The Pharmacy Chick

Call them whatever: club cards, preferred shopper cards, loyalty cards. They are the newest bane to our shopping experience. To get the sale price on goods nowdays, you have to be a “member” of the company’s “club”. I’d rather not, but I also want the sale price. It seems just a tad unfair that there are now 2 classes of shoppers: club members and the great unwashed. For the most part, I am a part of the latter when it comes to these cards. I have been coerced into getting the ones for the places I shop the most, but I don’t like them. Now I have reason to dislike them even more.

My neighbor works for a grocery store…let me rephrase that. My neighbor WORKED for a grocery store. She now works for somebody else. This happened a while ago and I only recently learned about it. I don’t make a habit of tracking the employment history of my acquaintances. As many others have, my neighbor’s (I’ll call her Stella) company initiated their own savings card. For a while it was a fiasco because in my town, respecting one’s privacy is a big deal. Every one pretty much minds their own business and most don’t appreciate intrusions. Therefore it was a hard sell to get people to put their name, address, phone, etc on an “application” for a card that now was required to get the sale prices that they got for “free” before.

It took a while but most people eventually signed up. Occasionally however a shopper would wander thru buying stuff who didn’t have this savings card. The checker was supposed to enroll the shopper at that time, and hand them their new shiny card. Stella was working one day and such an occasion arose. The shopper was traveling thru the area. He didn’t need a card. He didn’t want a card. He just had a few items which happened to be on sale. It was also very busy and she wanted to move the line thru. Stella grabbed a savings card from a nearby pile and scanned it to provide the sale price for the customer. He paid for his purchase and she put the card back in the pile. Unfortunately for Stella the customer behind her was a corporate employee with an axe to grind.

Get this: it was a violation of company policy to give a customer the sale price using a “generic” or “unassigned” savings card. He called her on the carpet for this and she lost her job that very day. I couldn’t believe what Stella was telling me. I shop at both this company and a competitor because one is close to work and the other is close to home. When I forget my card at the competitor, they have ONE HANGING FROM A CHAIN FOR THE CHECKER TO USE. But if I shop at Stella’s former store, the checker will get fired for doing that same thing.

I asked Stella if she knew she could get fired for that. She said “They told us we weren’t supposed to use generic cards for purchases. I didn’t know I could get fired for it”

In my company, there are lots of things we are “supposed to and NOT supposed to” do. We are supposed to wear black pants and shoes. Sometimes I wear a flowered skirt and sandals. We are not supposed to have any overtime, but sometimes we have to. I am supposed to file certain reports in a certain drawer, but I dont have room in that drawer so I keep them someplace else. I don’t think I will get canned for doing or not doing any of these things so this whole thing confuses me. I fail to see how one company can have a savings card hanging from a chain so nobody goes without their sales price, and another fires a checker for giving one traveler a break by giving him the sale price without an official savings card.

Personally I find it amazing that a company holds this infraction on the same level as, say… stuffing hundred dollar bills from the till down your pants, or coming to work drunk, or assaulting a customer. Yessiree, give somebody an undeserved sale price and hand over your apron and name tag please.

Stella still hurts by this dismissal. Its been over 3 years and she doesn’t like to discuss it. To her, its an embarassment to be fired. She found a new job and loves it. No longer does she pull groceries over a scanner. Her feet don’t hurt at the end of the day and she doesn’t live and die by the fickle whim of a corporate giant.

We should all be so lucky. Everytime I have to use my savings card, I think of Stella, and wonder how many Stellas they thew away.

Tags: personal life, ranting | |

Pharmacy Chick loves the outdoors. Unfortunately she lives in a part of the country that is less than hospitable for a good part of the year. She should move…yes it sounds like a better idea all the time. Dig up those well established roots and move them south. Woo Hoo!

