The Pharmacy Chick

Every day brings its own  interesting quirks and quibbles.  Some are head-shakers, and others just make you wish certain customers would crawl back under the rock they emerged from.

1. Script from ER>  Symbicort 250/50.  From the get go, somebody has no clue.  I call the Urgent Care clinic and actually get Dr on the phone.  Apparently he knew nothing of what he was prescribing because ” Thats what she said she was on”.    He said to have patient  figure out what she was on, give her that, and let him know. She swears its Symbicort.. We finally had to resort to “what color is the box you used?”  She said red… I said, “thats not one of the options… Blue or Green?   blank stare…

2.  customer calls us and wants us to fill some simvastatin for her.  We discover she had never had it here.   She said she got it mail order and wants to know if we can fill it.  We say sure, we can transfer it from mail order…but NO, she doesn’t want us to transfer it….just fill it.  Must be the slow class..  We think we are moving in the right direction when things get weirder.. ” Can you check my chart to see if I am supposed to be on simvastatin anymore?”  Um, we dont have your chart records Ma’am.  This is the pharmacy. Call your physician..” Do you have his phone number?” Sure, what is his name?  “I dont know, dont you have it on your chart?”

moving on…

We get a script for Suboxone.  12mg for 1 week, 16mg the next then back to 12mg.. (!?!)  We call for clarification and the nurse says “we wondered if we would get a question about that”.  yea well thanks for helping the pharmacy out by NOT clarifiying anything, thereby making us call.  Turns out the patient is having some procedure that week and may need MORE suboxone.  How about not getting hooked on narcotics in the first place.?

” Do you deliver?”  No we dont have a delivery service   “well do you suppose one of your underlings would like to make a quick $20 by delivering my prescriptions?”  um, not likely and I am sure they appreciated being thought of as “underlings”.(thought but not said)

RING RING…   ” do you have 480 OxyContin 80mg?”  Not in a million years.

“What do you mean I have to take Generic Effexor now??”  State welfare doesnt’ pay for brand anymore now that there is a generic. “what a ripoff”..  (free is free, I fail to feel a lot of compassion right now)

But the winner of the day goes to :

“Do you have Lovenox 150″  (we affirm that we do).  ” OMG! you do??? I have called every pharmacy in town and nobody has it and I gotta have it today! wow!.  can’t believe my luck…(we fill the rx..and ring it up…cash rx)  “Oh thats too much money…do you price match?” 

I need a beverage…

Tags: customer interactions, customers, personal life | |

Summer finally arrived in Chick-Ville THANK YOU VERY MUCH!   After the winter that lasted far to long and a spring (I use that term loosely) that resembled winter,  we finally are baking in the 90’s.  You will NOT hear the chick whine about the heat.  Bring it on!

After golf today, Mr Chick and I decided to head to the club pool.  The cool refreshing water felt wonderful on a body that had just played 18 holes of golf in 95 degree heat.  It was packed with hottie teeny boppers in their bikinis (sigh, I remember the days) and many I shall describe only as “others”.

Can I just say one thing?  At some point, even BLACK quits being slimming. 

Just an observation!

On the frontlines of the pharmacy,  the Chick got a new intern for the summer…whoo hoo!  I only wish I had interns when I needed them MOST, during flu shot season.  Unfortunately thats when they migrate back to the books.  She’s a smart cookie and for the first time in X years, my intern has ENGLISH as her first language.

Interns sure have changed over the years.  I no longer accept first  year interns simply because I don’t have the time to teach them the stuff they should have learned in class.  When I was in school, we had a true “dispensing” class. It was a mock up of a pharmacy, complete with a pharmacy full of outdated donated drugs that have been pulled and counted thousands of times no doubt.  We were given “rx’s” that we were to interpret, type labels (yes TYPE…as in typewriter) then count, label and show the teacher.

The school nearest to us that we get our interns from have never been to a dispensing class. I guess the teachers assume that is the preceptors job.  “Here, this is a spatula and a counting tray..you hold the wooden end and count with the metal end, usually by 5’s unless you are some savant and prefer to count by 4’s or 6’s…”.

