My medicine cabinet is filling up. The doctors prescribed bottles of immunosuppressants to acclimate my body to the drugs, which I'll have to take for the rest of my life once I receive the transplant. The drugs knock down my immune system so it won't attack and reject the new organs. They'll make me more susceptible to colds and flus, and over the long haul put me at greater risk for cancer. But if they let me accept the organs, help me beat diabetes, it will be more than worth the risk.
Problem is, the medication comes in horse pills.
I take a fistful - eight a day in addition to some reasonably sized tablets. After I get my organs, I'll take even more. Some patients, I've been told, take more than 200 pills a day in the weeks following a transplant. Still, pills would be a welcome relief from the needles I use to take my insulin. I am master of the injection.