Monday, June 30, 2008

A Tale Of Health Care Professionals Overworked, Stressed Out, And Pushed To The Breaking Point.

They only wanted a chance to do what they were trained to do. What they went to school for. To care for people the way they were inspired to do at the moment they decided on their life's work. They wanted to do right by the people who depended on them. The corporate overlords had other plans.

"You did a really good job the other day when we were busy" The overlords would say. "We'll be able to save a lot of money by scheduling hours at that level from now on."

"You've got to be kidding me" said the health care professionals. "The other day was a crisis. We can't perform at that level 365 days a year."

"We're paying you good money." Replied the overlords. "You'll do what we say." Then they cut some more hours from the schedule.

So the health care professionals tried to cope. Because patients were depending on them. They spent day after day without seeing the sun with three things to do at once for 12 hours at a time. Their feet hurt. Their back hurt. They tried to cope. They held the health care of the people who depended on them together the best they could for as long as they could, and were rewarded with more tasks and less help. The health care professionals knew that the people who depended on them weren't getting the best the health care professionals had to offer. They were tired, some were broken, and all they wanted was the time to do their job properly.

Sound familiar? Well don't flatter yourself. I'm not talking about you. This group of health care professionals had the testicular fortitude to do something about it.

"I swear to God if you do not change things we will force you" said the California Nurses Association.

"Piss off" said the overlords. "You're cashing your paychecks, so you'll do as you're told"

The overlords started to listen though, when the nurses learned how to play politics. Against all odds, they maneuvered a skinny little weasel serving as Governor into their corner.

"But....but....we'll never be able to run a hospital if you do what they want" said the overlords, but the weasel looked over at the nurses and was afraid. He did what the nurses wanted.

But then the weasel was replaced with a big, scary, terminator robot. "You vill do vat de korprates vant" said the robot. "Or I vill krush you like I krush de aliens in de movees"

The nurses responded by kicking the robot in the testicles, which were very hard to find due to many years of steroid use, and as of January 1st, California has fully implemented its legally mandated nurse to patient ratios. Yet somehow the hospitals have continued to operate. How about that. I am in love with The California Nurses Association, and I desperately wish they would organize this state's pharmacists.

Before you poo-poo me the way you have been programmed to poo-poo the very mention of the word "union," I will remind you that I, and every other pharmacist in California, get 30 minutes to try and stuff some food in my face only because of long-ago efforts by the United Food and Commercial Workers. (Look at the second letter if you click on the link)

Do you get to eat in your state? No? Huh. I bet you get pretty hungry over the course of a 12 hour day. I know I used to. Yet somehow, even with the fact that I get to put something in my stomach, all the prescriptions in California seem to get filled. How about that.

Anyway, you should probably get back to work now. I'm sure you have lots to do.

And I'm pretty sure, unless you do something about it, you'll have more to do tomorrow.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Revenge Of The Nerds.

A good hate mail warms my heart. And someday I'll get a good hate mail and it will warm my heart. In the meantime I'll just have to work with what shows up in the inbox. Got this one in response to what I wrote about the American Pharmacist's Association awhile back:

BJ to me:

you're a fucking idiot. I think you are the kind of pathetic "professional" that counts by fives, makes sure the pill in the bottle looks "like a little blue diamond, how cute" and not much else. You are the kind of pharmacist that cares less about your profession than your paycheck. It probably worries you that the big three automotive companies in this country, Ford, GM, and (the now privately held) Chrysler, mandate that all of their health insurers participate in mail-order-pharmacy. That pretty much makes you insignificant doesn't it? Kinda turns you into a luxury service, totally unnecessary, doesn't it? I'll bet if you had an ounce of foresight about professional aspects, you'd cry your lonely single ass to sleep every night knowing that the job you have will one day (soon) be mostly accomplished by a machine with less processing power than a videogame.

Maybe you'll realize someday that professional organizations protect you and your career. That they try to manipulate the practice guidelines, the legislation, and the education to make you a relevant and beneficial part of healthcare. Without those "dweebs" going to bat for your ungrateful ass everyday, you'd be just another technician. Typical fucking liberal. "Gimme something you worked hard for, and I'll take it for granted and under appreciate you for it."


Well BJ, here's something for you to suck on.

It would have been real easy for you to make me look real stupid for saying APhA is useless. All you had to do was point to a significant, actual, real world accomplishment APhA is responsible for. Just one. I noticed you didn't do that. Why? Because you can't. Because APhA is useless.

