“One for you, one for me,” Hubby said the other day. No, he wasn’t dealing cards. He was separating our pills from our daily pill container and distributing them between us.

“Wait,” I said. “No fair. You’ve got more than me.”

He gave me “the look.”

“Do you seriously want an equal number of pills? I’ll gladly give you some of mine.”

I thought about it for a minute. “Well, I thought I was catching up when Dr. A put me on a thyroid supplement. But then Dr. B discontinued my Eliquis, so I’m back to where I started.” Then I remembered something. “But Dr. B did say to take a baby aspirin instead. I’ll add it in when I redo the pill containers. That will give me one more.”

About once every three or four weeks, I spend an afternoon refilling our pill containers. At least I have something productive to occupy my time since I’ve retired. It is rare to be able to completely fill the containers without finding that we are out of one medication or another. Then I have to try to keep it straight as to which containers are lacking pills and which pills they are lacking while trying to remember to reorder medications. It can get downright exhausting. I wonder if there’s a pill to help me remember.

If I get to the pills in the morning before Hubby, I carefully extract mine and either leave his in the box or lay them out by his placemat. He will make a count, and if the count is accurate, he will swallow the whole lot with one gulp. It doesn’t matter if they are the right ones, just as long as the count is right. Sometimes it feels like our pills are our breakfast because they take up so much room in our bellies there isn’t room for food.

I have a feeling that things are only going to get worse as time goes by. I may have to invest in those super-big pill containers, as our smaller ones are getting more difficult to close. Or we may have to go to “his” and “hers” containers.

Hubby sighed. “You know, I never used to have to take any medications.” He says this at least twice a week.

“Yeah, but you’ve never been this old before,” I remind him. That always cheers him up.