One of the things I always tell my students is this.  “Pharmacy school is going to teach you how to BECOME a pharmacist.   I am going to teach you how to BE one.”  Big difference. 

Every one tries to talk like their professor…”Do you have a special project for me this summer?”.  ” Yes…learn how to become an awesome retail pharmacist, since that is the setting you are in for 10 weeks.  The customer is your judge.”.

Its so competitive in the pharmacy schools now, that I know these kids are brilliant minds to even have been accepted into the program.  I want to teach them to be brilliant communicators and empathetic people too..

Time to get my Dale Carnegie books out!

Now, its time to dip my feet in the pool again!

Tags: personal life, pharmacy life | |

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 | |

It takes a lot tick off the Pharmacy Chick, I will say that from the start.  I have been a retailer for WAY to long to have every little thing bother me.  However, tonight Mr Chick and I did something we have never done before….Walk out of a restaurant.

We had decided to meet a friend of ours for dinner after we had played golf (and she had finished work).  We chose a mexican restaurant (and while I won’t name names, lets just say that it happens to share the same name as an American car company..heh heh)

We arrived, and was promptly seated.  Our server Tina (fake name) brought us the big bowl of chips and some salsa…Our friend arrived about 10 minutes later and we placed our order.   Tina brought more drinks, more chips and more salsa.  We had ordered some Guac as an appetizer……and Tina brought us more drinks, more chips and more salsa.  We asked about the guac and she said it was coming. (tick tick tick)  So we kept eating chips and salsa and drinking soda.  Pretty soon I saw Tina coming with a tray! Hurray, our guacamole!…NOPE…two more bowls of salsa.  (we had been waiting now for over a 1/2 hour)

Mr Chick flagged Tina down and asked to cancel our Guac, and she somehow finagled us to keep the order because it was going to be “right up”. tick…tick…tick…By now we had 45 minutes under our belt and all we had before us was an empty tray of chips, 6 bowls of salsa, and enough soda inside of me to float a ship.  This time I flagged Tina down and told her we were CANCELLING the Guac and it was to be taken off the bill. She apologized and said it was very busy and our food would be out “in a few minutes”….but half the tables were empty so I wasn’t buying this.

(an aside)  Pharmacy Chick was a waitress in her early days…I will warn all my readers, that when a server tells you that your food will be ready in “only a few minutes”, its server-speak for “we just got it started cuz we forgot your order and we trying to buy time”.

Tick …..tick….tick. 

I checked my watch. The 3 of us had been there for 55 minutes, and all we had eaten was chips and salsa.  In that entire time we had seen NO actual meals come from the kitchen.  It was nearly 8 o’clock,  we still had a 45 minute drive home, and I had enough!

I told Mr C,  “Dear, put $5 on the table for the drinks,   I have waited long enough, we are leaving..and we are leaving NOW”.  The 3 of us got up, and without a word, left the restaurant.

We went to the hamburger joint across the street and had a burger and a shake.

I may write a letter.

Tags: non pharmacy stuff, personal life | |

My favorite (unexpressed) thought of the day was this lady who came in and said…

“My doctor just called something in for me..its probably  not ready”.

me, in my head:  Correctamundo!

It was not on the recorder, and not faxed in til way later in the day.

Tags: 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 | |

A sound elicits a response.  No matter where I am in the house (but especially if I am in the kitchen)  the crinkling of plastic wrap causes my dogs to make a bee-line from where ever THEY are to the base of my feet.  It doesn’t matter what kind of plastic I have, whether it be around a magazine or a bag of chips, my dogs have a pre-built in response that “treat” might be in order.  And so it is THEIR response to this sound.