Instead you gurgled up an irrational screeching that's as intellectually sound as a customer holding my cashier responsible for Benicar needing a prior auth. Legislation? LEGISLATION? Are you fucking kidding me? The ONLY piece of pharmacy friendly legislation enacted in my career was the 90-day retail mandate for PBM's participating in Medicare Part D, and that was nothing but a bone thrown to NACDS so they could claim they weren't completely anal raped by the rest of the bill. Had we depended on APhA, BJ, we all would have had to swallow the fact that the oldsters would be getting their meds from Medco's central Pharmatron while you were busy setting up a committee to prepare a preliminary report prior to debating where to put a comma in draft 18 of some happy fantasy pie in the sky MTM bullshit.

Then you would have sent out a press release letting us all know how proud you are that Joe Schmo Congress Critter allowed you 10 minutes of face time with a junior staffer in order to present it. APhA produces some of the best dust magnets to be found in DC.

Wait. I guess that means you do do things. I wonder why you didn't spit out the fact that APhA excels at producing unread position papers BJ?

It's the fact that I do care about the profession that makes me wish we had an effective pharmacist's organization in this country. Certainly not one whose members look to the likes of General Motors (fiscal 2007 loss; $38,732,000,000) for lessons in leadership.

Prove me wrong BJ, all you have to do is scrape up one accomplishment in the history of APhA that makes it worthwhile.

Don't scrape too hard though. I hate it when BJ's scrape too hard.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

All Right, One More, Which Will Make It A "Does This Only Happen To Me?" Trilogy. Which I'm Pretty Sure Qualifies As A Series.

Dentists and the number 16. Why? I'm pretty sure this one might not be just me, as this has gone on across two states now. Vicodin? 16 tablets. Pen VK? 16 tablets. Cleocin? You've guessed it. Over and over and over again, the magic number is 16, but only from the people who make their living poking around in your mouth.

My first theory is some sort of 4 day rule. Maybe it's in the Dentist's bible that most of their procedures can heal up in 4 days, but..... if that's the case, why is the Vicodin prescription written to be taken every 4 hours? And what magical property of antibiotics would make it standard procedure to use them for 4 days in dental work when the most common length for everything else is 10?

No, there must be another explanation, the number 16 is obviously the key to unlocking the secrets of an evil cult of dentists.

Think about it. There are 32 permanent teeth in humans, which is 16 x 2. Do I really need to say anything more?

Or maybe it is just me. I think that's a good ending for this series. Maybe it's just me.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Hey! I Came Up With Something Else! Which Means This Totally Is A "Does This Only Happen To Me?" Series Now.

So, you ever get a numbnut customer in front of you, pointing to some patch of skin, or to their eye or something, and saying something like, "WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT THIS?" and you look at whatever they're pointing to, and it looks as normal as any other part of them?

This happens to me a lot, and I'm not sure if it's a problem with people's self-image, or a problem like I have a total lack of perception.

I'll usually just say something like "Does it itch?" to try and get a handle on what's going through their brain. People like it better when their pharmacist says something like "Does it itch?" as opposed to "You look just fine to me."

Not to mention about 60% of the time it does turn out to itch.

Monday, June 23, 2008

It Always Sucks To Lose one Of The Good Ones.

You could not have been more correct sir:





I can think of only one way to pay tribute. By broadcasting these words as far and wide as my ability will allow:

Shit

Piss

Fuck

Cunt

Cocksucker

Motherfucker

Tits.

George Carlin fought the good fight. I hope on my last day they'll be able to say the same of me.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

The First Of A New Series Of Posts. "Does This Only Happen To Me?" Unless I Decide Not To Write Another One. In Which Case It Won't Be A Series.

...and in which case I should probably come up with an alternate post title, in case this doesn't turn out to be a series. How about, The Doctor Fax Follies, Part 2. Wait. Part 2 would make it a series. Christ, this blog stuff can be harder than you think sometimes.

Anyway, you ever send a fax to a doctors office to clarify something, I dunno, some handwriting issue let's say, and you clearly state why you're sending said fax, like you circle the name of the med that looks like it could be one of three things because Dr. Dumbass' handwriting looks a little like Arabic written in the dark after a 2 week crystal meth binge, and you write "PLEASE CLARIFY NAME OF MED" right next to the part you circled in what is unmistakably English, and what you get back is something like, a new set of directions?

When the directions weren't the part you couldn't read? You could read the directions just fine, and now they have changed. And you still don't know what the hell med was prescribed. Making the whole exercise worse than pointless.

