Disorganized....

A Letter

Dear Houston,
Last I heard, you were 4th on the list of most ozone-polluted cities in the United States. My lungs don't like it (you've given me bronchitis!), so please stop.
Love (with a little hate mixed in),
FairLady

Sick.

I have been, um, a little under the weather the past couple of days. I had a slight fever (99.5) on Tuesday night, and had to work a 14 yesterday. About 8:00 last night, I suddenly felt really hot all over. When I got home, my temp was 100.5. It's been as high as 100.8 today. And I worked this morning. I have a pesky cough, a little post-nasal drip, and a sore throat from the cough. I'm extremely hoarse, to the point that D-man is calling me Kermit. Yup, I sound like a frog. I think I sound like a barking tree frog, because my cough definitely has a bark to it.

Great, right? I, who am a health care professional, make a great patient. NOT. I am probably one of the worst. Should I go see a doctor? Probably. I don't have time. I rested all afternoon, made myself some chicken noodle soup (boy, was it tasty!), and am having tea with honey & lemon (no whiskey in the house) before bed. I'll be pushing the OTC meds and fluids over the next few days. Hopefully I'll get back to normal soon.

We've been super busy over the last few weeks, and my posting has suffered (as has my reading and writing) of late. I feel like life is boring, just because we have semi-regular schedules. Not much new happens. We have, however, learned several exciting things.

1. We have a Cheeburger Cheeburger in Houston. D-man doesn't yet know why this is exciting, but he will....
2. We have a Krystal in Houston. D-man gets this one, though he's only been to Krystal once.
3. I finally feel like I'm establishing a life here -- for so long it was very frustrating, but I'm settling in. A real life takes time, and I must keep remembering that.
4. God is good, and faithful, and He is sweet to remind me of that daily.
5. D-man still has a huge hole in his brain, but no new growth (he gets yearly MRIs to check that he's still in remission from his brain tumor).

Happy birthday to D-man! He's *@ today!
And to this cultural icon, who is 50.

Just plain batty

After a LONG 14-hour day yesterday and coming home to an empty house, I worked 6 hours today. All of a sudden this morning I heard a commotion right outside the pharmacy at the door to the break room. We had a bat in the store, and the staff managed to get it trapped in the break room. The corporate help desk laughed at the girl who called it in -- not a stellar day for our help desk. I'm not sure who they called to come get the bat, but the time estimate was 1 to 4 hours. With no bathroom, since the break room is the bathroom hallway. We had technicians going across the street to pee. One of the more, um, unwise staff put on gloves and picked up the bat and carried it out of the store. I mean, hello! Rabies!

Oh. My. Word.

I started at my new store today and all I can say is oh my word. We were extremely busy today, like, busier than I've been in any of the 26 stores in the area that I've worked at so far. When I left at 6:00, we had done 450 prescriptions. We open at 8. Needless to say, my neck and my feet hurt. I don't know what the bathroom in the store looks like yet. As in, I didn't ever get a chance to go. I hope tomorrow will be better. After all, this was the worst day ever to start at a new store, being the Monday after 2 holidays and the first Monday of the year.

Recreational use only?

A couple came into the pharmacy today from another city and the man asked if we could call his pharmacy at home and transfer his "recreational drug" (his words, not mine). Being a product of the 1980's, several recreational (and altogether illegal) drugs crossed my mind -- cocaine, marijuana, meth. He must have registered the confusion on my face, because he soon clarified. "Cialis." The stuff of commercials during male-dominated sporting events.

Please. I will be glad to fill your Cialis (or Viagra, or Levitra), but please don't try to make me think about how you use it. I don't want to know about your sex life. Please.

Random happenings

It's almost Christmas, and it's been quite awhile since I posted. We went out of town for Thanksgiving, and I've been working tons. Here's a run-down of the last month:

• Lunch with a great friend at Cracker Barrel before Thanksgiving -- we stayed for 4 hours! (Since she lived in Europe and we lived in Brasil, this was completely normal for us, but not for the waitress!)
• Thanksgiving with my crazy family
• Georgia beat Georgia Tech
• D-man and I have been decorating for Christmas -- I made stockings, we put up and decorated the tree, and we bought one another's Christmas presents. I'm getting these.
• I am officially full-time at work as of yesterday. That means vacation, holiday pay, and guaranteed hours. A permanent store is coming soon, I hope!
• One of my pharmacy classmates is here in Houston, working for my company, working in my district. Yay for a little bit of home!
• D-man's parents are coming in on Thursday
• D-man graduates from U of H on Friday
• I got my first bottle of corked wine today. I thought it was bad because I have a slight cold, but it was just bland. Ecch.

According to this article, it's apparently a good thing we didn't actually get married in Texas. Now that would be embarrassing.

Cultural differences

Tonight while at work, I had my first Brasilian patient. A mom came to ask me a question about her son's medicine. It was an antibiotic suspension that we mix in the pharmacy before the patient goes home. She brought it back to ask if it was okay that it was open. During this exchange, I could tell that she wasn't from the US because of her accent. She asked me, "Is this antibiótico?" and I immediately asked where she was from, because I recognized the word and the way she said it. Turns out she is from Salvador and her husband is from Rio. I told her I had lived in Brasil, and we continued the rest of the interchange in Portuguese. So fun!