Its been a really long winter, and even tho I look at the calendar and it says “end of April”, the weather screams “middle of February”. So what gives??? Right about now I’d happily accept a little global warming because my part of the globe is still quite cold, thank you very much. Even the flowers that bloomed probably regretted it when a late freeze blew in last week. I mean whoa, the daffodils are probably thinkin ” what the …? its April! enough of the snow already!”

Well, the great God of All listened and brought the Big Glowing Orb (the sun) to our area last weekend. Of the 48 continuous hours I was off duty, I likely spent 16 of them outside. It wouldn’t have mattered what I was doing: gardening, shoveling dog doo, or tanning my brains out, Pharmacy Chick was not going to be found under a roof unless absolutely necessary. She actually dug a pair of shorts out of the neatly-put-away-summer-clothes stock and paraded around her embarassingly white legs.

The next 10 days don’t look so hot (literally and figuratively) but the weekend was certainly worth leaving all my household chores behind. Hope springs eternal….I’m not putting the shorts back.

Tags: personal life | |

Let me begin this post by telling you all that Pharmacy Chick never wanted to own a home computer. She was dragged into the information age, kicking and screaming. I have an answering machine only because I got it free as a door prize. I own a palm but it is usually dead in my purse. If it weren’t for cable channels over 13, I’d still own my old TV with knobs–remember knobs? I am simply not a technophile–if anything, I am a techno-PHOBE. (the fact that I blog is amazing when you consider this factoid)

It was only because EVERYTHING was going “WWW” that I finally relented and purchased a computer. It was the biggest piece of junk and the hugest source of frustration that I could ever have inflicted upon myself, aside from being a pharmacist! To keep this post under 50,000 words, I will spare you the details, but suffice to say that I was doomed from the start–it wouldn’t power up. Before I ever saw a Windows splash screen, I had the tower box apart: the power button was never hooked up. It went downhill from there. Thankfully I had purchased the extended warranty because I used it extensively. By the time they finally replaced the unit, I had probably used up 10 computers worth of parts and labor.

Fast forward now 10 years:

My first computer has been long since dumped. I moved on to a different brand name. For the most part it has run flawlessly….until a few days ago. My notebook started to freeze up. DOA, with whatever I was doing on the screen just frozen in time. Then, it wouldn’t reboot unless I whapped the keyboard. The Caps-Lock LED would blink 10 times and die. It appeared that motion was causing the unit to freeze. I did what every good computer owner would do: I called Tech Support.

What evil demon possessed me to do that? First off I got somebody in some far off country. I won’t say which country so I am not labeled as a hate monger, but suffice to say it wasn’t a local-boy. His English was spotty at best. I think these people do tech support because they hate you and I. Not only did I have to repeat everything twice, HE insisted on repeating everything back to me– ME: my computer freezes. HIM: so, you are saying your computer freezes? you get the gist of it–over and over. Computer sadism: inflict as much pain as possible without actually doing anything to actually fix the problem.

He held me hostage for over 90 minutes. After having me run the gauntlet of worthless diagnostics, I finally gave up. It was almost midnight (what did he care? it was lunch time there!). The next day I gingerly rebooted my computer and placed it on a hard surface. If it moved, it froze. I decided that internet computer forums might give me more information than this dude did. You’d of thought this had never happened before this brand of notebook! When he learned my notebook was 4 years old, he implied it was time to replace it. I paid almost $1600 for this thing: 4 years does not make it a dinosaur!

An aside: I learned from my techno-geek friends who helped me during my last computer nightmare that Tech Support’s cop-out fix to get you off the phone is to advise you to “reformat your hard drive”. It doesn’t matter the problem. Blue Screen of Death? Reformat your hard drive. Number Lock LED burned out? Reformat your hard drive. Its like killing a fly with a sledge hammer. No bloody way am I reformatting my hard drive so don’t even ask.

I found tons of information on the internet…as long as I didn’t nudge or move one molecule on my notebook…or ZZZZT it would freeze up again. I didn’t feel so alone, as it was a fairly well reported problem, so I was irritated as ever that I received no useful information from Mr. No-help. I gathered that either my RAM was bad or one of the slots for the RAM was bad.

