Rain!
We're getting tons of rain right now. I LOVE it. However, my body doesn't feel the same way about the rain. Every joint is achy and I'm so completely fatigued it's ridiculous. I'm already maxed out on how much advil I can take in a day - Rx strength at 800mg every 8 hours - and I'm pretty sure my kidneys are mad about that. I really should switch to some other medication, but since the last fiasco, I'm not really willing to go through that process again. (I finally got a call from Dr. Hall's staff a week ago increasing the dose of indomethacin. A week ago. Two months after I called to request the increase. WTF.)
I see Monica for therapy every week at one of the clinics and I see Dr. Hall at another. I've been going to see Monica in central Houston and then driving down to southwest Houston to pick up my meds where I see Dr. Hall. After dealing with rampant incompetence from the pharmacy staff at the southwest clinic, I asked to have all of my scrips moved to Monica's clinic. That way I can just be at one place on Friday mornings. This saves gas and time (and keeps my blood pressure low). I didn't mention how rampant and ridiculous the incompetence at the southwest clinic is in a previous post, so here's the story that became the straw that broke the camel's back:
For some reason, the clinic pharmacy was sending refill requests for my psych meds, which should have gone to Dr. Shah, to Dr. Hall instead. Dr. Hall, being unfamiliar with my psych med dosages, wrote a prescription for a much lower dose than I actually take (3 300mg/day instead of the 5 I actually take of Neurontin). This meant I ran out almost two weeks early and the system wouldn't allow me to request a refill. This, obviously, was a problem because I can't really be without it. I emailed Dr. Shah - I have his Baylor School of Medicine email address and he's fantastic about answering my emails (because his iPhone is basically permanently attached to his hand) - to ask him to write a new Rx with the correct dose and send it to the pharmacy. He replied that he needed the pharmacy to send the request to him through the system and he could correct and send it back. But that I needed to have them do that before 3pm because he was getting on a plane to fly to India that afternoon and wouldn't be available. I called the pharmacy, spoke with a pharmacist, and was assured that it'd be done. At 2pm, I received an email from Dr. Shah letting me know that he still hadn't received the request. So I called the pharmacy again. Again they said that they'd send the request. He finally received it at 2:45 as he was boarding the plane and so made an error in the instructions. I called the pharmacy that following Thursday just to check and see if the prescription was ready. That was when they told me of the problem. So I emailed Dr. Shah again. He answered that he needed them to send the request again and he'd fix it. I called the pharmacy AGAIN and asked them to send the request AGAIN. On Friday, I called the pharmacy to check on the progress. They said they hadn't gotten a reply from Dr. Shah. By this point I was PISSED. I told the pharmacist that I needed loaners until they could straighten the thing out. She told me she had to go by the prescription on the bottle and could only loan me 3 days worth. Which meant I would run out in 1 1/2 days because of the actual dosage I take. Which obviously wouldn't work. I told her that that wasn't in ANY way okay. She relented a little and said she'd loan me enough at my actual dosage to last until the following Monday. I said that that wasn't okay, either, because I wasn't going to use up the expensive gas in my car to drive ALL the way down to the clinic (an hour drive plus 7 dollars in toll fees) twice in the next week. I wouldn't leave the pharmacy until she gave me enough to last me a week at my dose - 35 pills total. PERIOD. I told her that the fact that this should have been taken care of on MONDAY and that I was the one acting as the middleman between my doctor doing this by email WHILE IN INDIA instead of her corresponding directly with Dr. Shah which is really her job. That evening, he emailed me saying that he STILL hadn't gotten the request and gave me specific instructions of what to tell the pharmacist so he could get it done for me. This man is such an amazing saint, doing all of this by email while he's on vacation visiting his family HALFWAY ACROSS THE GLOBE. I called the pharmacist and told her exactly what he said. Finally, after dealing with it for TWO WEEKS, I was able to pick up my medication that following Friday. Yeah. Needless to say, I love Dr. Shah for his dedication to his patients - above and beyond doesn't even begin to explain it - and I was totally done with dealing with this particular pharmacy and their many screw ups.
I've now picked up my prescriptions and Monica's clinic for the last two weeks. The staff there seems like they know their jobs, thank God. The wait has never been more than about 45 minutes. The difference between the two is night and day. I wish I had thought of this sooner.
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In other news, I'm still plugging away at my medical terminology class. I have to take my second test this week. I emailed my professor Thursday asking for the study guide to have over the weekend. She replied that the guide would be available the day before the test. What kind of good does that do?? Oh, and this is an excerpt from the previous study guide:
"This guide is not designed to tell you exactly what is on the test. For instance you may have a multiple choice question with four options, instead of just listing the answer or word you need to know I have listed all possible choices and you must be able to differentiate between the four options to arrive at the correct answer. I am doing this as a favor to you. This is not something that I am required to do."
Bitchy and useless, much?? At least I know how mostly easy the test is, so I'm not so worried about it.
OH HOLY SHIT, I just realized I didn't take the quiz for this last chapter. Crap. Now I have a 0 on a quiz. Dammit all.
This is all because it's getting hard to stay motivated while depressed and in a massive amount of pain. All I want to do is sleep, and so I'm not studying like I need to. Ugh. At least I have until Saturday to take the test. But I also have to do two more chapters before Sunday, so I can't procrastinate for long.
Okay. I must buckle down and go study. Really.
