The Pharmacy Chick

I was hanging out at the golf course today after work when I spotted a friend of mine who had just returned from vacation.  I asked him how his trip was and he replied ( and I am not so sure he was being truthful) ..”oh, I just LOVE spending 2 weeks in a RV with my children”.  He had packed up his family and took off for parts unknown in what is basically a studio apartment on wheels.

On my way home, i got behind 2 such studio apartments being towed by a couple of giant trucks (8mpg at best I assume).  Because I was not going AROUND this convoy on the little 2 laner I was driving on,  I just settled down for the 15 minute ride home…and starting thinking…and reminiscing.

RV….short for “recreation vehicle”.  It seems to be a uniquely North American mode of vacation because in most of my travels,  I have never seen such a vehicle in Europe or the Middle East. I do however fail to see the “recreation” part of this design.  Allow me to explain.

I perhaps have a different definition of “recreation”.  To me, it implies a break…a rest from the drudgery of daily work, such as housework and cooking.    Dragging a small building on wheels around all over the country doesn’t sound very  relaxing to me.

To me, my perfect RV is my car.  My car will take me to a very clean hotel where a nice clean bed awaits me and somebody else will make the bed, wash the sheets, and clean the shower when I am done.  My car will take me to any number of restaurants where some very nice person will cook a meal for me and somebody equally nice will serve it and take the plates away, never to be seen again.  I don’t have to hook up my car to any device to suck the poop out of a holding tank, and I don’t have to plug it in to anything to keep all the lights on.  It fits in every parking spot on the planet and I dont have  to make special allowances as to HOW I will get out of the lot I just drove into.

Likewise, I dont have to pack nearly half of everything I own (including the kitchen sink).   I don’t have to hope I have enough water to make that next flush, and if I want to take a shower, I can do so with impunity. 

I remember as a kid, we used to go camping. (this was pre “RV” term) For the record, Pharmacy Chick was never given an opt-out of these events.  Honestly, I never saw the appeal for the women-folk.  Mom had to clean out the camper, which my father dutifully dirtied  with his dogs, dead animals carcasses, hunting gear, and various work supplies (since he worked in the mountains a lot).  99% of the time, the camper was a mess that even Hazmat would defer.  Nevertheless, Mom would clean it up then go about the chore of getting it ready for the camping trip…loading it up with fresh food, making sure that the food already in there was in date (doubtful), and that the water tank was full (never was), and that the potty was empty (don’t go there).  We’d pack camping dishes, camping clothes, camping furniture, camping..well you get the picture.  Then we would take off and drive for hours on roads that even the Forest Service has no record of, until we were so sufficiently “away” from people that likely even GOD would need GPS to find us.

We were then encouraged to enjoy the great outdoors whilst Dad and Brother would do ”man stuff” , like build a fire ring …which also made no sense since the camper had a “kitchen”.  Dad liked to camp next to a creek if he could find one in case we wanted to bathe…yea…RIGHT…bathe in 36 degree water that only 20 minutes ago was snow pack on the mountan we were parked on.

After about 20 minutes of enjoying the “great outdoors”  Pharmacy Chick would usually BE discovered by the great outdoors..namely mosquitoes….mosquitoes large enough to require lisences and leashes.  Slathered in enough deet to frost a cake, I would retreat to the farthest INTERIOR corner of the camper, scolding anybody foolish enough to open the door and let one of the blood sucking creatures inside.  I would also risk asphyxiation at night by sleeping 100% under the covers, lest even one of them bite me on the face.

It never worked.

30 years later I am still scarred by this character building experience of “camping”.  After a couple of nights in the wilderness we would pack up and drag our smelly aching bodies back home.  the BOYS would  grunt and retreat to the showers, and dad would turn on the news.  Mom and I would be left to the task of cleaning up the camper, the dirty dishes, the dirty clothes, the dirty dogs and..well, you get the picture. I would also spend the next week nursing my various bites and scratches, cursing the very ground upon which my father walked if he EVER suggested another camping trip…which he inevitably did 3-4 times each summer.