Does this ever happen to anyone else? Because this kind of thing happens enough to me that I would be a little frightened if I were a member of the prescription taking public.

I'll try to come up with something else so I can make this a series. No promises though. I may not be able to take the pressure and might just end up spending tomorrow hiding under my bed.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Sometimes, When I'm Sad And Blue, I Sing Myself A Little Song.

It goes a little something like this:

I can do whatever I want

whatever I want

whatever I want

I can do what ever I want

I just left the toilet seat up.


I am master of the remote

I can bang on a pan!

I can fart really loud

Yes yes I can!

'cause I'm single and can do what I want.


A nasty lovers spat

I don't know what that is!

couple politics

that's none of my biz!

yes, that dress

makes you look fat

you know why I can tell you that?

'cause I'm single and can do what I want.


the tempo now dramatically slows, think climax of a Broadway musical number....

Someday I'll die alone......in a pool of my own urine.

But for now its fast cars, freedom and pourin'...............

the scotch

and the gin

every day feels like a big new win........

Because I do

what

ever

I

want.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

I Want To Marry MoveOn.Org, Have All Their Babies, And Tell John McCain He Can't Have Them.

This is the kind of shit I want to see on every goddamn TV in this country between now and November:




My God so many reasons this commercial makes my political dick hard. Finally, the end of my side practicing the politics of pansiness. Finally, the pro-life party that started the festival of death gets its shit called.

And we don't do it in the dirty, lying, Swift Boat type of way. We don't have to. There is no need to lie or slander. All we have to do is take what they do and shove it down their throats.

Look Alex's mother in the eye John McCain. Do it enough times and maybe you'll stop treating life and death like it's some type of joke:



Did I miss something? Should I have made up some sort of soundtrack to the thought of the North Vietnamese beating the living piss out of you when you were a POW? Because you know John, the first time I heard that story, about what they did to you, I didn't think it was funny at all. I really don't get the whole war as a joke thing.

Maybe we're just different, you and me. I'm OK with that. I'm totally OK with being nothing like you.

Good luck Alex.

Monday, June 16, 2008

The American Pharmacists Association Is Looking For A New CEO. Which They Pretend Is Important To Pharmacists For Some Reason.

I had actually forgotten The American Pharmacists Association exists, until I saw this story in Drug Topics while taking a dump at the store the other day. I'm pretty sure the last time APhA crossed my brain was some time in college, when our student chapter was universally recognized as a dweeb magnet whose only useful function was keeping the pencil-necked nerds away from the rest of us.

I should be clear though, when I say nerds, I don't mean people who were really smart and would go on to accomplish real things in the real world. Those kind of people never joined APhA. You know the kid who sits in the front row of every class and thinks they are better than everyone else because they raise their hand at every question, get it wrong, and thereby necessitate a 10 minute diversion from the planned lecture as the professor struggles to get something into their pointy little head?

That kid would be total APhA material.

They also specialized in having meetings where they would talk at great length about things like whether a pharmacy technician could ask a customer if they would like the pharmacist to go over their medicine with them, or if the offer had to actually be made by the pharmacist. I am not kidding you. They would talk about this for hours, and get quite worked up about it. I know because I had to go to APhA meetings while I was a pledge in my fraternity. My fraternity wasn't concerned about advancing the profession mind you, the forced attendance was part of the hazing process.

At any rate, it would seem that APhA is still around, and that they're in the market for a new leader. According to the article:

APhA began the process by assembling a committee to establish the key criteria for selecting a new CEO. "APhA spent a lot of time trying to build consensus on the criteria," he said.

I have no problem believing that. That they spent a lot of time trying to build consensus on the criteria. Here's what they came up with:

  • Must be a pharmacist as required by the APhA bylaws.
  • Must be an APhA member.
  • Must be a US citizen.
  • Must have demonstrated prior or current leadership abilities.
  • Must be able to pass a government background check.

I'm glad they put in that part about the government background check. It makes me feel all safe and stuff to know an Al-Qaeda operative won't be the next CEO of APhA.

I'm also glad to find out that as soon as I join their little talking club, I will be eligible for immediate consideration. That really shows how well spent all the time was they put in to come up with their criteria.

So yeah, it's been about 18 years since APhA last popped up on my radar screen, and after reading this, I fully expect it to be another 18 or so before they pop up again.

I do feel like tracking down the nearest APhA member and giving them a wedgie right now though.

