I was sitting at my parents’ kitchen table a few days after my father was released from the hospital for the second time in as many weeks. He had developed an infection post-triple bypass, and he was readmitted to receive a (pardon my vernacular) crap-ton of antibiotics. Before me lay a pile of pills to be sorted into his weekly pill organizer. As I carefully picked through the orange, yellow, pink and blue hues, I realized he would probably be taking these for the rest of his life--about 5-10 each day. Assuming he lived another 15 years or so, I estimated he would swallow, digest and process about 27,375 - 54,750 pills in total.
In that moment, I wondered if there was an alternative. And that kernel of a question put me on a path that no one, not even me, expected.