When All the Pharmacy Doles Out is Pain

Yesterday started out pretty well. Well, it was sunny and both the Ladies slept until after 8 am. I guess when you are given that gift of a few extra minutes of sleep that it has to be balanced out by a time-suck that not only thoroughly wastes your time and energy but leaves you wishing that the kids got up at 5am and you never had to venture out of the house.

The Little Lady has a cough. It started to sound more like a bark. My plan was to bring her to the walk-in hour at the pediatrician, but since she slept through that hour, I called them at 9:15. I could take her in at 10. I have been pretty lucky with both the Ladies and we haven't had too many sick visits. We have had a few trips where I brought the Lady in and they were basically like "Thanks for your co-pay there is nothing we can do for you." So, unless there seems to be a change in their symptoms or their behavior that is pretty apparent I am not one to rush to the ped, but I had a feeling that the Little Lady's cough was more than just a cold.

In another small victory that should have foreshadowed the eventual swing of the pendulum, I was able to get the Lady dressed and ready to go with minimal opposition. Granted this included allowing her to put on some eye-makeup and rummage through my jewelry box, but after I was able to wipe off the mascara from her nose and pry the baby blue Tiffany's bags out of her hands, we were good to go.

We got to the Dr. on time. The Ladies were well behaved both in the waiting room and in the examination room. The Little Lady has some sort of viral infection that moved to her lungs. Bronchiosaurus (or something like that--we have been watching a lot of Dino Dan at both our house and the Wild Man's. I am glad the Lady has an interest in dinosaurs and not just Princesses but the kid on the show is super annoying and kind of a know-it-all and my head is clogged up with a ton of dinosaur names.) Anyway, the only treatment for the bronchiosaurs is albuterol, which is an asthma medication. So we hooked up the Little Lady to a nebulizer and hoped for the best. The Lady covered her ears because it was too loud, and although initially receptive to the device, the Little Lady disconnected the tubing twice from the mouthpiece and I ended up wrestling with her for the final 5 minutes of the treatment. Overall though, it wasn't that bad of a visit. We ended up raiding their supply of stickers, made an appointment for a recheck next week and were in the car, with our own rental nebulizer, to pick up the prescription at 11 am.

I hate inefficiency. Also, did I mention it was 11 degrees outside? Luckily, I was able to get a parking spot in front of the pharmacy. I put the Little Lady in the stroller and we all piled out into the freeze. I made my way to the counter at the pharmacy and they said they didn't have the prescription in yet. No worries I thought, we just left the Dr's. office, we will hit the Carters next door and check out the clothes. I picked up a cute dress for the Lady for $7.99 and after letting her run around the store for about 10-15 minutes we went back to the pharmacy and waited online. Still no prescription. The Ladies were getting restless. It was then that I realized that part of the reason we were able to get out of the house on time was that neither one of them had any breakfast. I rummaged through my bag and found a bag of fruit snacks for them to share. The Lady, however had eyed the candy counter and had focused in on the Skittles. The nagging began soon after that.

Here is where I started to lose it. The pharmacy assistant was less than helpful and kind of had an attitude. She told me the pharmacist was checking the messages on the phone. OK, but the Dr. said she was going to fax it in. The Lady has the Skittles in her hand, then she put the package in her mouth. The Little Lady wanted out of the stroller. This was pretty easy to do, since she was only strapped in on one side due to the fact that she was wearing 500 layers and I couldn't close the straps. She ended up on her back on the floor crying. The Lady decided to stand on the thin ledge beneath the candy display, she too ended up on the floor, crying. I made my way down the aisle towards the front door, the Little Lady in one arm, pushing the stroller with the other and trying to convince the Lady that she was not getting any Skittles until after we ate something healthy for breakfast. And it was clearly time for something to eat. I decided that I wasn't going to open a box of Pop Tarts from Aisle 1 but instead hit the Starbucks on the other side of the strip mall, because we had a gift card and I knew they had yogurt. Before we left though, I let the pharmacists assistant know I would call the Dr. and see where the script was.

We hit Starbucks and I spent a good $25 off the gift card on an egg sandwich and some healthy snacks that they both devoured, we ventured back out into the cold and once again found ourselves at the pharmacy counter. The assistant who had been helping us earlier was no longer there. This, I like to think was a minor victory. The prescription was ready for the Little Lady, thank goodness. I also had to pick up my prescription of prenatal vitamins. After hunting it down, she handed me the bag and told me it was $94. Yes, $94 for vitamins. I handed her my special coupon card that the ob/gyn had gave me and she informed me that they were now $74. I informed her that the last time I filled this prescription, I paid $11.54 and I wasn't paying more than that now. I then realized that our pharmacy coverage had changed. I should have remembered that since I spent over a half an hour at the same pharmacy a week earlier trying to get a prescription for my husband. Luckily, this woman was actually helpful, she checked the computer and was able to not only give me the vitamins for $11.54 but did it in a pleasant way that made me not one to jump over the counter and knock off each individual pill container from the lines and lines of shelving behind her. Oh, she also rang up the bag of Skittles for the Lady and a bag of plain M&M's for the Little Lady. The time was12:35 pm.

We made two more quick stops at the bank and the post office. The Lady ate the entire bag of Skittles and the Little Lady passed out in her carseat. I'd like to say that this was the end of it, but after putting the Little Lady into her bed, I had to go back out to the car and get the nebulizer, the new dress, my purse and the bag of medicine. The Lady insisted on going with me, then insisted that I carry her up the stairs. It is really hard to explain to a 3-year old that you can't carry them up the stairs because they weigh too much and your hands are full of bags and you are carrying another baby in your belly. It is also hard to explain to them that they should walk up carrying their sippy cup that has been in the car since Saturday, when clearly they only want to be held. After a few minutes of whining and yelling (on the Lady's part), I walked up the stairs to let her have her little tantrum. I checked a few e-mails and called my sister to bitch about the happenings of the previous 3 hours. When I went to the top of the stairs to check on her, the Lady was laying on the bottom landing, up against the first stair, on a wet, dirty doormat in her jacket and hat, fast asleep. I gave her a few moments then went down to retrieve her. Yes, I was well aware that in the end she got her way, and I had to carry her up the stairs. Unfortunately she woke up soon after, yelled for a little while that she wanted to sleep on the bottom of the stairs and then got herself undressed, wrapped herself up in her nonnies, snuggled comfortably on the couch, while I fantasized about winning the PowerBall, having a house with an attached garage, a pharmacy with drive-thru service and children who listen.

Here is a photo of the Little Lady on the nebulizer. Three seconds after this photo was taken she didn't look so content.