My cultural brain fart for the day: I later realized why she looked at me like I was nuts when I told her we mixed the antibiotic at the pharmacy. In Brasil, the antibiotic comes in a box with 2 bottles: 1 with the powder for reconstitution and the other with the water for reconstitution. The patients mix it at home. Wish I'd remembered that while she was still in the store!

Excitement at the alma mater

This happened at the old Sam U yesterday. I can't believe I missed gunfire (even if it was just at a tire). My days there weren't nearly that exciting. Even with Big Shady around.

30 Years of Big Shady

After working 44 hours in 4 days (Sunday-Wednesday), I'm headed out of town. I've been looking forward to this weekend for a long time. I get to celebrate 30 years of Big Shady -- her birthday is next month! We're converging on her sister's house -- "we" includes me, her mom, her 3 sisters, her, and her roommate.

I am so excited about a girls' weekend that in no way involves work.

Stealth Operations

The scheduler called me yesterday to see if I'd be interested in switching stores for today's shift. Hmmm. I said yes, because I'm a generally agreeable person. They couldn't tell me at first what store I was going to (apparently they'd've had to shoot me). It was totally mafia in nature, complete with me meeting the pharmacy supervisor and district manager in the parking lot of said store this morning and hovering around until they pulled the pharmacist out (I was to oversee bench operations "while they were having their meeting").
Of course, I ended up staying for the full shift, because the pharmacist was terminated. Fired. I haven't yet figured out how pharmacists get fired, because we're so in demand. However, being in demand doesn't mean I can do a crappy job. I still want to do my job and do it well. Apparently I am doing a decent job, because this particular supervisor is impressed with me (for whatever reason) and the store manager told me today that I was a breath of fresh air in their store. I am glad it's not in my district -- it's a hard store to work, since there aren't enough people to work and stay caught up.

Local Celebrity Week

As I've been floating around to different stores, I have seen 2 local celebrities this week. When the first one came in, I thought, wait, that's Mr. Cowboy! I was amazed that I was looking at the guy I see in commercials on TV. The second guy came in tonight, and I knew his name, but it didn't register at all. The front store clerk came back and told us who he was, and I realized that D-man has mentioned his name before in passing, saying that we needed to shop at his store.

I love local celebrities that are really nice!

Most people who come in to buy Sudafed manage to do it with out incident or comment. Today's exchange was a little different:
Exchange #1
Technician: "I need to see your driver's license."
Customer: "Oh, I don't have it."
Tech: "Well, I can't sell it to you without your license."
Customer: "Well, I come in here all the time."
Tech: "I still need your license."
Exchange #2 (same customer, after he's gone to get his license)
Technician: "Driver's license, please."
Customer: "What, do you think I'm going to make a batch with one little box?"
Tech: "I need to see your license."
Me: "The DEA requires us to do that."
Customer: "Yeah, I know."

WHY, oh, WHY do you try to make snide comments and bait us when you know what the law says?

Today was the day for morning-after pills. I had no less than 4 people come in to request them. Of course, I have to do the whole "I need to see your driver's license" thing, because it's prescription-only for girls under 17.
I don't necessarily agree with the availability of the morning-after pill, but I don't feel that it's my place to make moral judgements on people who decide they need it. It's my job to sell medicine.

Girl #1: came in to buy it without incident, and 10 minutes later, brought it back. She looked pretty distressed.

Girl #2: came in with her mom, and the conversation went a little like this:
Me: "May I help you?"
Mom: "YES."
Me: "What can I get for you?"
Mom: "MORNING AFTER PILL."
Me: "Okay." (I go and get the pill, thinking this entire time that if the mom was trying to embarrass her daughter out of having sex with her boyfriend by yelling what she needed to everyone in the store, she was going about it the entirely wrong way -- girl was already embarrassed, and I think that rebellion will probably follow a mom who is such a b****.)

Girl #3: without incident

Girl Boy #4: (I came in on the end of this exchange)
Technician: "We need her to come in."
Boy: "Oh, she's at home. We had a little accident last night." (Really? Did she break her leg and can't walk?)
Tech: "Well, we have to make sure she's over 17, so we need to see HER driver's license."
Boy: "Okay." (I keep thinking that the fact that we can sell this med to guys is a really bad idea, since it's rx only for under-17s. I really would like to know if the creepy college guy is buying it for his 16 year old girlfriend, since it's illegal.)

I hate the FLU.

I don't have it, but everyone else seems to. Tamiflu suspension is not available, so we're having to compound it. It takes a minimum of 15 minutes per prescription from typing to compounding to labeling to checking.

Someone at Roche decided that the CDC wasn't serious about the epi-pan-demic of the flu back in May, so they aren't making Tamiflu suspension at the rate we need it, or maybe they're not making it at all. Flu season has started earlier than normal, and we're running around like crazy people in the retail factory.

I'm kind of glad I can't give flu shots. I feel like that's all I would be doing.

Favorite comment of the day

"I was trying to call in a refill, but I don't have any way to punch the 'C' into the phone."

Love & Coffee

I got a package in the mail yesterday from my friend Corrie. She and I share a passion for Brasilian coffee, and another friend of hers sells fair trade organic coffee called Brazilian Love (from a company called Crown Coffee. My package contained a bag of this coffee, and under the bag is the funnest t-shirt ever. It says:

Make Brazilian Love.

Without the coffee, it's just a dirty t-shirt. I love it.