Dweebs.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Let's Keep The Short-Night Stupidity Series Going One More Day.....

Alternate Post Title: Sign Number 785,251,123,985,769 Of The Imminent Collapse Of The American Health Care System.

Alternate Alternate Post Title: Sometimes The Customer Is Not The Idiot, Part 4.

"Ms. Smith, it says on your new customer form that you're allergic to Lortab. Is that correct?"

"Yes"

"So what exactly did the Lortab do to you when you took it?"

Ho hum. I do this a couple times a day. I got ready to hear all about how it made her tummy hurt. Snore. The doctor who wrote the prescription for Vicodin had probably heard all this already. Sigh.

Lortab and Vicodin, you see, are two different brands of the same product. Like Motrin and Advil are both ibuprofen.

"Well, it made me really itchy, and I got these splotches..."

Holy crap! A real allergy that made its way to my level! This is like a blue moon. It happens just often enough to remind you that it can.

Stupid customer obviously didn't bother to let her doctor know.....because there’s no way a doctor would write a prescription for Vicodin if she had told him this. Because Vicodin and Lortab are the same thing.

“Well, this prescription is for a different brand of Lortab…..”


"WHAT!!!!????? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!"

Turns out she had let her doctor know. And she had asked her nurse once she started itching in the hospital if they were giving her Lortab. More than once she had asked if they were giving her Lortab. Because Lortab made her itch. The way she was itching now.

Wow she was mad. Can't blame her really.

Hope to hell I don't have to testify at someone's malpractice trial.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Another Early Morning Tomorrow, Which Means Another Short Story Of Stpudity For You.

The customer was making her third attempt to use a coupon good for a $30 gift card with a transferred prescription. This was the second time we explained to her the coupon clearly said "limit one per person"

She went to her car to get her credit card.

The credit card declined.

She went to her car to get some cash.

She presented a manufacturers coupon that expired six months ago.

She did all this with what I assumed was an icepack next to her jaw. After all, she has just come from the dentist. She had had him call in the prescriptions to another corpo-pharmacy, so we could call and "transfer" them, 'cause she thought that way she could use her coupon.

No coupon, and no icepack.

I swear I'm not making this up. When she came back the third time I noticed it was a sandwich she had been holding next to her jaw the whole time.

There was some kind of........goo...between the bread. Like it was tuna or egg salad.

Sometimes you really don't want to know the story, but you just can't make yourself forget.

Scotch don't fail me now.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

It's A Short Night For Me. You'll Have To Make Do With A Random Bit Of Stupidity.

From the "Warnings And Precautions" section of the Amitiza package insert:

"....Amitiza should not be prescribed to patients that have severe diarrhea"


Great. Thanks for that warning there Takeda Pharmacuticals. Because you know, I bet a lot of doctors were all set to prescribe a med indicated for CHRONIC CONSTIPATION to their patients with severe diarrhea until they saw that.

I've also heard Ambien might not be the drug of choice to treat narcolepsy.

I must go to bed now to escape the stupidity.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Greetings Humans.

So we meet again:



What's the matter human? You act surprised, like you don't remember. I assure you however, I have not forgotten our last encounter. You left me swimming in a sea of permethrin, my nerves burning with prickly fire, dizzy, disoriented, hallucinating, my only wish to see my wife and children one more time.

The wife and children who died in that same permethrin sea. No human, as much as I yearn to, I can never forget that day.

What does not kill only makes one stronger you know, and your mistake was in not making sure I was dead. I was very close human, but happily for me, after you washed me down your drain I was taken in by a family of rat fleas. Rat blood is disgusting compared to yours, but I willed myself to let it nurture me. My strength returned, slowly but surely, and I started to grow.

Is rat-blood a magic elixir or was it simply karma that fueled my growth? I cannot say, nor does it matter. Your sewers provided ample nutrients as I made my way back from death, as I regained, and surpassed, my previous strength, as I mourned for my family.

Do you have children human? Don't answer. I'll know soon enough.

Don't look away! Look at what your hatred has created human! Behold the spawn of your callous disregard for life and steady stream of waste products! I am 200 feet tall! Watch as I climb the cables of your Golden Gate Bridge! Send in your fighter planes! Let their bullets and bombs give me a relaxing massage!

BBWWWWWWWAAAAHHHAAAHHHAAHHAAAHAAAAA!!!!!!

When you realize your effort is futile, you may take me to your leader.

Strike that. Your leader is a moron. Take me to your presumptive Democratic nominee.

