For years I went without diagnosis simply because I didn’t have the resources to visit doctors and then when I did, there were doctors that were stumped or refused to accept that unseen ailments could actually cause disturbances of the body.
These days though, we see on the television all sorts of commercials for pain medications and antidepressants, counseling centers and hospitals that are completely focused on these issues.
I figure that someone finally pushed through their own discomfort or had a loved one that was suffering and it caused them to seek answers, to try and help others that were in their own little Hell every day. Unfortunately pills don’t solve a damn thing, they just ease some discomfort for the time being.
On one particular day when I was down again with pain, with the flu and my COPD flared up I gave up and went in to see the physician. When I get the triple whammy like this it means bending over for a steroid injection in the ass, an X-ray to check how full my lungs are and then a trip to the local pharmacy to fill up a prescription of antibiotics and cough suppressant.
My nights would be filled with wheezing and hacking for at least another week before these medications hit home, nothing ever works quickly on me – I suppose I am to suffer.
This particular doctors office requires you to bring in your medications each time you come in, don’t ask me why – I think it’s stupid as shit. You’d think that if THEY are the one’s giving you prescriptions all of the time they’d keep a list of them? They don’t keep very accurate records I suppose and you have to trot these down every single time.
I get a knapsack and haul the lot with me, each time the bag bumps against my hip when I walk you can hear pills and capsules clink and clack against each other. Step, jiggle, clink, clack, shuffle, click, step (grunt).
“How are you doing today?”
I always follow that with, “what do you think? I’m here, in the doctor’s office…so I must be doing poorly.” Or something to that affect.
Stethoscope to chest, breathe in and out for them and end up coughing. Look into my ears and throat, scribble a few things down and then look at me seriously and say, “It looks like you have pneumonia. I’m going to prescribe…and let’s go ahead and get you a steroid shot today”
It’s always the same; I can do the visits in my sleep only the paint in the waiting room and the actors change.
Prescription in hand, out to the car I go and make my way around the corner and down the street to the MajorNameBrandRxStore which just so happens to be 1.1 miles down the road from my house on the very same road (though it changes names when you cross an intersection).
Stupid me, I should have just stopped at the house and dropped off my bag with all of those goodies in it but NOOOO I didn’t. Instead I scrunched it deep inside of my smelly gym bag along with my wallet (WHAT?).
Parked right at the front door in the handicap spot, locked the doors and headed inside to drop off the Rx. I did not pass Go and Collect $200, I did not stop to talk to people or grab a Snickers bar, I did not goof around at the cosmetics counter – I only went to the counter, laid my Rx down and walked back out. I was there for less than 2 minutes and when I returned to my car I was greeted with a rear window smashed in.
Glass everywhere and the gym bag rifled through, guess what?
Drugs and wallet missing – imagine that!
I consider myself a bright individual but sometimes I’m just plain stupid. A few cards shy of a deck, the light is on but no one is home.
Who in their right mind would bother with the car? Let alone a car like mine which is a total mess. It’s never washed, interior a wreck of receipt scraps, drive through wrappers and the scent of pussycats from extended hours on the road to cat-shows past.
Of course I was thinking that it since it was broad daylight, 11:30 in the morning and right in front of the entrance of the store everything was safe.
What a joke.
As if I didn’t feel well already, now the trouble begins. Must telephone the police to register the theft, cancel the credit/debt cards, call insurance, etc. etc. Plus, mother fucker’s too my medications and wouldn’t you know that most of them were recently refilled so they really hit the jackpot.
I’m talking Hydrocodone, Vicodin, Xanax, Darvocet, oxy, Ambian plus a variety of other meds that I take for seizures and COPD.
My very first thought was – these fuckers are going to know exactly where I live and that I am now going to be a hot spot to hit, pharmacy for later – That’s all I could think of and I steeled myself for the trouble that was surely to come.
While I waited for the police, who never came, I went in and alerted the store of the theft and they informed me that the cameras were dummies and they wouldn’t be held responsible. Oh ho ho ho I say, you WILL be held responsible. In fact, I would not be victimized 2 times in the same day.
The pharmacist is happy to try and refill my meds that were stolen but I would have to pay all of the co-pays again. No fucking way sir, you can take that right out of MajorNameBrandRxStore’s pocket for your poor security and in fact I’ll want a store credit for the problems I’ve incurred today.
“Sorry ma’am, we’ll have to get a manager to approve that. She will be in tomorrow afternoon. I can take your name and number and have her call you.”
“Okay,” I respond “I’ll be back and expect an answer”….and I walk outside and sit in my violated car – she stinks of rape and I telephone the corporate offices and leave a nasty message that I will be inviting the local television news crew down to this store to interview me about my crime as well as my victimization by this store. How they would bend over a handicapped local woman in need at the very moment she has been traumatized. When I get through with this the store is going to be called Rx-ebekah’s”
I tell you this – only moments after I hang up from my recording I am immediately called and guess who? It’s a representative from … MajorNameBrandRxStore corporate.
“Ms. Lewis? Please, we understand there are some problems that you had today at the store. If you would go back to visit they would be happy to assist you in any fashion that you need.”
That’s right mother-fuckers. I’m not messing around one damn bit. I won’t wait 30 days to get refills and pay again out of my own pocket PLUS go without my shit.
”Thank you, I just happen to be near the store right now and will pop in. I appreciate your return call”
It’s nice when people stand up and take notice but it definitely takes a kick in the ass with my size 11 to get action.
This world is full of chicken-shit-I-don’t-want-to-be-the-one-to-be-held-accountable.
That’s why nothing gets done unless you shove them into a corner and yell at them with the best garlic and onion saturated stank-ass breath you can muster, get up in their shit and make them feel as big as a zit on the ass of society until the cower and do your bidding.
I’d like a glass of water please; it’s time for my pills.