So just in case you are wondering.. Pharmacy Chick doesn’t ” RV”…she doesn’t “CAMP” either, unless you consider Motel-6 as camping..that is as close to roughing-it as I am ever going to get.  Every year a group of my church friends likes to go camping…and every year they invite the Chicks for a “day in the mountains”.

I think not.

Now where is that mint that is supposed to be on the pillow…………..

Tags: back in time, letting you in to my life, personal life | |

Who knows if this had anything to do with me becoming a pharmacist, but this thought came to mind after I was counseling somebody on a wax-matrix tab the other day.

While PC was still a chicklet and in college (pre pharmacy days) she came down (love that expression: “came down”) with BIH: Benign Intracranial Hypertension. If you have ever experienced this, you would hardly call it benign.  The cerebral spinal fluid production goes nuts for some unknown reason and starts to squish the brain like some fat chick poured into a pair of jeans 3 sizes too small.  (get the picture?).  Good.

It hurts…alot…becasue the only place for the brain to go is into the orbital of the eyes and down the spinal cord.   By the time my mother believed my whining enough to take me to the doctor I was just a few days away from a stroke, blindess, or both.  I had a spinal tap to drain some fluid and for a short while I was in heaven as the pain went away but it was all to brief.  I was put on Diamox Sequels, Lasix, and Slow-K.

Nasty stuff that Diamox!.  They smell great (vanilla) but the side effects are killer!    The Lasix made me pee non-stop and the Slow-K (for my non pharmacist readers) was to replace the potassium that the Lasix was removing.   I took something like 6 of them a day. Imagine my surprise when I performed my morning routine and found perfectly formed potassium tablets floating in the toilet!   This was pre-mandatory counseling days so I have no idea if the pharmacist at the time forewarned my mother about the floaties but I can tell you I didn’t know about it.  There was a bit of a freak out moment.

I wasn’t a pharmacist, or a pharmacy student. I was just a 19 year old college student with a headache that wouldn’t quit. Its been absolutely forever since I have used Slow-K. I am not sure if its even made anymore.  But every once in a while I remember this time in  my life. I recovered from this disease, tho it came back 3 times more.  After my first bout with it, my pituitary gland had been squished so much that I didn’t have a period for 18 months.  (that part wasn’t too bad actually! )

I am pretty good at counseling on Acetazolamide too.  And if you really wanna have some fun with your friend on Acetazolamide, serve them a Coke. 

I dont know why I am telling this story, it just came to mind….No moral of the story, No heady advice.  Just a peek into the past!

cheers!

Tags: back in time, letting you in to my life, personal life | |

Pharmacy chick checked out for a week and went home to visit her dad.  I needed some R&R and needed to see how things were at home.  Because he lives in a small midwest town, about 800 miles away, I decided to fly.  There is a huge difference between flying in a major market and a small market.  I’ll take the small market every time.

1.  The airport:  In my city, I am thrown into the cauldron of the great unwashed.  Herded like cattle (MOOOOO) thru roped areas for tickets, luggage and then security, throngs of people meet the scrutiny of unsmiling TSA people with their raised eyebrow stares and their little blue flashlight. It must be a magic flashlight because it scrutinizes my drivers license, and if it passes muster, I get to move on.  If it doesn’t…well I don’t wanna know. I suspect I am going to jail or taken away for a full body cavity strip search by Helga the TSA supervisor.  In the small town airport, there is 1 security line. It opened about 10 minutes before we were supposed to board, and the Pilot was ahead of me.. note to self..if HE doesn’t get thru, there isn’t much reason for me to even try.