The Pharmacy is no exception.   Not all responses to sounds are visual.  Everytime a customer drops off a prescription and says “AND how long is THIS going to take?”  I have a certain response.  It is somewhat unpleasant not because of the question, but generally because of the TONE in which it is offered.    It is not unreasonable for a customer to what to know how long the wait is, but the tone in which the question is asked makes all the difference in the world.  My response is internal, an immediate dislike of the request…and if the tone is accusatory, you can bet that my wait time has just increased by 10 minutes.

I had such a request last week.  Some lady with her fancy Coach bag and Cole Han shoes dropped off a prescription an 2:45 pm.  She was doing this for somebody else.  “And how long is this going to take?”  (twenty minutes is our minimum wait time..I dont care if I am filing my nails, twenty minutes is the proper response).  I told her “twenty minutes, tops”, as we  had a few waiters a head of her at that point.

“THAT is not going to work for me, I have to be downtown to pick my child up from school at 3:15.  It was at least a 15 minute trip. If she shut the F-up and let me fill the rx, we could get to work on it, but NOOO, we had to sit and discuss why it takes so long to fill a prescription…and I had to hear HOW important her 315 appointment was.  So I stood there.  There was just me and 1 tech.  She was at the other end at the cash register ringing up sales.

 Mrs CoachyColeHan went on and on. And I stood there.  After she exhausted her diatribe, I (as politely as I could) said in essence ”in the amount of time you just spent telling my why it SHOULDN”T take me so long to fill this, I could have been actually doing it and getting you out of here to make your appointment”.  Perhaps a light flickered in her dim bulb brain. She left  me to fill it.  By 3: 05 I had it done, paged her back and sent her on her way.

She might have had it 5 minutes sooner if not for her diatribe at the counter. 

There is that burning feeling inside of me when I get those kinds of statements/questions.  I used to fall over myself trying to be all things to all people and found out that usually I ended up being nothing to everybody but a door mat. I have had to learn what is “enough”

“My dr said he JUST called it in 10 minutes ago.. its not ready??”  burn….

“THAT LONG?”   burn…

“THAT MUCH??”  burn…

“do you price match” after I have already filled it..and presented it to cashier..  burn…

“oh, here is this card my dr gave me to make this cheaper”..like above..rx done and at register..  burn..

“can YOU”…..  “Will YOU…do what I really should be taking care of myself“…more burn…

I am tired and have a  lower boiling point now than I ever used to in my early days as a pharmacist.  Part of the problem is me, I am older and have used up  my patience-allotment.  Part of is is the changing culture of patients, and what they think is valuable.   Who cares if it works..it is cheap?  that is what I hear when somebody disses my recommendations because it may cost a few bucks more.

Its not very often that anybody ever knows the response that goes on in my body when I hear these things.  While my patience-0-meter is at an all time low, my ability to put on an oscar winning performance to hide it is at an all time high.  And while I still try to do my best for all these people, I have also learned to accept that my best is all I can do and if that isn’t good enough….tough luck.

Tags: behavior, customer interactions, personal life | |

I love vacations….especially if they are mine.  If they are YOUR vacations, I may or may not give a rip, but I’ll pretend that I do. heh heh.  Pharmacy Chick just came back from a week in the “desert”.  If you can call palm trees, golf courses, swimming pools and 9 million restaurants “desert” then yes, I was in the desert.  More specifically, the Chick family was in Palm Springs, which currently comprises about 9 different towns that all hug the same little chunk of ground near the mountains. 

Say what you will, I love that place. Any place where I can enjoy dry-shoe golf in the winter is a good place for the Chick.  Its a most unique place this Palm Springs-Palm Desert-Rancho Mirage-LaQuinta-Indian Wells, yada yada yada.  It has a certain “charm” about it, and is about as subtle as a monster truck rally.  Some observations:

1.  If you dont golf or play tennis,  I can’t imagine what you would do here. Sit on your porch?  Just about everything except the restaurants and the grocery stores close at 6 pm.  They really roll up the sidewalks early around there.

2.  Old ladies and very small dogs are abundant.  I am waiting for the newest breed of dog:  the Desert Legless.  Why does everybody seem to think they need to CARRY their dog everywhere?