Armed with that information, I drove to my friendly big box electronics store and scored some memory. Pharmacy chick wishes that getting BRAIN memory was this cheap and easy! I put the new memory in the first slot and booted ‘er up. It worked for about 2 minutes and when I moved the unit-ZZZZT DEAD. Then I moved it to the second slot and I have tossed my notebook around for about 2 hours without dying.

Chick is not assuming that all is well. BUT, all is certainly improved….at the moment. I got 1G of RAM zipping me all over the internet now and I learned that I will not die a painful death by opening the back of my notebook.

So if I disappear for a while, you can assume my fix……didn’t!

Please God, let this fix work.

Tags: general junk, personal life, rambling, ranting | |

Oh my word, there is nothing like spending several hours at an airport to see the twisted weirdness of all humanity. Here are some of my favorites–I wish I had caught them on camera. These are all real.

1. The 70ish woman dressed head to toe in tight leopard skin print fabric. Ask her age and risk decapitation. She likely would even lie to the TSA if they asked her date of birth. Her matching dog carrier twitches around and contains what looks like a doglet–a very small furry creature that probably eats better than many people. She has glasses half the size of her face and big chunky rings on several fingers. I dont know where she is going but I would suspect Palm Springs or Las Vegas.

2. Mr Rotundity- This guy was as wide as he was tall. I was grateful when he walked by our gate. He should have been charged for 2 seats because he sure the hell wasn’t going to fit into any single seat I have ever been on in a plane, unless its first class.

3. She had pink stilletos and a matching pink coat. Ms STYLE! Blonde hair (fake, I could see the roots) and when she had to take off the coat and heels to progress thru security, she revealed a little black dress that could only be described as a slip with beads. Wow.

4. The Japanese tourist: I can say this because the Japanese tour group leader was at the head of the troup. Who’d have thunk you could need 3 cameras? around one neck? at the same time? And do you really need a picture of the luggage carousel?

5. The screaming child. Does EVERY flight have to have one? Is there some screening process that makes sure that every single flight, no matter how full or empty has at least one unruly child who appears to have been pinched or punctured immediately before boarding the plane? And must they sit within 2 rows of me everytime? Not even the most powerful noise cancelling headphones will drown out the noise of this one. His mother was frazzled and she also had a toddler in tow. God help everybody else on the plane. Its gonna be a long flight no matter where they are going.

6. Giant. Him, I feel sorry for. He’s about 7 linear feet of human, being crammed into about 5 1/2 linear feet of cabin space. I have to believe that if he could afford first class, he would be there, but no, he is standing in line with the rest of us flunkies in coach. I am glad I am short enough to fit reasonably into a airplane seat.

7. Mr E-nut. He had his computer going in the gate, and had enough gear to open his own electronics store right there on the plane. He had a plam, a dvd player, his laptop, a cell phone, a game toy. The second they allowed the use of his stuff, he had it out.

8. the pack rats– ok this constitutes a lot of the people we saw. Whats up with this anyway? I am talking rolling duffles, mini suitcases, huge backpacks, shopping bags, strollers !?!, people dragging enough gear to survive for days ONTO the plane. One lady had a rolling suitcase. Sorry, but Pharmacy Chick feels that if you cannot carry it onto the plane, you have no business bringing it onto the plane. She couldn’t even lift it above her head and required assistance to get it into the overhead carrier! Come on folks.

9. Ms Haute Couture. I wish I had in my wallet what this woman was wearing on her body. This 40ish woman had Louis Vuitton (sheesh, I dont even know if I spelled it right) luggage, Tiffany Jewelry, Ralph Lauren pants, etc etc. Everything had a name, and it was expensive. I doubt the clunky ring on her left hand was anything less than $30,000 of diamond and her accompanying male ( husband’s second trophy wife?) could be accurately imagined as a balding pimp. Oh, and they were first in line at security with their Premier Mileage First Class Gold Club card. I’d bet their destination was a lot fancier than mine was.

