the "old" ones.

She's my Grandmother; what could I do? So I go back. I feel incredibly terrible for inconveniencing them on behalf of my stubborn, batty Grandmother, but to my surprise, they did. I had the bottle of pills Granny didn't want, an oval-shaped one, and in return the pharmacist gave me round pills. OK, good to know I have that option.

So I go back and give Grandmother the new pills. "No!" she cried. The round pills are not the ones she wanted; the oval-shaped ones are the ones she wanted.

What changed in these arguments over her medications is the level of yelling we laid on each other. Maybe having an argument in front of a neighbor girl and her dad the other day thawed any hesitations about just going after each other, because in the kitchen, with no one else around, we just started screaming.

And the bad thing is, we probably didn't know what the other was talking about. I know very few words about pills and medicine in Chinese, and she doesn't in English. There's a possibility I'm not understanding her, but I really do believe she thinks she's getting different pills for the wrong medicine.

I continue to be incredibly pissed off that she bases this incorrect medicine charge by noting the shape and lettering on the pills. Furthermore, her memory seems to be foggy, so during our fight she continually asked, "OK, what's the number say on the pill?" First of all, I can't help her because I don't know what the lettering or numbering on the other pills are, and second, I was tired of the whole fucking conversation because I thought it was pointless. And I still do.

However, I cave. She wants the oval-shaped pills, she gets the goddamn oval-shaped pills. I go back the next day, apologize profusely to the pharmicist to change it back to what she had before (he understood, thank God; he has equally pig-headed parents), and now Grandmother's satisfied. The dosage is different, however; she takes only one pill twice a day instead of two. Now I have a different problem.

I love my Grandmother, I really do.