Prose 生活隨筆: 2021 Go Home (Taiwan) 7

(This post was published on my old blog on October 9, 2021.)
(這篇貼文在 2021 年 10 月 9 日發表於我的舊部落格。)

As I get older, it seems like I take more medications than before. So when I returned to Taiwan, I noticed how medications were handled. In the U.S. each medication is put in a separate container and you can take it directly without any extra handling. However, in Taiwan you need to cut each individual medicine from the whole package in order to distribute it in the medicine container box. Then when you are ready to take medicine, you will take it out from another cover again. If you need to take several medications in the morning and night, it will be a chore to fill your medicine container box for a week. In the U.S. according to my own experience if your dose changes for the same medication, the doctor will prescribe another prescription and will not ask you to take more pills (if dose increases) or cut a pill into pieces and only take partial amounts of it (if dose decreases). I don’t know why my mom has a medicine that she will need to take ¾ of a pill. I will divide one pill in half and put this half of the pill into a medicine container box. Then take another pill to divide it into four parts and add ¼ of this pill into the medicine container box. I distribute this medicine this way for each day for a week. I am thinking if someone is afraid of math, will he/she feel stressed when he/she needs to handle this medication? I also think that this might be a good example to teach children the fraction problem in math.
我年紀增長，吃藥量好像也隨著增加。因而回到臺灣也注意到家人吃藥的情形。我注意到在美國，每種藥都一粒粒在分開的藥罐中，一打開就可以服用，不像在臺灣，自己需要剪開連起來的包裝，才能放在藥盒中，吃藥的時候還要再除去另一層包裝。在臺灣如果早晚都要吃好幾種藥的話，每個禮拜搞定這一禮拜的藥盒，真得花一些時間。另外在美國如果同一種藥劑量換了，醫生會另開處方，不會叫你多吃幾粒或要你切割藥（至少我從未有這樣的經驗）。有趣的是，我不知道是什麼理由，媽媽有一個藥要吃 3⁄4 顆，每個禮拜就先得把一顆藥對分，將半顆藥放在每一天的格子裡，再把另一顆藥分成四份，將 1⁄4 的藥再加入每一天的藥格裡，對數學有恐懼感的人，這種分藥方式是否帶來壓力？我又想這時正好可以用這個實例來教小朋友數學中的分數問題。