10 Business Traveller. These suits are still doing it nicely on their corporate dime. They look the part, (before the flight wrinkes their $400 suit), and if they are in pairs, talking the big deal. Four or five of them were in the bar watching the baseball game on the plasma overhead. All ya have to do is talk a little business and write off the $8 beers at the airport.

11. The spring-breakers. I have never flown during spring break, likely never will again. Where do all these teens get the money to fly someplace warm and exotic on spring break??? Criminy, when I was in school, I had to work over spring break, waiting tables to earn a few dollars. If I had told my mother “Mom? I would like to fly to Cabo or Orlando for spring break.” she would likely drop the floor in hysterics, wipe the tears of laughter from her eyes, then say ” Seriously, you had me going for a minute–what time do you start your shift?”

12. The Family man–I wish I could get inside this man’s head. He is trundling along with his wife who is trying to keep track of 3 kids, all under the age of 10. I’d bet they were going to Disneyland or Disney world, but I’ll never know. They weren’t on my flight. If I was gifted with reading minds I’d say he was thinking ” God, what was I thinking when I booked this vacation? 6 months from now they won’t even remember we went! I should have left them with my mother and the two of us could be sitting on a Baja beach deciding whether we want our margaritas with or without salt!”

13. Lucky thirteen. Saved the best for last..if you are still reading this– Lady, if you read this, sorry for you. I watched you polish off a bag of Chips-Ahoy chocolate chip cookies, then reach into your purse and load up on 80 units of Humulin N and inject yourself right thru your pants. Thanks for tucking the syringe back into your purse and not throwing it in the garbage.

To quote from the famous Hindenburg disaster: “oh, the humanity of it all”

Back to work tomorrow and more blogworthy entries for sure!

Tags: general junk, personal life, vacation | |

Pharmacy Chick is back! She loves BEING on vacation, but honestly, she does not like GOING on vacation. All the packing and unpacking, the hassles. This trip was no exception. If there is one thing that is common with pharmacists (especially managers), is that many are control freaks. I am very much a control freak. I like all my ducks in a row…all the time. Likewise, there isn’t much that takes me out of control than flying. I have to trust that the porter will route my bag to the right plane (did I tip him enough?), I have to trust that the TSA people (who look like they had vinegar and lemons for breakfast) will not pull me out of line and make me miss my flight, and I have to trust that the pilot will get me to my destination in one piece and on time.

The Chicks have been all over the world….twice. I am not afraid of flying, but I dont particularily like it anymore. The planes are crowded, the airports congested, the people rude, the “food” they serve is barely “food” any more. However once I reach my destination, I have a wonderful time usually.

We had 60 rather tense minutes this time however. For the most part, I have never lost any bag while flying, tho sometimes pieces and parts are missing. I never arrive late, I have my bags marked well, and I believe in the power of prayer (Oh dear God, please let me see this suitcase again!). We arrived at our destination and with the other 200 people waited for the luggage to arrive. Soon enough lots of bags starting shooting out of the chute and one by one people started claiming them and walking away. 20 minutes later Mr chick and I were still staring blankly at the chute where no more luggage was coming. About 30 others were also staring at the same spot. Soon however more baggage started to arrive, but it was clear this was from a different flight. Ok, NOW we were getting nervous.

Not wanting to be the last in line at the Lost Luggage Dept, I made my way over to the small office and started to place my inquiry with the Lost Luggage Dude, LLD for short. He sleepily took my information until he realized that I was one of about 30 people all looking for the same thing. Apparently one person with lost baggage is acceptable, 30 is not. What troubled me more was the fact that the plane was scheduled to leave the country and I didn’t want my bags to fly international while I was only going domestic!