2. The Plane:  Going to the small town, everybody on the plane looked the same…a bunch of lilly white people wearing jeans and sweatshirts.  They either lived there, used to live there, or were visiting relatives from there.   When I flew back and changed planes in the hub city, it  looked like a meeting of the United Nations on that plane. I sat next to an Indian man who smelled like curry and across from me was an Asian lady scolding her toddler in Chinese.    On the way over, the plane was half empty, but after we made our Hub city transfer on the return flight, we were delayed because apparently there was one more passenger standing on the plane than there was seats to place him.  Whups.  Glad it wasn’t MY seat in contention.  You’d need a crow bar to pry me out of my seat thank you. I am going home on THIS flight.

On the short leg of the journey (30 minutes) , the flight attendants zoom thru the cabin tossing 25 calorie snacks and glasses of water. They zoom thru 10 minutes later to collect everything “regardless of their contents”, and we land.  Our pilot was a game show host in a previous life, I am convinced.  During the safety demonstration he said something I hadn’t heard before and it went something like this:  If we have a loss of cabin pressure the masks will fall down..yada yada yada…if you are in the lavatory, there is a YELLOW TAB FOR YOU TO GRASP AND THE MASK WILL RELEASE..GRAB THE MASK AND PLACE IT ON YOUR FACE.

I being the CHICK, I worked that concept over in my head.  If i was on a plane that was losing cabin pressure the last friggin place I’d want to be would be the toilet. Chances are, I’d be with my pants down, with no seat belt and tossed around like a rag doll.  The last thing I’d likely find is that yellow TAB.  I began to wonder..would they look for my body in the bathroom in the rubble of the plane?  And, if they do, would they laugh when they found my body? “Hey Joe, come over here and catch a gander of this…this chick has no pants on!…but she managed to get the mask on!    It nearly became reality when we had turbulence from hell for the first half-hour.  Since I knew I had nothing but work/stress/ and employee hassles  to return to the next day, the idea of dying on a flight and moving to heaven actually appealed to me for a moment.  The pilot handled the plane like the PRO he is and we landed safely. Good thing the TSA let him thru security.

3. Rental cars.  In the big city, we get off the plane, find our way to the staging area for all the rental car busses. Everybody sizes up everybody else when the bus comes…who gets on first…and more importantly, who gets OFF first and into the rental line.    You then spend 45 minutes in line getting the car you already spent 45 minutes ONLINE reserving (whats up with that anyway??) going over everything you already did online. Once you sign your life away, you may leave with your car.  There are acres of cars to choose from and you are free to argue with your spouse over whether you want the blue one, red one or the black one with the white stripe. In a small town, you find the white phone that says “Ron’s rental cars” and pick it up.  Ron answers the phone and says “Be right up!”.  He picks you up in an unmarked mini van and drives you to a converted closet  at one of the motels near the airport.  There are 6 cars.  5 of them are rented.  You get the ONE sitting there.   There is no razor wired fenced yard.  There is no “do not drive backwards over strip” sign.  Ron flips you the key and says..”see you Saturday”. 

Ironically, when I returned the car,  There was a sign at the “office”.  Be right back. if you have an emergency, dial 555 123-4567.  I didn’t have an emergency, so I waited.  Apparently “right back” is relative…30 minutes later I was sensing “emergency”. I had a flight to catch.  I dialed the number and Ron answered the phone. “Ill send Stan right down”.  Stan was rounding up cars at the airport.  God only knows where Ron was. He arrived in his own car so we used my rental car…that I was told to bring to the hotel INSTEAD of the airport, and drove it to the airport. Okay…more work for Stan.

4. The counter help:  In the big city,  I used curbside check in, handed off my luggage and bid it adieu.  Hopefully I will see it again. Its a long way from the curb to  the plane. There are over a hundred places for those bags to end up lost.  In the small town, the same girl printed my ticket, moved my luggage, and then raced upstairs to board me on the plane.  There is 3 planes at the entire airport. Only 1 of them is flying out in the next 4 hours.  I assume its mine!.

