Jane: Benefits and disadvantages – Being proactive about their health
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Jane
Female
Age at interview: 53
Number of medicines: 8
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian
It has been a long, hard road for Jane to find the right combination of medicines that work for her. She feels that her life is really just starting now that she feels so well.
I feel well! I feel alive! I feel that I'm in control of my life rather than my body and feelings controlling me. I feel so well, I just think, ‘Wow, isn't this great!’ And yep, if I could just take one tablet and it made me feel like that, that's great. But ... I just know that I have a quality of life that I didn't have before and it's been hard to get to this spot, but it's been so worth it.
And to have friends and family say, ‘You look so well!’ It's encouraging. I just am stunned that I can feel so well and that I haven't for so long. And I think that's ... yeah. It's worth it. It's a long road and, yes, it's got lots of weavings and things along the way, but it certainly, I think, if it's working for you, you stick with it. Let family and friends help in whatever way they can. I think a lot of the things, people feel helpless, too. And they say, ‘What do you need? Why can't you just pick yourself up and whatever?’ But having been on medication and feeling so well, I think this is what I need. I need to feel this well. I need to know that that's actually accessible.
In the past, probably, I didn't know and haven't known that it was. And yeah, I'm just grateful, I guess, to be in a place where I am feeling so well. And you know, other people at 53 are going, ‘Ohhh, you know, we're so old!’ and I think, ‘No, I'm just getting in there now and really living life, I think!’
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.