LLD announced that the plane was not going to leave until it was determined that our luggage was not on the plane. Small solace, because he didn’t determine if our luggage ever got ON the plane. A million scenarios went over in my mind as I mulled this situation, not the least of which is this: I am wearing every bit of clothing I can access at this point in time. I travel light. I dont need a rolling duffle on the plane with me (a later blog, just wait), so unless I need it ON the plane, I check it.

This story has a happy ending for all of us. About 40 minutes later (a realllllly long 40 minutes) some guy on a walkie talkie announces that one more cart of luggage from our flight has been “found” and will be off loaded to baggage claim shortly. I never found out if it was on the plane and removed or if it was just forgotten, LLD didn’t offer it up. I don’t care. When I saw that blue suitcase pop out I was one grateful Pharmacy Chick! Vacation ON!

Tags: personal life, rambling | |

I have come to accept that more people know me (or know OF me) than I realize. Pharmacy Chick has worked in the same place for a dozen years. In fact she and her staff pharmacist are the only pharmacists this place has ever known. To complicate matters, I live, work, worship and socialize in the same neighborhood as I work. My “commute” amounts to 2 songs on the radio, and thats if I miss every light on the way there. I almost always at least SEE somebody I recognize every time I go out to shop.

While there are obvious advantages to this arrangement, there are disadvantages also. It seems that almost every work day, somebody comes up and asks me “Are you Pharmacy chick? Mrs Thwitpick told me you could help me” (or variations on that theme). It brings to the forefront of my mind that there are people who come to my pharmacy already “knowing” me to some degree based on whatever the Thwitpicks of the world have told them. I should be grateful that if somebody is coming in to speak to me specifically, they probably have a positive impression of me before they have met me. That leaves it up to me to make sure that I live up to that expectation…and I only get one chance…

The problem is that I dont always wanna be Miss Merry Sunshine. Who doesn’t wake up any given morning in a crappy mood? You know what I mean. You’ve been there; didn’t sleep well the previous night, fought with the spouse, had some personal crisis, dog peed on the floor just as you were leaving…who knows what it is, it could be some earlier customer that ruined the day.

All I know is that time and time again that I have been surprised to find only 1 degree of separation between two people I never would have linked before.

If I dont treat Mrs Thwitpicks friend right, its likely that I’ll lose Mrs Thwitpick also. Sometimes I don’t find out the connection between 2 people until AFTER the first interaction. It serves as a stern reminder to me that ya never know WHO KNOWS WHO!

Tags: customers, personal life, pharmacy life | |

As I revealed in an earlier post, Pharmacy Chick, in addition to being a phrustrated pharmacist, is also a Christian. (note: if you aren’t Christian, or you find fault in Christianity, you probably won’t be interested in the rest of this post..consider yourself forewarned, because I will delete comments that insult the Lord)

Mr Chick and I are not Catholic, but we decided to observe the Lenten season by observing a personal sacrifice of our own. Some years we do, others we don’t. We have given up chocolate, soda pop, this and that. Our lifestyle remained the same, we just “left out” this particular thing that we were giving up for the 6 or so weeks. This year was different. It was Mr Chick’s idea: “How about giving up eating out?”

Wow…now that was completely different. That would entail a lifestyle change. We have a rather active lifestyle. We are DINK’s (Double Income No Kids), so this provides us a lot of freedom that many people may not have. It is standard operating procedure for the Chick family to take off in the morning, play all day, then arrive home around or after the dinner hour. It may involve taking the dogs to the beach, or going for a hike, or whatever. Regardless of what we are doing, it usually involves eating out somewhere along the way. Plus, we just like eating out. Despite the fact I work in the same parking lot as a grocery store, my fridge is pathetically stocked. Its just too easy to say “Lets have Mexican tonight!” and I seldom get a negative response from Mr.Chick.

