Thursday night I started into an attack of what turned out to be colitis, which is very nasty indeed. Friday morning I called for paramedics, then spent hours in the ER before being admitted.

I keep a file on my computer listing all my medications and supplements, when I take them, and how much I take. But just the day before I'd been given 3 new prescriptions for other conditions, and I hadn't added them to the document. So I just threw all the pill bottles into a gym bag, along with a book and a few other things.

One good thing about a document like mine is that if your doctor verbally changes your dosage without writing a new prescription, you can keep track of the change.

Here's where I got into trouble by bringing in the pill bottles themselves is that for one medication, the bottle says to take 3 1/2 pills in the evening, but my doctor has reduced that dosage to 2 pills. Somehow (I don't remember completely) I was able to explain that to the hospital staff, but I never did get them to understand that although another medication that says "one pill, twice daily," I actually take two pills in the morning.

The worst thing, of course, would be not to take ANY information about your meds with you to the hospital. When I consider how sick and scared I felt, well - guess I get to give myself a pat on the back for bringing the pills along.