The countdown game...

Anyone watch "Lost"? You know the countdown game, where they have to enter a number at a certain time, or the world might end? My wife and I play that game. Every day. Every 6 hours, to be exact. Joe needs a set of medications every six hours. He has to have them every six hours because the effectiveness of the medications wears off. Once that happens, the degeneration of his cells starts to accelerate. The meds don't stop the process, but they really hamper it. It's an odd biochemical explanation that I don't care to spew, but it works and so we do it. But the catch is that he needs it every six hours. My wife and I take turns, and on the 6 and the 12, day and night, we medicate him. This has been going on for 4 years now. It's both routine for us, and a maddening ticking time bomb. Like the Lost folks, we won't see any immediate effects, but on the other end of his life, time will be cut away. Time that he won't get back; time we have no count of, and no way to measure, but time none the less. We both absolutely panic when we get close to the time, because given the just in time nature of the medical response to most urgent issues, we want to give him as much slack as possible. Looking at it another way, we want to prolong his life as much as possible, even though we don't know when that is. So I have a real good idea where I will be at midnight. If it's my turn I will be kneeling by his bedside with a cup of water and some nasty smelling pills. If not then I will be sleeping, because if I get to sleep early, then I am responsible for the 6AM meds. Noon and dinner seem to get done without much fanfare. I can count on my hand the times we have missed the mark- not bad for a guy who sometimes puts the trash out on Tuesday for the Thursday AM pickup, huh.