Stockpiling Medications

Planet Romanesco

Whew. It's been one crazy day, hasn't it? One thing I know for sure and that is that I feel as connected as I've ever felt to every single other human on this planet. My friend Kari wrote today that "our strength is in our compassion, not our fear," and that's where I'm cashing my chips, banking my bucks, paying the piper -- do you know how many idioms there are related to money? I feel as anxious as I've ever felt and much of it has to do with Sophie and her increased seizures and the same old feeling of no one knowing anything and so much fiddling with medication and cannabis and wondering if it's the moon or the weather or the virus or the general level of anxiety that is floating through the air picked up by those invisible antennae that shoot out from Sophie's addled and exquisitely sensitive brain. The Powers That Be recommend "stockpiling of medications" and this statement has made me fantasize about running into a CVS with a machete to grab all the bottles of Onfi and Depakote off the shelves, because for the life of me I do not know what it means to stockpile medications. Perhaps on the planet Romanesco?

Just yesterday I did a little dancing with The CVS Pharmacist and her Sanguine Pharmacist Technician. I'd gone to pick up Sophie's prescription for Onfi, the benzo that she has been on for much of her life but which does little to control her seizures yet to which she is irrevocably enslaved given its addictive properties, and the Sanguine Pharmacist Technician gave me only one bottle and then told me to speak to the pharmacist when I insisted that there should be two. The Pharmacist was extremely harried and quickly realized her mistake but told me that she only had one bottle, that she would have to order the other bottle and that it would come in on Friday, but because it had already gone through ("gone through" is one of those terms that professionals use because, after all, healthcare is a BUSINESS), and I'd paid $75 for that one bottle, I'd have to pay another $75 for the other bottle, the rest of the prescription. All because it had gone through.

Reader, are you with me?

As an aside, the retail "value" of one bottle of Onfi is $1,287 for a 23-day supply.

I promptly told her how absurd that was, that I shouldn't have to pay the penalty for a CVS Mistake and that I wanted the rest of my prescription as written. The Pharmacist looked at me, and then she looked at the line behind me of people stockpiling their medications and said, "You are right. I will write a fake prescription and your other bottle will be here tomorrow." My mind pondered the whole idea of a fake prescription but honestly, the tiny little mother mind™ was stretched to capacity, so I took her word and left the CVS with the one bottle of Onfi that had gone through and as I type this, a day has gone by so that I am happy to inform you that I did indeed pick up the other, the fake prescription and now have two lovely bottles of Onfi on my counter, worth approximately $2,574 and good to go for 23 days.

Bless all the people working in healthcare.

Our strength is in our compassion, not our fears.

May we all be well, happy and peaceful.
May no harm come to us.
May no difficulties come to us.
May no problems come to us.
May we always meet with success.