Medicine Man

Yesterday my wife was sick with a urinary tract infection when I woke up. She was having burning with urination, and was feeling miserable. She took some pyridium, which is a local anesthetic that works on the urinary tract, and called her doctor for treatment. They had her go to the medical center to leave a urine sample, presumably so that they could check to make sure it was an infection and to get a culture of the bug. It took her almost three hours to get there, leave a urine sample, and get out, which seems to be an unreasonably long time for 20 seconds of actual peeing-in-a-cup time.

After she got home, we waited for several hours, then I finally called the hospital and asked if they were going to call in an antibiotic or what. The doctor called back and said yes, she has an infection for which she needs an antibiotic, so the doctor called our designated pharmacy with a prescription. A Rite Aid pharmacy called us shortly after we talked to the doctor and asked to confirm my wife's information, which we thought was a little odd, since she had filled prescriptions there before.

When I showed up at the pharmacy, the clerk said that they had received no prescriptions for anyone of my wife's name. I asked the pharmacy clerk if they were sure that there was no prescription called in to Rite Aid, since we had gotten a call from someone who claimed to be a Rite Aid employee; the clerk - somewhat snippily - said "positively not - our computer systems are all linked together, so we would know if another store had filled it."

I called the hospital, explained the situation, and gave them the number of the correct pharmacy. They called back and told me that they had passed the message along to the doctor, so the prescription should be coming in soon. Shortly thereafter, the doctor called me to say that she had called the number the nurse gave her and it was a private residence - the nurse had passed the incorrect number to the doctor. So, I had to give her the correct number of the pharmacy. The snippy clerk meanwhile came by and informed me that he had called the other Rite Aid pharmacies in town, and they denied having received any calls leaving prescriptions for my wife.

After giving them what I felt like was a reasonable time to fill the prescription, I went to the desk only to find that, surprise, the insurance company was refusing to pay for the prescription because it had already been filled earlier that day at - surprise, surprise - another Rite Aid pharmacy. Had the snippy clerk been there who originally assured me that by no means had a prescription had been called to a Rite Aid pharmacy, I would have been sorely tempted to slap him.

This would be a good time to mention that I had gone to the pharmacy with the girls in anticipation of a quick trip to get them out of the house and to give my still-under-the-weather spouse a quick break. I wound up spending the two hours it took to finally get the medication sorted out meandering through the pharmacy looking at the Christmas decorations that, for some reason, are already up for sale; helping the girls try on silly sunglasses that are way too big for them and taking pictures with my camera phone (see below); and playing with little motorized massage toys that the girls really got a kick out of (good Christmas gift idea for the girls!).



In any case, I have learned my lesson - next time I will just bust out my medical license and order an antibiotic for my wife rather than going through the 10-hour process of getting the antibiotic through the conventional health care system.