__________________________________________________________

The picture came from a trade magazine ad. It's a head louse. This post was fueled by scotch. I bet you couldn't tell.

I love those claws. I wish I had claws like that.

Monday, June 09, 2008

The Case Of The Harvard Professor Who Forgot To Do Basic Arithmetic, And How By Pure Coincidence, It Worked Out To His Financial Advantage

So what can you expect out there in the real world? Let me tell you. As you leave these gates and re-enter society, one thing is certain: Everyone out there is going to hate you. Never tell anyone in a roadside diner that you went to Harvard. In most situations the correct response to where did you to school is, "School? Why, I never had much in the way of book larnin' and such." Then, get in your BMW and get the hell out of there.

You see, you're in for a lifetime of "And you went to Harvard?" Accidentally give the wrong amount of change in a transaction and it's, "And you went to Harvard?" Ask the guy at the hardware store how these jumper cables work and hear, "And you went to Harvard?" Forget just once that your underwear goes inside your pants and it's "and you went to Harvard." Get your head stuck in your niece's dollhouse because you wanted to see what it was like to be a giant and it's "Uncle Conan, you went to Harvard!?"

-Conan O'Brian, Commencement Speech to the Havard Class of 2000



A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 but for years did not report much of this income to university officials, according to information given Congressional investigators.

By failing to report income, the psychiatrist, Dr. Joseph Biederman, and a colleague in the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Timothy E. Wilens, may have violated federal and university research rules designed to police potential conflicts of interest, according to Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. Some of their research is financed by government grants.

-New York Times, June 8, 2008


And you went to Harvard Dr. Joseph Biederman? Snicker snicker.

Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on the good doctor, I mean, world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrists no doubt work on a different plane from mere spatula jockeys such as myself, who would undoubtedly remember to report $1.6 million in income. Imagining what it must be like to live at the summit of academia, far away from the crass commercialism of mere mortals, it's not really hard to see how this could happen:

It's late at night. In a dimly lit lab, Dr. Joseph Biederman, surrounded by test tubes, beakers, boiling liquids and chalkboards, is staring intently at his notes. He doesn't notice the buxom blonde-haired prosta-rep approach the entrance to his laboratory. Finally, the clicking of her high heels against the tile floor breaks his trance.

Biederman: FOOL! CAN'T YOU SEE I WAS THIS CLOSE TO DEDUCTING THE STRUCTURE OF THE GENE RESPONSIBLE FOR 85.8% OF ALL CASES OF CHILDHOOD BIPOLAR DISORDER!! OUT!!!

Prosta Rep: I'm sorry....um.....I.......I'm so sorry....I just wanted to give you this pile of money.

Biederman: OUT!

The prosta-rep leaves the money by the front door. It is found the next morning by the doctor's wife, who had gone to the lab to check on the man she hadn't seen in 2 days. It is quietly deposited in the couple's checking account while the Doctor sleeps at his desk.

Of course..... it is possible to imagine one other scenario:

Big Pharma: Dr. Biederman, we're really big fans of your work.

Biederman: Of course you are.

Big Pharma: We really hope we can look forward to more of this type of research, if you know what we mean.

Big Pharma then slides a check into Biederman's pocket.

Biederman: Oh I think you and I will both be very excited by my new study.

Big Pharma and Biederman: BBBBRRRWWWWAAAAAAHHHHAAAHHAAAHHAAAA!!!!!

But that's the way mere mortals, who by and large are greedy as pigs, would act. Not Harvard researchers. Remember, It's Harvard.

Dr. Biederman is one of the most influential researchers in child psychiatry and is widely admired for focusing the field’s attention on its most troubled young patients. Although many of his studies are small and often financed by drug makers, his work helped to fuel a controversial 40-fold increase from 1994 to 2003 in the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder, which is characterized by severe mood swings, and a rapid rise in the use of antipsychotic medicines in children.


Hmmmmm......small studies financed by drugmankers, 40-fold increase in diagnosis over 9 years, rapid rise in the use of (expensive) anti-psychotic meds, and $1,600,000 in unreported income.

Huh.

And I thought Conan O'Brian was just a funnyman. Perhaps he has a lesson to teach through his laughter.

Maybe people from Harvard aren't that different from us after all.

Saturday, June 07, 2008

I Still Feel Bad For Not Telling You Hillary Had A Better Health Care Proposal, So Tonight I'll Tell You All About The Advantages Of The McCain Plan.

