Chapter 3 - THE MEDICATION LOG
The next discovery was not something I expected.
My oncologist’s nurse called two days later.
“We need to reconcile your medications.”
I sat in the guest bedroom of the confidential apartment where the support program had placed me.
“Okay.”
She reviewed everything.
Pain medication.
Anti-nausea tablets.
Antibiotics from surgery.
Other supportive medications.
Then:
“You’ve been requesting early refills on the anti-nausea prescription.”
“I have?”
Pause.
“Our record shows two refill calls from your household.”
“I didn’t make them.”
“Did your husband?”
I closed my eyes.
“Probably.”
Daniel managed my medication cabinet.
At first because I was exhausted after surgery.
Then because he said I was forgetful.
He made a spreadsheet.
Set alarms.
Counted pills.
Everyone thought it was caring.
The pharmacy review showed something strange.
Medication quantities were not matching my reported use.
Not enormous discrepancies.
Enough to raise questions.
My attorneys and doctors handled the issue carefully.
Nobody jumped to:
Daniel poisoned me.
There was no evidence of that.
What they could establish was simpler.
He had been controlling access to medication without my informed participation.
Sometimes giving me medication later than scheduled.
Sometimes insisting I did not need nausea relief because:
“You’ll just throw up anyway.”
Once, according to a text I had sent my sister and forgotten about, I wrote:
Daniel says I already took the nausea pill but I swear I didn’t. Maybe chemo brain without chemo lol.
I had made a joke.
There was no chemotherapy yet.
Just surgery.
I had begun doubting my own memory before treatment had even started.
My sister, Megan, called when I sent her screenshots.
“I knew something was wrong.”
“You never said that.”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Last Christmas.”
I remembered.
She told me Daniel spoke to me like an employee.
I became furious.
Didn’t talk to her for six weeks.
“He said you hated him.”
“I do now.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
Then cried.
Megan flew in the next day.
The first thing she did was hug me.
The second was:
“I am not saying I told you so.”
“Thank you.”
May you like
“I am thinking it very aggressively.”
That was my sister.
