Russell: Routines with multiple medicines – Disruptions to medication routines
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Russell
Male
Age at interview: 59
Number of medicines: 15
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian with Scottish and English heritage
Russell often needs to work late or into lunchtime unexpectedly. He needs to anticipate these occasions and have his insulin for diabetes with him at all times.
If I'm going out, say, auditing and I need the lunch time ones, I've got to take them with me. So you've always got to do that. If you are running late sometimes ... I can remember once when I was auditing and one fellow was being particularly difficult and my blood sugars were dropping and I was getting a bit cranky and the fellow that was taking ... the lead auditor ... could see I'm starting to get a bit cranky with this fellow and I thought, ‘I've had enough of you’, but I said, ‘I know if I continue, that I'm going to ...’ [laughs] So I said, ‘Look, I am very sorry, but we will have to finish.’ I said, ‘We've had a long day. It's six o'clock. I'll need some medication and we can't finish it tonight. We are not going to finish this discussion.’ The lead auditor came in and said, ‘No, we are going to stop the audit.’ He said in the car, ‘I'm glad you did that.’ I said, ‘Well, I had to.’
Another audit, I was talking to a fellow and I said, ‘Look, I'll have to have something to eat now. It's 6 o'clock and I've been feeling a bit funny.’ He said, ‘I can see the change in you.’ He could see the change. He was a bit worried. I think he wanted me to have something in case something happened. But you've got to take things with you.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.