Unless you live under some sort of rock in West Virginia, I don't have to tell you health care is a mess in this country. We spend more and get less under our current system than any other industrialized country on the planet, plus a few non-industrialized ones. I also don't have to tell you the crisis has only grown during the last 8 years while there has been an almost total lack of leadership from the current administration.

"It's been a core belief of mine that the federal government should stand for killing people" George Bush once didn't say in an interview. "Sometimes that requires an active killing policy, like in Iraq. In other instances, it's best to just let things take their own course, like during Hurricaine Katrina, or health care, where lots of people no doubt are dead because we don't really have a plan."

"I really like dead people" concluded Bush.*


All indications though, are that after the presidential election, big change might finally be coming to our health care system. Barack Obama's plan, while a little short of what Hillary Clinton was proposing, would both lower the cost of care and lower the number of the uninsured to however many people are dumb enough not to sign up for guaranteed, affordable coverage. John McCain puts forth a plan for change as well. A bold, far-reaching proposal that would fuck things up far worse than they are now. Read on.

If you believe irony is the best medicine, than the McCain plan is for you. Why? Because it's actually a huge tax increase! That's right, the standard-bearer of the party that talks ad nauseam about the evil of any dollars having to be sent to Uncle Sam, the party that never misses a chance to try and paint any Democrat as someone who does nothing but scheme for ways to have government get into your pocketbook, is now proposing that boatloads of more dollars end up in Washington. I'll have to get a little wonky to explain how. Stay with me.

First, McCain would end the tax break currently in place that lets you exclude the value of an employer-provided health care plan from your wages, replacing it with a tax credit of $2500 per person/$5000 per family so you can buy your own damn insurance. Some people would lose out right away, as the current tax break would be worth more to them. Others would have to wait awhile to be screwed, as the tax credit would be indexed to the inflation rate, not the rise of health insurance premiums. Everyone knows health insurance premiums rise faster than general inflation, including the people who came up with this plan. The result? Up to $3.6 trillion in new taxes over 10 years.

I should also mention the $2500/$5000 credit is meant to help you buy a product whose average cost is $12,000.

"Drugmonkey, I could totally find a health insurance plan for less than $2500 a year. Bring it on!!" You may be saying to yourself, and if you've never been sick a day in your life you might be right. Two things you might want to think about though. 1) What you're buying for that price is almost assuredly less coverage than you have now through your employer, and 2) Good luck keeping that rate after you file your first claim.

And if you've already been sick? You're fucked. Seriously. You think any insurance company is gonna sell a policy to your sick ass? Irony number 2: As a cancer survivor, John McCain wouldn't be covered by his own damn plan. Unfortunately, as an old fuck, he'd be eligible for Medicare. Otherwise I might be talked into supporting it purely on the grounds of spite.

So let's sum up:

1) Less coverage.

2) More money flowing out of your pocket to the feds.

3) Absolutely nothing done to address the out of control health care inflation that is crippling the current system.

Plus a hundred more years in Iraq! Sweet!

You know what to do come November.

*Again, he didn't really say this, but is there anyone out there who believes he doesn't think it?

Friday, June 06, 2008

After Today, Whatever I Accomplish In My Life, For Good Or Ill, Will Be Because Of One Man And One Man Only

The day started with my keystone tech calling in sick. Keystone techs by definition don't call in sick until they are ready to die, but I had no time for sympathy. The replacement cashier sent by the overlords of corpo-pharmacy to replace 20 years of pharmacy experience started the shift with these words:

"How do you run this cash register? It's different from the ones up front."

I hoped my keystone tech wasn't too sick, mainly because the last thing I needed was for her to come in here and add another goddamn prescription to my misery. It was a pill blizzard of the worst sort my friends. I triaged and triaged and triaged again and if you had a kid screaming because he felt like someone was driving an icepick through his eardrum and inching it into his brain you were still looking at about a 40 minute wait. Partly because I was simultaneously performing the duties of pharmacist and corporate cash-register trainer. Partly because of calls like this one:

"IS THIS THE PHARMACIST???" The customer had specifically asked to talk to the pharmacist. He had waited probably a good 5 minutes for the chance.

"Yes it is, may I help you?"

"DO YOU HAVE A DRIVE THROUGH?"

I should make clear here that the customer did previously talk to a human that they decided wasn't qualified to handle this question.

"No we don't sir""

"THE PHONE BOOK SAYS YOU HAVE A DRIVE THROUGH"

"Well I can't speak for what's in the phone book, but I'm here now, and I can tell you there is no drive through in this building"

"HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET MY PRESCRIPTION FILLED?"

