In the fall of 1998, my wife, June, and I drove from Chicago to Peoria, Illinois, to visit my elderly parents. Upon arrival at my folks’ apartment, we saw a note taped to the front door telling us of an emergency trip to the hospital. It seems that my Mom had fainted. At the hospital, we learned that she had had a complication from her previous open-heart surgery. The doctors asked about Mom’s medications, so we took Dad home to get her pills. He separated his pills from hers, and placed Mom’s expensive life-saving medications in a paper bag and took them to the hospital for the doctors to review. Since then, Mom has done well, but Dad passed away in March of 1999, at the age of 93.

That following winter (January, 2000), our daughter, Suzi, got married in Florida at Walt Disney World. Mom, June and I traveled by air to the wedding. Mom carried her medications in a zip-lock baggy. There were so many bottles that the bag barely closed. By the way, the trip was wonderful: the weather was perfect, my 90-year old Mom walked down the isle at her granddaughter’s wedding ceremony, and she “danced” with Mickey Mouse at the wedding reception!

When we returned from the trip, I began looking for something more appropriate for Mom’s medications...and found nothing! I started to dream of and sketch ways to make an attractive, safe and convenient system--not only to store the pills but also to contain pertinent medical information.