We decided on the ground rules. Baking a pizza at home? yes. Having one delivered? no. Coke at a vending machine? yes, Starbucks? no. The first day presented its first challenge. We had 3 obligations across town, that were going to take all day. While I was used to packing a lunch for work, I was not used to packing a picnic lunch for running errands. But we made due. We ate our sandwiches and chips in a parking lot and we didn’t starve to death. The first 2 weeks were the hardest. I had to plan, I had to have food in the fridge. I had to remember portable food when we were out and about. We ate a lot of bananas–a very portable food! We only had one exception to this rule, a night we had planned with friends back in December. Since we had cancelled once, it seemed the wrong thing to do to cancel twice.

Fast forward now 6 weeks. It was harder than I thought for the first 3 weeks, then ironically easier than I thought for the last 3 weeks. We have gotten used to this change. I have eaten a lot of canned soup and sandwiches at work, and I have a much better stocked fridge at home. Gone are the discussions of WHERE do we want to eat. We just know we are eating at home, period.

I am sure we have saved some money in the process, gads, we ate out quite often, even if it was fast food. Yes its been a sacrifice, but as it has gone along, it seems much less of one as we have gotten used to it. I thought I would really miss eating out after 6 weeks, but as I come to the close of Lent, I find I dont miss eating out much at all. In fact, I sort of lament the end of Lent.

It was a sacrifice I was glad I made, but in the end, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be–perhaps a grace gift from God. Jesus Christ also made a grace gift to me, but it was much harder than any sacrifice I could think up. Today is Good Friday, and 2000+ years ago at this time, Jesus was somewhere in the processes of the flogging and the cross. He was denied by his friends, spat upon, tortured and left to die a humiliating death, paying the price for the sins of all humanity. Thankfully the story doesn’t end there. He didn’t stay dead. My small sacrifice ends on Easter. His lasts for an eternity. Thank you Jesus.

Happy Easter. He is Risen, He is Risen, Indeed.

Tags: personal life | |

This upcoming week starts Holy Week for the Christian calendar, culminating at Easter Sunday. Up to this point, I have not shared with the World Wide Web and all 5 of you that read my blog, that in addition to being the Pharmacy Chick, I am also an Christian.

I have found that it is generally easy walking the Christian walk in most aspects of my life but one. Work. For some reason, I struggle mightily with being a Christian in my workplace. Day after day I endure (and “endure” is a good word) people who try my patience to its very frayed end. I am frustrated not only with patients but with other health care professionals (Dr’s and nurses) and with my staff. Its an uphill battle in quicksand, and all sorts of mean, nasty and ugly sort of things.

Customers never cease to amaze me with their ingenious ways to deceive. Whether it be blatant lies in their attempts to get narcotics, or mischevious attempts to fraud their insurance, I find it hard to “love” these people. Its always easy to love people who love you back. Its easy to love people to see things your way, or do things the way you like them. Its another thing entirely to love people who challenge you at every opportunity. Who wants to love em? I dont even want to like them!

Work is a frustrating place for me. Its a sacrificial job, everybody who reads this knows it. I get no lunches or breaks (except on mondays). I stand on my feet for 11 hours a day. I have been called at home, and on my days off. I walk away from a half eaten sandwich because somebody wants something. I drink flat soda because I can’t finish it. When I think I have no more to give, somebody asks for more.

But thats what Christ did, and He calls me to do the same. To God, I am not better and no worse than the drug seeker I find it easy to look down upon. We both need the Savior. I love my God, I really do. And for some reason He has me in this store, gutting it out day after day with a purpose in mind that is not immediately evident to me. Somedays I get a glimpse. Somebody will grace me with a box of candy and a very sincere thank you. Once I saw a mole on a man’s arm (I was giving a flu shot) that was ugly. It was melanoma and he got it cut off. He told me I saved his life.

Its still a struggle for me. I thought I would reach some spiritual maturity point where it would be easier for me to be this loving and caring person in the pharmacy. So, why is it so hard? Why do I still fail in that “love the fellow man” department? Sometimes I feel like a boiling pot and somebody is holding the lid down.

