Why do I do this?

Twice a day, H takes his many, many meds. They make him very, very sick and so he dreads 10am and 10pm. The other morning, he was grumbling about taking his meds and exasperated.

"Why do I do this? Why do I take these?" he asks me as he looks at a small Dixie cup filled with pills. He takes two Dixie cups filled with pills twice a day.

"Because they keep you alive."

He says, "Yea, but I feel so bad so much. I should stop taking them."

"You've done that a couple of times, you know…"

"I have?" he asks, looking very puzzled.

"Yea, at least 3 times you stopped taking the meds because they made you so sick. You called it 'pill rebellion.' "

"Then, you got sick, very sick within a week or so of stopping the meds…with what you described as the worst flu you've ever had. The virus came roaring back. And you got scared - got hospitalized one time - and started taking them again."

"I did?" he asks. "I don't remember any of that."