Alan Petersen -- Drug Dealer!

Saturday was a hilarious day -- well, "hilarious" only if you're NOT Alan Petersen!

So, just WHERE is our patient's mother's BRAIN these days? We took that trip to the plastic surgeon Friday, as Gretchen noted on her last blog. For out-of-staters, the U of U hospital is an hour away from us here in Cedar Hills in GOOD traffic. And yes, I DID know her "big guns" -- oxycodone (cousin to oxycontin, the popular street drug) was very very low. About four left on Friday.

Did I think to take the pill bottle with us?

Did I think to ask the plastic doc to refill the low scrip?

Or did I walk to the surgery clinic down the way and ask her surgeon for a refill?

No-o-o-o-e-e-e-e-. . .

So Friday, when we were done with the doc, she was in a great deal of pain so she asked him for a scrip for TWO "oxies" to get her home. Alan took the scrip to the pharmacy in the hospital -- waiting in line while I got the patient a Sprite for her upset tummy (too many bumps and curves on the ride up). When he presented the scrip, the pharmacist said they didn't carry the dosage the doc ordered so Alan had to go back to the plastics clinic, sign back in, wait for him between pts, and get a new scrip for the correct dosage. Then after waiting in line at the pharmacy AGAIN, there was another snafu! The doc had scratched out the dosage and written in the new one -- a no-no! This time the pharmacist himself came out of his cage and marched down to the doc and got it corrected!

Meanwhile mom 'n' kid are sitting in the waiting room (so aptly named), Sprite bottle long empty and Gretchen really hurting by now. Alan appeared and she gulped her two new precious oxies and we made the trip home with that bed and her special pillow looking mighty inviting.

But that's not all.

No-o-o-o-e-e-e-e . . .

Saturday ayem I showed up in the wee hours at her bedside for her early morning "fix" and looked at the four remaining oxies and realized what a slug I was for not asking for a big refill while we were at the hospital the day before. You see, because oxycodone has such a huge street value, and it's a narcotic, it can only be handwritten and handcarried by the patient (or family member) directly to the pharmacist. No exceptions. I called the hospital surgical resident on call (it was Saturday after all) and begged for an exception. Couldn't he just call it to say, another DOCTOR -- mine, for instance (or his partner on call) -- and have HIM write the scrip? No, he could call it only to an urgent care center and that would involve a trip for Gretchen to Orem and a big fee not covered by her insurance.

Darn!

So off faithful, good step-dad Alan went for the two-hour round trip to the hospital -- TWO days in a row now -- to see the resident and p/u the scrip.

But is that the end of the story?

No-o-o-o-e-e-e-e-. . .

Alan finally got home to our local pharmacy and dropped off the Rx. He then called me and asked if he should pay for it (rather pricey) or should he charge it to an accout somehow? I'd forgotten to give him Gretchen's medical charge cards! Dummy me -- AGAIN! I told him to come home and I'd go back with the cards later and pick up the drugs. Meanwhile, our favorite patient has taken her last "big gun" and clearly will need relief when she wakes up from her afternoon nap. Alan came home, saw that I was involved with some project or other, and volunteered to go back himself. What a dear! I gave him the cards and off he went.

End of story? Hardly!

When he got back to the pharmacy and tried to pick up the pills, the pharmacist called out from the back -- "Sorry sir, the doc forgot to write the date on the scrip -- you'll have to go back to the hospital and get him to write the date in!"

Alan was incredulous, of course. The pharmacy assistant at the window, however, was sympathetic. She whispered out of the side of her mouth, "Just take the darned thing, write the date in yourself and take it to another pharmacy. You can't bring it back here unless you wait two hours because 'Dr Pete' over there will know you wrote it in yourself."

So off our hero went to Walgreen's ten miles away, filling in the date himself, for still ANOTHER wait in line and

viola!

A FILLED prescription! . . .

Home JUST in time for the waking princess/patient to have her much-needed relief from pain. And just who did she have to thank for the relief only a narcotic could bring?

Her forgetful, mush-brained mother?

Hardly!

It was the knight on the white horse in the white hat who saved the day!

Hooray! Kisses and kudos to our drug-dealing hero!