I’d like my attitude in the pharmacy to be more genuine servanthood and less oscar winning performance. Sometimes I feel that I’m a bit of a disappointment. I don’t want to be fake. The fruit of my spirit needs to have the worm expelled from it. Just gotta figure out how.

Tags: personal life, pharmacy life, rambling | |

I dreamt about her again last night. About 2-3 times a year I dream about her. She died about 10 years ago. In some of the dreams, she is well, coming back from the great beyond to talk. I hold her hand and touch her face, re-memorizing every feature. In others, like this one, she is sick and dying, and while I still get to hold her hand, I get to do something I never got to do in real life: say goodbye.

She lived out of town and was my best friend for as long as I can remember. Wise beyond her years, she was a source of good advice any time I needed to talk. She was raised poor, married young, had her family and when her kids were old enough to fend for themselves, she came into her own by going back to school and becoming a nurse. She worked as a nurse for 20+ years before she died.

It started insidious enough, so slowly that nobody ever noticed: A headache when she would laugh, or lift something. She never thought much of it, having had migraines her whole life. When it finally began to irritate her enough to act on it, it was discovered she had a tumor, dead in the center of her brain, just under the size of a golf ball. Surgery revealed it to be a tough mass of grissle with a prolific blood supply, which turned out to be both a blessing and a curse: benign but completely inoperable–too much could be lost by trying to remove it. She accepted her lot with grace, knowing that managing her headaches was all she could do. Knowing it was benign was good enough. Life went on.

A couple of years later she had a hysterectomy and she started HRT, and she loved to kid me because she loved not having periods anymore. Six months later I got the call: “its back”. The tumor was growing like cauliflower off the original stalk and by the looks of it, it wasn’t benign anymore. Two more surgeries, followed by the insertion of radiation pellets slowed the growth and for a while, it looked good. I got to look at her recent head x-ray and there was a huge black hole where her brain would normally be. It was a good thing according to the Dr.–thats where the tumor WAS, and the brain does not flex back to fill the space. We were thrilled. The pellets were doing their job. The surgeries had impacted her vision, but she could live with that, tho going back to work was no longer an option. She was alive and grateful for it.

Our joy was short lived. Just a few days later she stumbled and remarked. “If I hadn’t seen the scan myself, I’d say the tumor was back”. Unfortunately it was, and nothing was going to stop it now. She accepted this news with stoic resignation. I always wondered if it was an estrogen sensitive tumor triggered by the Premarin she took. We’ll never know.

Because she lived a 12 hour drive away, I usually tried to visit her once a month and stay for a few days. Watching this cancer ravage her body was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. It begged for a rewind button. She took many visitors, and joked with them to keep them at ease. She loved to say she had picked her funeral music: Drop Kick me Jesus thru the Goal Posts of Life, and Got Along Without Ya Before I Met Ya, Gonna Get Along Without Ya Now. She never lost her sense of humor despite how undignified the dying process became.

During this nightmare, we received an invitation for a wedding in Hawaii of all places. I was not going to go but she insisted. “I cannot go, you go as my representative” Mr Chick and I went and had a nice time but my thoughts were always with her. When I got home, I immediately made plans to fly to her home, but I had to work at least a couple of weeks. My partner was more than willing to help, but he couldn’t work 7 days a week. I had been back for only a week when the call came. I was at work . “It’s over” was all her husband said.

No, It couldn’t be over. I didnt’ get to tell her about the trip. I didn’t get to see her one more time. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I was at work and couldn’t even cry about it til I got home.

She ultimately chose to have no funeral. About 2 weeks later my father called to tell me they were having a pot luck dinner in her honor and would I like to come? I was covering my partners vacation now and there was no way. “Thanks, but go on without me this time”. I said.

I was there, however, when we scattered her ashes in the mountains several weeks later.

She was my best friend, and 10 years later, I miss her terribly.

I love you mom, See you in my dreams.

