What were my plans today. Well, forget about them.
Wait! I need to eat my breakfast and lunch and it's already 3:34 PM.
Got a call at 6:30 AM, Pacific Daylight Time, from my skyping daughter, Kristine, in New Jersey.
She said, "I don't have any Perphenazine left and I need a pill for tonight."
She was slightly freaking out.
She had called her New York doctor a few days ago and the Fenny Pharmacy had no record of a prescription for her. She left a message for her doctor.
So I asked, "What do these pills do for you."
She said, "The last time I didn't take them, I started getting anxious."
I said, "Take a Klonopin, if you feel anxious."
It's the calming drug, so I am told. I have never needed to be that calm, myself; although some people would think, otherwise, from listening to me on the phone during an emergency.
She had to leave for work. Could I call her California and New York doctors. Her phone was being repaired since it shorted out during the wet monsoon in New York, August 18, 2011. Some of you might remember. Being in a Sunshine state, I was not stressed until I started getting stress calls from those people living in New York. And one from Boston.
Since Kristine moved to New Jersey from California and switched doctors; I decided to call three of her past, present and future doctors since she could not reach anyone earlier for prescription drugs.
I called all three offices and all three of their cell phones and got 6 different recordings; after which, I started laughing. The only other number left was 911.
Considering it was not her anti-psychotic drug that she lacked, I didn't think it was life or death.
However, everyone else on the East coast was freaking out.
I could feel my latissimus dorsi muscle ( And yes, I googled that) tightening up into a steel grip.
The day I realized I had a latissimus dorsi muscle was the day we acquired our second mortgage on the Montana house. Fortunately, that tightness goes away, without medication or exercise, as soon as I get that airy feeling of having "nothing in my brain."
Although, I have been told: It's the pain from life that makes us feel alive.
Unfortunately, that's why some people cut themselves; to feel alive.
I know a better way to feel alive....but I won't go there.
My husband was in Boston for a day long meeting. He is concerned about Kristine's medication and tells me to try all the doctors; in order, to get a prescription, including her doctor at Belmont, MA because he can take the pills to her if the doctor is allowed to get them for her. He says he has to make the decision to go to Belmont within an hour because it will take a few hours traveling back and forth before he leaves to New York that afternoon. I E-mail him with the question: Why drive there when you can call the doctor and the pharmacy? He feels he needs to hand carry them in his brief case. Maybe, hand carry a Ming Dynasty porcelain vase?
I call the doctor's number. I start laughing when I get another recording. I sound panicky by now because my husband makes it sound, as if, it's our last chance to save our daughter's life before she falls into the abyss. I wasn't that freaked out until after I talked to him and Kristine.
Finally, I get a returned call. The California doctor's assistant. I never talked to him myself. His assistant said that Kristine's medication was at our local California drug store. I should pick it up and FedEx it overnight to her. The doctor was on vacation and should be coming in later.
I said, "She won't get it in time. I would rather still try for the New Jersey pharmacies."
The Assistant said she will tell the doctor.
Since I did not hear from her and it was already in the afternoon, I left her a message saying that I would take her suggestion of 'over-night' the medication. But I will mail only the older medication that she left at home with different MG dosages because I want her to start getting her medications in New Jersey.
I leave, to FedEx the pills she had in the closet that are not the same MG dosage, but she can use them anyway by cutting and pasting them together for the correct amount of dosage until she gets her new prescription.
You mean? You're not suppose to paste them together?
It only took 9 hours of constant phone tagging and running around to solve the problem.
In case, of an Armageddon: Call me.
After I got home from FedEx, I had 4 messages.
The California doctor's Assistant left 2 messages.
Kristine can pick up a few pills from the Duane pharmacy close to her apartment today and the remainder of the medications on Monday.
The third message was from my other daughter, Kathleen who wanted to talk about her day. We skyped.
The fourth message was from Kristine's new doctor in New York. He said that he Did call in a prescription for Kristine to the Fenny pharmacy a few days before when Kristine had left him a message.
I was not surprised no one wrote it down at that pharmacy.
I had called that same pharmacy, the first thing, to inquire about the prescription when Kristine called.
I could see what might have happened when the doctor called them.
When I called, the guy who answered the phone had a strong foreign accent. He took all the information from me about Kristine; and then, he said he would check on it. He asked if he could put me on hold while he looked up Kristine's information.
After a short moment, the same guy picked up the phone and asked me what I wanted.
I said, "I was just talking to you."
He said, " She has no records here." The doctor has to call first.
At that time, I did not know the doctor had already called because it was the first call I made that morning after talking to Kristine. I figured the pharmacy screwed it up somehow because the New York doctor was highly recommended and he was also very accommodating when Kristine told him about her new situation: to work 3 months in NYC.
And since the pharmacy guy couldn't remember me after 3 minutes, why would he remember the doctor or Kristine after a few days.
Later that day, after Kristine got her new phone back from Sprint, she didn't need me anymore.
She said that this Fenny's pharmacy is a dive. The Blood Management company in California set up, her anti-psychotic prescription drug with that pharmacy and she will call to have it changed to the other Duane pharmacy, that is handling her Prephenazine prescription, which is a much nicer location and pharmacy...
...although they just gave her the wrong prescription drug and she did not check it until she got home. She had to walk back to the pharmacy in the pouring rain, remember the monsoon? She said the wind and rain blew her umbrella up, so she was drenched by the time she made it back home.Another lesson: look at your medicine bottle, as you get it from the pharmacy.
She said, "I have never gotten the wrong prescription drugs from a pharmacy, before now."
I said, "Kristine, you're not in ' Kansas', anymore." ( Ref: Wizard of Oz)
After spending all morning and some of the afternoon working on Kristine's medication, Kristine managed to get her own pills and work out all her own problems WITHOUT my help; after she got her new phone.
I think I can use a Klonopin about now, but I will settle on something, less strong, but from a bigger bottle.
She had already called the pharmacy to check on those pills coming in today with her new cell phone. The pharmacy told her it was not covered by her insurance and it would cost over $100.
Kristine said, " It should be covered by my insurance; and if, I don't get my drugs NOW, I will go CRAZY!!"
She said, "Mom, that got their attention. I called my insurance company and they talked to an agent."
It only cost her $10.
Although, I never talked to any of the psychiatrists, I know that they exist....... because the drugs are pouring in....
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