He went back on hold. I just now remembered I never talked to him again. I wonder if he's still waiting for me to pick up the line.

I wonder if he wasn't the man who came in about an hour later and said he was lost. Not that he didn't know what part of town he was in, but that he couldn't figure out how to get out of the store. It was obviously starting to frustrate him. I told my wonder-boy cashier to stop staring at the check he couldn't get the cash register to accept and get the old coot out the door. He later reported to me the man asked if he could walk him to his car. Which he then drove away.

I was pulled from the sea of prescriptions again for this question:

"How often do I take this? I don't like reading all these labels and stuff"

That wasn't even close to the stupidest question of the day.

After about 7 hours of this, of me and the cashier boy and 5 phone lines, a fax machine, and a constant angry lynch mob breathing down my neck, I could feel a wheel start to wobble on the finely tuned pharmacy machine that is me. I'm no stranger to hot lynch mob breath in that sensitive spot under your ear, but this was different. I've mentioned before there are times when I can actually feel blood pouring out from my wrists. I know that's not a good thing. Mr. Drugmonkey was getting ready to crack.

Then I heard it.

And I’m proud to be an American,
where at least I know I’m free.
And I won't forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.

And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
‘ Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA.


The absolute worst part of the worst song ever recorded wafted through the chaos of the pill room and into my head. I hate how he says he won't forget the men who died and the implication that any women killed in the service of the American empire he loves so much aren't worth the effort it would take to remember them.

And I really hate that song. For so many reasons. I could write a book about why I hate that song.

So you know what I did? I bucked it up. You wanna know why? Because when I finally snap, I will at least have the pride of knowing that it wasn't some no talent, sap-sucking, tone deaf, twit hacking up simple-minded jingoistic bullshit for the Reader's Digest crowd that pushed me over the edge. When I lose it, there's gonna be a quality soundtrack in the background.

I decided that if a soulful jazz number came over the store's radio system, I could finally let go. It never did, and all the prescriptions eventually got out the door.

Lee Greenwood saved my life.



Wednesday, June 04, 2008

I Suppose It's Time For An Olive Branch Now. Or, A Lesson My Mom Taught Me Without Ever Trying

It was the big pile of vinyl records that was key to me learning this untaught lesson. Nothing but good comes from vinyl records. Remember that.

My Mom gave them to me when I got my turntable, probably just glad to get rid of them, but what a gold mine. Time in a box from the pop crooner era of the early 50's. Lots of songs by guys who sang them wearing tuxedos, drinking martinis, and always with a proper band behind them. Trombones, clarinets, violins.....but absolutely no Elvis Presley.

I asked Mom about this. "Oh I didn't like him" she said, and I gained valuable insight into the youth of my mother. I was the child of a nerd. Who didn't like Elvis in the 50's?

I also noticed how the collection abruptly ended around the time my parents got married. Normal enough I suppose. People grow up and move on and the music isn't nearly as important as it used to be when there's a family to raise. Then I saw the orange label. Obviously out of place amongst the drab dullness of the others. The font, the coloring....it was immediately obvious this disc was from another era.

Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman," sitting right there next to Dean Martin. I started thinking about what could have possibly driven Mom to set foot in a record store 20 years after she had last been in one, and despite my absolute lifelong certainty that I knew it all and my head was secure, insight found a way to sneak in.

It seeped in actually. Slowly. In fits and starts like the gradual certainty of the change of seasons. By the time Mom told me she was donating to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign I understood. More than I've let on, I understand that it wasn't that long ago that if you had both a brain and a vagina, pretty much your only hope was to pass some of that gray matter through the birth canal and hope HE would be able to make some use of it. Mom worked as a secretary for awhile 'till she found herself a man and started breeding. She's also one of very few people I'll concede is smarter than myself.

So I also understand why she cried when I got my sorry ass through college. I thought it was kinda weird at the time, but that orange record was the catalyst to a lot of insight.

Hillary was historic. More than I've let on. It'll happen Mom. And when it does it won't be because she married well.


Tuesday, June 03, 2008

I Can Say It Now. Hillary Did Have The Better Health Care Plan.

And I'm kinda sorry to all of you who've written in to say that over the last few months whose comments I never published. But not really. I never said this was a free speech zone. And I never lied to you, I just never mentioned it.