Tags: personal life | |

During the Holiday season, Mr Pharmacy Chick and I went at the mall. We go to the mall MAYBE twice a year–and generally try to stay away from it between Thanksgiving and New Year. We did however get a coupon in the mail for $10.00 to be spent at a major department store in any way we chose. This was cool because it was not restricted like “save $10 on a 100.00 purchase”. So off we went to spend our bucks. Mr Chick was off looking at something on sale and I was immersed in socks when I heard “Oh Hi!” and I looked up and saw one of my customers from the store. I returned the greeting and hoped it would be a meeting in passing.

But NO, it was not to be. It began with “Can I ask you a question?” Just once, I wish I could answer it with what I am thinking…”Do I have a choice?” But I choked that thought to death and let her speak. To make a long story short, she was less than happy at her last interaction at the pharmacy because 1) when her husband had waited til he was OUT of ReallyImportantDrug to call for a refill (no refills remaining) and 2) she wanted us to IMMEDIATELY call the Doctor (poor planning=my emergency) , 3) she was put on hold when she called and 4) it was using up her cell phone minutes being on hold and 5) when she came in to get the prescription she didn’t recognize anybody there to discuss this travesty with (relief pharmacist).

I was still waiting for the question…she never actually asked one. However using my astute skills of deduction, I figured that the issue was she was burning cell phone minutes on hold and she didn’t like that much.

I am sorry that she has such a crappy cell plan that she actually has to worry about minutes. But the thing I am MOST sorry about was the fact that she found ME off duty to discuss this issue.

She is generally nice so I played the sensitive pharmacist and did my best to kindly address her concerns. But you know what? I was off duty. At that time I was NOT the pharmacist. I was just Joe Shopper looking at sox.

Why is it that I am fair game to be the pharmacy manager 24 hours a day? I live in the same neighborhood that I practice in. I run into people at the gym, on the street, at community events…etc. Just once I’d love somebody to say “Hi! Nice to see you get a day off now and then!” “Have a good one, see you at the store!” That just never happens however. If I am at a dinner party and a new aquaintance finds out what I do, there invariably comes the questions about drugs. I notice all the questions start out with “I know you are not a doctor but…”

As much as I’d love to blow them off, I never do. When I am shopping in the store after work or even at church, customers come up and hand me empty bottles to fill or verbally ask me to refill something. Are they kidding? Do they honestly think I am going to remember? So I don’t forget I keep the bottles out in view at home or on the console in my car–I am sure HIPAA would love that!

Just once it would be wonderful to be anonymous. When I am off duty, in my mind, I cease to be a pharmacist. I dont think about work much, I probably couldn’t muster a mental snapshot of anybody’s profile if they asked, and while I may be a wealth of drug information, I’d much rather discuss baseball or football when I am not wearing the white coat. I can imagine doctors and attorneys go thru the same thing. No wonder they attend far-away conventions and go nuts.

Now I respect pharmacists who love to pursue the profession all the time. I am sure we need those who attend association meetings and read all the journals. I am not one of those pharmacists. If you would walk into my home, you’d be hard pressed to guess what I did for a living. You wouldn’t find any drug magazines on my coffee table and other than a few antiques from my independent days, there would be little to suggest that a pharmacist lives here. When I hang up the white coat at work, the RPH stays there too. I think its mentally healthier for me that way.

(An aside to all you association-loving pharmacists who think I should re-join–I’ll join when I get a lunch and a break–22 years I have waited, and there’s no light at the end of that tunnel. But back to the ranting…)

Someday however, somebody who isn’t so nice (that I won’t miss if they leave) is going to unload on Chick and they are going to get something they didn’t expect: an earful. I can imagine this: “You know, at this exact moment, I am not an X Pharmacy employee and am not subject to any of their rules or regulations. Nothing I say can be held against me nor can you complain to anybody about my behavior if I say something you dont like or agree with–do you really want to initiate a complaint at this moment?”

I am sure Pharmacy Chick is currently too chicken to try it anytime soon. But someday……….

Tags: personal life, rambling | |