This could happen to you!

I didn't take any pics to illustrate this tale, but please read about what happened to me yesterday.

First, a little background. Like a lot of people our age, we take pills. No more than we have to, but sometimes we have to. And that means we have prescriptions to fill. At first, we went to the Winn-Dixie Marketplace a couple of blocks away. It was convenient and we grew to really like the pharmacist who worked there. When W-D closed, he went to Target across town, so we transferred everything over there. Since I was working and driving by the place every day, it was no big deal to stop on the way home from work and pick up our latest dose. They were great. They knew our names and always called us by name and always knew to look for refills for the both of us, even if only one of us was there.

But after I retired, convenience won out and we transferred to the new CVS which had opened in the W-D center around the corner. Well, they can't hold a candle to Target. They must only pay the least they can. The help is surly and rude. They never use our names and they have to be prompted to do a complete job. But, I can pull up to the drive-in window and be done with it so we put up with it for the convenience.

Now throw in a cross country trip. We still have to get refills. CVS is a national chain so it should be no problem, right? Well, yes and no. It turns out that in order to get our prescription refilled, the prescription has to be transferred to the local store. The first time, when they transferred one of my diabetic drugs, they wrote down the wrong version. So when I went to pick it up they wanted a payment of almost $600 instead of the generic $9 it was supposed to be. It took me almost a week and several calls to both old and new locations to get that one straight. In the meantime, I had run out of pills. CVS seems to have their own set of internal rules and procedures meant for the advantage of the druggist but ignoring the end user. The local CVS here is larger than the one back and even more impersonal, if that's possible. As an example, they have a pick-up window in the store and also a drive-up window. But they refuse to assign more than one person to handle both windows no matter how long the lines get to be. I've walked out several times. When I've had wait because I just had to have the pills, it's taken as much as an hour of standing in line. And if you get out of line to answer a question at another window, you start at the back of the line all over again.

Now, yesterday. I had called in to the automated service to get one of diabetic pills renewed, along with three others. They were ready when I went in and I paid for them and brought them home. Incidentally, I've learned that the time between calling in and actually getting the pills takes three days, no matter what they say. Any less and I have to wait while they figure things out. Anyway, I got home and unpacked the pills and looked at the diabetic medicine and they have put my prescription for pills on a tube of ointment! It's not somebody else's prescription. It's my prescription filled wrong! So, of course, I took it back. I didn't even scream at them. The gal I gave it too gave me an incredulous look when she figured out what had happened and went about getting me my pills. I got my pills and she filled out a gift card for $10 for my trouble. Well, that's OK, but she never said I'm sorry or apologized in any way. They have a procedure, apparently. When they screw up, throw money at the customer and it's all right.

The thing about this that scare's me is that it could have been much worse. In this case, it was obvious that the unopened tube of ointment was not a bottle of pills. But most of my pills are dispensed from large bottles into smaller ones and then labeled. What if this had been one of those pills and they got it wrong? Only a close examination of the pills themselves might reveal a mistake. And if you've been taking pills as long as we have, you know that different brands of the same pill can look very different both in shape and in color. So how would you know?
I always scrutinize the pills every time I take one just because of this. I also look them up in WebMD for their effects and appearance and dosage and interactions. But how many people do that? We trust our physicians and pharmacists to get it right. Clearly, they don't always, so buyer beware.

So that's my cautionary tale of the day.

On a brighter note. I got my hair cut. By real barber. At a reasonable price. Diane got a perm at Fantastic Sam's and it turned out well. The gal doing it took a lot of time trying to curl Diane's hair. Diane said her regular hairdresser would never have approved. Still over-priced compared to home but not too much. I wandered around while she was getting her hair done and renewed my membership at Costco, so now I have even more places to spend money. Speaking of which, tomorrow we're taking a road trip to Phoenix to shop at Cabellas. Can't go all that way without buying something, right. And, in the next block is a German micro-brewery for lunch. It'll be a good day.