I also played some golf on my trip. I went to the small town muni course.  I came in unannounced ( a no-no in a big city) and asked “can I play?” and was greeted with “YUP, 10 bucks…first tee is by the sign o’er there… see ya”. And I was off.  The next day we played a big resort course.  The tee sheet was full. Good thing I had a tee time..there would be NO walk-on’s, and no “Yup, 10 bucks” here!

There are no traffic jams in small town USA.  There is no reason to worry about “crossing traffic” to make a left turn.  For most people HOME and WORK are moments away and the idea of a commute is completely foreign.  If you get a half hour lunch, there is time to drive home, eat and go back.  I visited a friend I used to work with 30 years ago.  He lives in a smaller town.  I live in this huge metropolis.  I have access to a million more stores, cultural events, museums and activities than he ever will.  He has it made.  I hate it here.  I’d trade him in a minute.  I spent 2 evenings with his family.  My heart ached about leaving town again.

I wish I had never left “home”.   I’m a highly paid but over stressed professional working for a huge company who wouldn’t care if I dropped dead tomorrow as long as I did it on my own time.  I feel the pull of simplicity and smallness.  I am tired of the complicated…tired of traffic reports…tired of  everything being so far away. I am weary. I dont need half the stuff I have.  I don’t even want much of it anymore. 

Moving now would be like trying to uproot and transplant a Redwood, especially where Mr Chick is concerned.  He is happy where he is.

Pharmacy Chick would leave like a prisoner set free if given the chance. All I need…is that chance.

Tags: letting you in to my life, non pharmacy stuff, personal life | |

This morning as I padded sleepy-eyed from the bed to the dresser, I commented to Mr Chick “Today’s going to be a good day!” He asked why and I said “Because its WHITE sock day” We both had a little chuckle because we knew exactly what it meant.

The Chicks do not have a large diversity in the sock drawer. We have a drawer of white socks and a drawer of black socks. When I draw from the black sock drawer, it means I have to go to work. When I draw from the white sock drawer, Its a play day. Today is a WHITE sock day. Poor Mr chick. He put on black socks today

My only exception is this: If I ever make it to Boston, I’ll be RED SOX all over! Boo Yankees.

Peace!

Tags: drivel, letting you in to my life, non pharmacy stuff | |

One would think that with the price of fuel these days that people wouldn’t be so aggressive with the heating /cooling of their businesses. Heating never seems to be an issue. I cannot think of anyplace I have ever gone into where I was shedding clothes because it was too warm. However Pharmacy Chick keeps clothes in her trunk because there seems to be an abundance of businesses who run the A/C til frost forms on the windows.

Take today for example. The Chick’s decided to grab a burger before church. It wasn’t very warm today, only about 72 and cloudy all day, so it was not like we had a heat wave going on. We got out of the car and I asked Mr Chick to open the trunk to grab my fleece. He just rolled his eyes and popped the trunk. I had been here before, I knew exactly what it was going to be like and I was right. It was FREEZING in there, in fact there was NOBODY eating inside the restaurant, everybody was outside. We joined them. We positioned ourselves fairly near the door and almost everybody who walked to the outdoor eating area said the same thing: ” Sheesh its cold in there, lets eat out here!”

Now ya gotta know that all that air conditioning is costing somebody money. Even we are fairly careful about turning on the air at the Chick household. We dont like to see our electric bills escalate into the triple digits just because we want to be cool. We save it for when we need it. So what is the purpose of having a room temperature that is in the low 60’s when its only 72 outside?

Even experts suggest you heat your house to 68 in the winter and cool it to 78-80 in the summer. Church wasn’t much better. I remember the days before somebody donated air conditioning to our church sanctuary. Granted there were some days where some fans and ice water would have gone a long way during a sermon, but I’d trade that over needing fleece in July.

Perhaps its just me. I like to be warm. I am not an Eskimo at heart. I’d wear flip flops over boots anyday and my outdoor activities revolve around sun not snow. I am the first to put on pants when it cools down and the last to go sleeveless when the temperature goes up. I am ready for a hot-flash.