3. If you are gay, this is YOUR town.

4. If you love gaudy jewelry, this is YOUR town.

5. If you are gay AND love gaudy jewelry, I think its the law you have to live here.

6.  We stayed in an older (read: cheaper) “resort” hotel.  We didn’t get any terry robes, candy on the pillows, or a plasma tv, but we did get a nice view of the parking lot, a TV that mysteriously came on by itself,  andwe  got to hear a midnight performance of an apparent celtic dancer who occupied the room above us…yea thanks for that…

7. If you care about your hair forget it.  The wind rivals that of Chicago. I gave up after day 1, just braided it and pinned it back.

8.  Think it cannot rain in the desert in April?  think again.  WE were there, remember??

9. we rented quite possibly the worst car ever made in America:  the Dodge Journey. 

10.  Our free breakfast each day was an unparalelled carbo load of Bread, Cereal, Muffins, and Oatmeal. My kingdom for some protein please!

11. Depending on the wind, I could hit my 5 iron 90 yards or 180 yards. I kid you not.

12. There may be a recession in the US …and it certainly has effected the desert, but if you have always HAD serious money, you still HAVE serious money and there is still a lot of conspicuous consumption to be had. 

13. Per Capita there is more valet parking than in any other city I have ever visited. 

14.  SPF 55 works.  I needed it on my lips however…ouch.

15. I love roadrunners…and jackrabbits.

16.  I had to visit a wal-mart. You know that website peopleofwalmart.com?   OMG.  I think I need therapy to get over my visit there.

17. I didn’t want to come home. I think all I need is a small dog, some chunky costume jewelry, bleach my hair, and get a Jag…I’ll fit right in.

Back in the saddle again!

Tags: personal life, vacation | |

Every sunday the Chick family goes bowling.  And yes, we went bowling today (and not at the expense of our faith ok?? It is Easter,  He is Risen, Thank you Jesus!  you are awesome!!)

 There is a bowling center nearby that rents 2 hours for $15 on sundays.  Its a great deal.  All the games you can bowl for 120 minutes for 15 smackers.  There is a core group of us who go rapid-fire for 2 hours each week. I had a great first game 187. I am on a roll!

 I started the second game, threw my first ball, and my left foot, instead of sliding, got caught on something sticky on the floor and I just about fell into the bowling lane…but tried to catch myself with my right foot..which unfortunately found the lane……the freshly oiled lane..

Holy cow! my feet were over my  head in an instant and I slammed to the ground about 2 feet into the lane, landing on my wrist and tailbone.  After determining that I was not injured my group decided that laughing at me was the proper ettiquette for the rest of the morning.

I think my new nickname is “grace”.

If you have ever played golf, you know that the hardest shot to make is the shot immediately AFTER a shank.  Well I can tell you now that the hardest bowling throw to make is the one just AFTER the one you butt-planted in the lane!

So I sit here with an achy tushy and a wrist that is complaining louder by the moment.  Whodda thought Bowling was so dangerous??

Happy Easter Everybody! 

Tags: personal life | |

It was a day out of the pharmacy and I made a few random observations:

On my walk was a couple of teenagers.  One was wearing a chunky pair of glasses….with no lenses.   Ive worn glasses for 40 years.  I wouldn’t wear them as a fashion choice…but if YOU choose do, I think lenses might give them more cred.

It was in the 40’s for most of the day today…and I saw a girl wearing short shorts and flip-flops… WTF?

It was just weird being at the bowling alley today and watching a woman in a Saree bowling.

I sang outloud to ABBA’s SOS music video at the same bowling alley.  If I had children, they would have died of embarassment for sure.

We brushed the dogs today…I am convinced my dogs are nothing but nose, butt and hair!

I found out my friends daughter sent over 6000 txts last month. 

If that was my daughter, she wouldn’t have a phone THIS month….or next month either.

Tomorrow I am going to learn now to pressure wash a drive way….unless I can convince MR chick to do it…

I am very good at convincing..

Tags: general junk, non pharmacy stuff, personal life | |