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Oh, finally a giant piece of great news: the nosy bitch next door is GONE!!! She's moved to Florida and her daughter, granddaughter, and (from what we understand) the baby daddy, have moved in. The daughter is determined to be as completely NOT her mother as possible. Granted, this means that we'll have to take our own recycling bin in on Monday evenings, and we'll have to mow our own grass if it gets too long, but those are such non-burdens it's ridiculous. It's so nice to walk out the door in the morning and not think about how quickly I need to get in the car to avoid a conversation with Linda. The amount of relaxation is fantastic. YAY! *kermitflail*
I see Monica for therapy every week at one of the clinics and I see Dr. Hall at another. I've been going to see Monica in central Houston and then driving down to southwest Houston to pick up my meds where I see Dr. Hall. After dealing with rampant incompetence from the pharmacy staff at the southwest clinic, I asked to have all of my scrips moved to Monica's clinic. That way I can just be at one place on Friday mornings. This saves gas and time (and keeps my blood pressure low). I didn't mention how rampant and ridiculous the incompetence at the southwest clinic is in a previous post, so here's the story that became the straw that broke the camel's back:
For some reason, the clinic pharmacy was sending refill requests for my psych meds, which should have gone to Dr. Shah, to Dr. Hall instead. Dr. Hall, being unfamiliar with my psych med dosages, wrote a prescription for a much lower dose than I actually take (3 300mg/day instead of the 5 I actually take of Neurontin). This meant I ran out almost two weeks early and the system wouldn't allow me to request a refill. This, obviously, was a problem because I can't really be without it. I emailed Dr. Shah - I have his Baylor School of Medicine email address and he's fantastic about answering my emails (because his iPhone is basically permanently attached to his hand) - to ask him to write a new Rx with the correct dose and send it to the pharmacy. He replied that he needed the pharmacy to send the request to him through the system and he could correct and send it back. But that I needed to have them do that before 3pm because he was getting on a plane to fly to India that afternoon and wouldn't be available. I called the pharmacy, spoke with a pharmacist, and was assured that it'd be done. At 2pm, I received an email from Dr. Shah letting me know that he still hadn't received the request. So I called the pharmacy again. Again they said that they'd send the request. He finally received it at 2:45 as he was boarding the plane and so made an error in the instructions. I called the pharmacy that following Thursday just to check and see if the prescription was ready. That was when they told me of the problem. So I emailed Dr. Shah again. He answered that he needed them to send the request again and he'd fix it. I called the pharmacy AGAIN and asked them to send the request AGAIN. On Friday, I called the pharmacy to check on the progress. They said they hadn't gotten a reply from Dr. Shah. By this point I was PISSED. I told the pharmacist that I needed loaners until they could straighten the thing out. She told me she had to go by the prescription on the bottle and could only loan me 3 days worth. Which meant I would run out in 1 1/2 days because of the actual dosage I take. Which obviously wouldn't work. I told her that that wasn't in ANY way okay. She relented a little and said she'd loan me enough at my actual dosage to last until the following Monday. I said that that wasn't okay, either, because I wasn't going to use up the expensive gas in my car to drive ALL the way down to the clinic (an hour drive plus 7 dollars in toll fees) twice in the next week. I wouldn't leave the pharmacy until she gave me enough to last me a week at my dose - 35 pills total. PERIOD. I told her that the fact that this should have been taken care of on MONDAY and that I was the one acting as the middleman between my doctor doing this by email WHILE IN INDIA instead of her corresponding directly with Dr. Shah which is really her job. That evening, he emailed me saying that he STILL hadn't gotten the request and gave me specific instructions of what to tell the pharmacist so he could get it done for me. This man is such an amazing saint, doing all of this by email while he's on vacation visiting his family HALFWAY ACROSS THE GLOBE. I called the pharmacist and told her exactly what he said. Finally, after dealing with it for TWO WEEKS, I was able to pick up my medication that following Friday. Yeah. Needless to say, I love Dr. Shah for his dedication to his patients - above and beyond doesn't even begin to explain it - and I was totally done with dealing with this particular pharmacy and their many screw ups.
I've now picked up my prescriptions and Monica's clinic for the last two weeks. The staff there seems like they know their jobs, thank God. The wait has never been more than about 45 minutes. The difference between the two is night and day. I wish I had thought of this sooner.
-----------------------------------------
In other news, I'm still plugging away at my medical terminology class. I have to take my second test this week. I emailed my professor Thursday asking for the study guide to have over the weekend. She replied that the guide would be available the day before the test. What kind of good does that do?? Oh, and this is an excerpt from the previous study guide:
"This guide is not designed to tell you exactly what is on the test. For instance you may have a multiple choice question with four options, instead of just listing the answer or word you need to know I have listed all possible choices and you must be able to differentiate between the four options to arrive at the correct answer. I am doing this as a favor to you. This is not something that I am required to do."
Bitchy and useless, much?? At least I know how mostly easy the test is, so I'm not so worried about it.
OH HOLY SHIT, I just realized I didn't take the quiz for this last chapter. Crap. Now I have a 0 on a quiz. Dammit all.
This is all because it's getting hard to stay motivated while depressed and in a massive amount of pain. All I want to do is sleep, and so I'm not studying like I need to. Ugh. At least I have until Saturday to take the test. But I also have to do two more chapters before Sunday, so I can't procrastinate for long.
Okay. I must buckle down and go study. Really.
-----------------------
Oh, finally a giant piece of great news: the nosy bitch next door is GONE!!! She's moved to Florida and her daughter, granddaughter, and (from what we understand) the baby daddy, have moved in. The daughter is determined to be as completely NOT her mother as possible. Granted, this means that we'll have to take our own recycling bin in on Monday evenings, and we'll have to mow our own grass if it gets too long, but those are such non-burdens it's ridiculous. It's so nice to walk out the door in the morning and not think about how quickly I need to get in the car to avoid a conversation with Linda. The amount of relaxation is fantastic. YAY! *kermitflail*