Even my store is guilty of this. Until it reaches into the 90’s where even the A/C cannot even keep up, our store is routinely 65 inside. I know this because I have a thermometer in the pharmacy. I wear long sleeves all year long. I’d love to know, if they would raise the temp up to 70, how much money in utitilies would they save.

Maybe enough to give me a raise…its been awhile.

Tags: letting you in to my life | |

I was ringing up a sale at the register when a long time customer asked me Do you like being a pharmacist? It seems like a fun job. After I checked to see if she had alcohol on her breath I took a moment to respond. I didn’t want to lie and tell her I had the coolest job on the planet, but I also didn’t want to make it sound like my job was akin to mucking out port-a-potties either. Since she had asked a sincere question, I decided that a sincere, honest and to-the-point answer was in order: I said “Depends on the day”.

I told her the truth. The business has been good to me financially. I have made a good living in a field that to date, has been largely immune from the trials and tribulations of economic instability. For 20+ years we have weathered pharmacist shortages that has virtually guaranteed that I will not have to stand in the bread line anytime soon. I could walk off my job tomorrow and by the middle of next week I could have my pick of any number of jobs. Granted, they may not be GREAT jobs, but they would put food on the table. For a lot of people, that is a lofty aspiration and one that I do not take for granted. Neither do I consider myself indispensable (forgive the pun). Everybody is replaceable even if it DOES take a while.

I told her that the job however is rarely “fun”. The cost of this good income is long hours, working in a retail setting that is open 363 days a year, and dealing with the public who comes to me largely because they HAVE to and not because they WANT to. My hours are decided by somebody else, not myself. I cannot choose to close early because I am tired or sick. For the priviledge of being a retail pharmacist, I also forfeit uninterrupted lunches and working in a quiet unhurried environment. I cannot choose my workload. The wearer of the white coat lives under a microscope most of the time, micromanaged by the company she works for, and pressured all day by the demands from whomever is the most persistent.

“Line 1, Guess who?” Like I’d have to guess. For the 6th time today Harold has called to see if his Doctor has ok’d his Vicodin. AND, despite my promises that I will call him the very moment its authorized, Harold calls about every hour….and demands to talk to me.

“Line 2, Guess who also?” Harold just hung up so it has to be Dina, who just picked up her prescription. We play 20 questions every time she comes in. No human on the planet has called our store more often than Dina. While I like her, I wish she would go away. “Can I take Aspirin when I am using Patanol?”, “Can my son take Ibuprofen with his Amoxicillin?” “If I have an allergic reaction to Claritin, can I take Benadryl?” “What happens If I have a reaction to Benadryl?” “Can I take Benadryl and Tylenol at the same time?” “Will I overdose if I take Claritin and Patanol?” There will be, in fact, at least 2 followup phone calls for every single rx she picks up, whether it be new or refills. She has even called us while she is on vacation.

When you are a pharmacist, there is no closed door to retreat behind (but the potty) when you’ve had enough. Go ahead, try… somebody will demand your attention before the aforementioned door closes…and you will again be at somebody elses beckon call. Thats what its like to be a retail pharmacist. I should have a mantle full of Oscars for the performances of a lifetime I have played out in the white coat.

This customer then asked me if they took it all away, would I go to pharmacy school again? Tougher question: Its a good thing that I was an uninformed college student when I chose Pharmacy as my major. I worked thru each quarter, one at a time, always amazed that I survived to pass on to the next one. It was harder than I had imagined…and its even harder now with the Pharm D as the entry degree. Ignorance is bliss I think. There are a lot of things that I have done in my life that were harder than I had thought when I started them. I have completed a lot of things that if I had the opportunity to repeat, I probably wouldn’t simply because I would remember the effort involved. “Glad I did it once, don’t want to do it again” might be a good motto for the things in THAT category.