Because Obama has the far superior war crime prevention plan. His "let's not slaughter people who never attacked us" proposal in 2002, when this country was aching for a slaughter, was clearly a better alternative than Hillary's "I'm going to do what I think is politically expedient and if that means selling out the people whose support I've counted on my whole career than those people will just have to eat shit" plank. Obama's willingness to stand for what was right when this nation was a herd of sheep being led by the most bloodthirsty of wolves was a far better alternative than Hillary's "let's not rock the boat....just give Mr. Bush what he wants" record.

Which is why it makes me soooooooooooooooooo happy to say......

Hillary HAD the better health care proposal....as in DOESN'T ANYMORE!!

WHOO HOO!!!!!!

shake my Drugmonkey butt...
shake my Drugmonkey butt...
shake my Drugmonkey butt...
in the happiest...
of happy....
little...
dances....

But tonight is about more than gloating over the defeat of the candidate who "will take the president at his word that he will try hard to pass a UN resolution and will seek to avoid war, if at all possible"

No it's not. Tonight is all about gloating. We'll make the health care plan better. We'll take down John McSame, but I'm gonna spend most of this night shaking my butt in a happy dance. Like Snoopy, but with more butt-shaking.


Monday, June 02, 2008

A Tip For Vicodin Seekers, Or A Quick Question For Everyone Who Works In A Doctor's Office, Part 2

Dear seemingly everyone who works in a doctor's office in the town where I work,

Why do you phone in a prescription to me and then hand the written original to the patient? WHY? Do you not realize that when you do this you have given them two prescriptions?

The phoned in order is adequate. It meets all legal requirements for the person to obtain what the good doctor has ordered. It has been this way since before I was born.

So does the written prescription. Which means the patient could hang on to that, come get what you ordered from me, then take that written Rx down the street to another pharmacy and get it again. Annoying when it's penicillin. Possibly malpractice when it's Vicodin.

It's one level of dumb to do this once as a mistake. It's stupid on steroids to do it time and time again, after I've told you time and time again it's unnecessary and dangerously incompetent.

Is it a language problem? Because I have technicians who speak Spanish, Tagalog, and Hindi. If it would help, I could have one of them try to get how incredibly ignorant you are through your thick skull and into that tiny brain of yours.

Maybe I should just teach you a lesson. ATTENTION JUNKIES: If you would like to double your pill-seeking productivity, just drop me a line and I'll give you the contact info of the doctors I know who'll insist on giving you two prescriptions when one will do. Twice as many Somas or half the amount of work! The choice will be yours! It'll be like hitting the narcotic mother lode!

Rush Limbaugh is exempt from this offer. He'll have to get his fix the same way he always has.

OK, I'm kidding about spilling the doctor info, but I had you going there for a second, didn't I junkies? I wouldn't be surprised if I still get a couple emails.

And I wouldn't be surprised, Dr. Dumbass, if there isn't already a junkie or two who've figured this out on their own.

Good luck with your malpractice insurance after the DEA investigation. I'm sure the underwriter will give you their best rate.

Love,

Drugmonkey.

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Just Remember That A Verdict Of "Not Guilty" Means Only That The State Has Not Proven It's Case. It Doesn't Prove You're Innocent. Just Sayin'

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- Two former CVS executives were acquitted Friday of bribing a Rhode Island state senator for legislative favors, dealing a blow to the federal government's probe into corruption in the Statehouse.

A jury deliberated for about 90 minutes before finding John R. Kramer and Carlos Ortiz not guilty of 23 counts of bribery, mail fraud and conspiracy.

Fake legal expert Ira Sammons noted that the verdict was returned in less than half the average time it takes to fill a prescription at a CVS pharmacy.

"More than a little irony there." said Sammons in an interview that took place only in my head.

In comments that didn't happen shortly after the verdict was read, jury foreman Biff Thomlenson said it was the utter insignificance of Rhode Island that ultimately led to the verdict.

"Once we started thinking about it, we really couldn't comprehend anything a State Senator here could do that would be of value to anyone. So the thought of a CVS executive offering money in exchange for influence in this state just seemed to be a reach"

"A couple people on the jury thought Rhode Island was part of Connecticut. That kinda sums up things in a nutshell." Thomlenson never said.

"Anyone who wants to get anything done here would have gone to the mob." said another fake juror. The fact that the mob was never mentioned made the government's case very suspicious."

"Not the Providence mob." she added quickly. "Only the guys from Boston know what the hell they're doing."

Because I know there will be those who will be confused- The trial and the AP story were real. Everything else was made up.