I guess I didn’t have an answer for her. I dont remember exactly what I said, but in retrospect, if I was 20 years old and had my life before me, yes I’d probably do it again. If I was 45 and starting over with a new career, not so sure.

What made me write about this was the following conversation:

A nurse called me the other day on a refill auth to inform us that at the end of the month, the Dr was closing her practice. I casually asked “Having a baby?”. No, the nurse replied, she is giving up medicine to go to Law School. WHOA. Pharmacy school was one thing, that took 6 years. But Medicine? This physician likely had a dozen years or more in school and residency before she hung her shingle…and she is giving it all up. I wish I knew her well enough to ask her why.

I know the nurses name and when I go back to work next week, I am gonna call her and ask her. I’ll let you know.

For now I put the same question to you–Would YOU do it all over again? or better yet, If you were going to start over, what WOULD you do?

Thats an easier question for Pharmacy Chick–I am passionate about animals, I’d be a vet.

Tags: drivel, general junk, letting you in to my life, pharmacy life, rambling endlessly | |

I was reading some of my old posts and I thought to myself: PC, you complain a lot. Well, yes I do, because there isn’t much of this job that is fun and uplifting to write about anymore. I actually used to like my job and used to look forward to going to work. I also used to do about 500 less rx’s per week and was allocated the same labor hours that I work with now. That means that I do almost twice the work with the same labor. No wonder I am stressed and grouchy about my job. There must be a direct correlation, ya think?

So, to reverse that trend I decided to share with you some of my favorite things today. Note, none of them will have anything to do with the pharmacy! I may go back to my bitch-fest tomorrow but for today, its happy-post day.

My favorite food: Pizza, especially pepperoni and sausage. Barbecued Ribs! Lay it on thick with some spicy sauce and I’m in heaven. I am not a sissy salad chick. Pharmacy Chick is a carnivore. I also love my mothers fried chicken. I can’t make it exactly like her, but Mr Chick says its a close second.

My favorite sound: The sound of the wind thru a stand of ponderosa pine. Nothing says ‘peace’ more than that. Its compeletely unique and different and any other wind thru trees. I hope you all can hear it someday.

My favorite smell: chocolate chip cookies cooking, bacon, and new-car-smell. I get the cookies and bacon enough but not the new-car smell….

My favorite TV: Watching baseball, Red Sox, thanks, on my HiDef Plasma TV, and anything on HGTV

My favorite person: Jesus Christ, even though I fall pretty short, he’s always there to pick me up, dust me off and send me trundling on my way.

Favorite beverages: Coke (original), Red Gatorade, Chocolate milk, Egg Nog and Grapefruit juice. Just not at the same time.

Favorite Holiday: none–I declare my own. Sometimes I will declare a day “Vacation day” and spend the day doing whatever I want, regardless of the dishes/laundry/chores whatever. Its very theraputic, try it sometimes.

Favorite Movie: White Christmas. The Chick family doesn’t do movies or network TV unless its sports.

Favorite outfit: Jeans, a cotton turtleneck and a sweatshirt for winter and just about anything for hot weather!

Favorite season: Summer–hands down. I hate the cold.

Favorite book: Harry Potter, was a late bloomer, read all 7 in succession.

Favorite snack: Potato chips and onion dip, Freshly made spicy Guacamole.

Favorite Team: Red Sox, even when they stunk.

Favorite place: I love the mountains, except the mosquitoes tho, REALLY dislike the mosquitoes. They however seem to like me. If I could live in the mountains I would, but my home ended up in the city. I also like any place where my dog can sleep with her head on my lap.

Favorite car: Lexus SC 430 Sport Coupe, my never-gonna-own dream car.

Favorite colors: Bright Red and Dusty Blue.

Favorite thing about work: Locking the doors and going home! heh heh…

All in Fun,

Pharmacy Chick

Ps, Does anybody miss Pharmacy God posting like I do?

Tags: letting you in to my life | |