Adventures in the Strange Land of Retail Pharmacy

I hadn't even managed to get both arms into my sexy short-sleeved white coat when I experienced yesterday's first encounter.

"Do you have that stuff.. that witch stuff?" stammered one of the most unattractive women I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. Assuming she wasn't referring to the overstock of Halloween apparel, which CVS still advertises for a reason that is beyond my pharmacist-knowledge, I pointed her in the direction of the witch hazel. I watched her pick up a bottle of witch hazel and stare at the label for a decent minute. I could only presume that she was reading the instructions. Maybe I misjudged this woman; after all, that's more than the majority of my customers venture to do. It was just then, just as I was elevating this woman's decency standards in my mind, that she twisted the cap off the bottle and nonchalantly poured its entire 12 ounce contents onto her face.

Recall now that this is not my normal retail store. In fact, retail pharmacy is not my normal pharmacy at all. I was speechless. I grabbed the nearest technician and turned her in the direction of the now kneeling, gasping customer dripping with witch hazel.

This sequence of events seriously happened. Honestly. Unsuspecting relief pharmacist thought I was being helpful. Apparently the act of changing into my sexy white coat sent Mrs. Witch Hazel Lady into a downward spiral. I soon learned why, as apparently this is a tradition for this particular customer at this particular store. You see, Mrs. Witch Hazel Lady is a clinically demented patient, read: crazy old lady, who lives around the corner from said pharmacy. She has delusions that she is an actual witch.. and apparently hunted by witch-hunters wearing white lab coats. Really. The witch-hood, I hear, is cured by witch hazel baths. Who knew.

This, my friends, is why I don't make a habit of working retail pharmacy. And this is why I definitely don't work holidays.

A Day in the Life

6:55 am. Twenty-five minutes into my day. One over-priced starbucks coffee.. maybe 20 orders.. 5 hood checks.. 7 phone calls.. 3 mind-numbing questions.. and a half-dozen legitimate ones. And then, 1 page. One cardiac arrest page to my code blue pager. Sheer adrenaline, in the best and worst possible ways.

I blend myself into the herd of residents, interns, nurses, anesthesiologists running to the patient's room. I have to push people out of my way. Literally. Physically. Push them with my oversized CPR arrest drug box. And then plead for a nurse to clean off a corner of a table so I might have an ounce of room to dose out medications. Medications, that I might add, the doctor-in-charge has been yelling for since before I stepped in the door. But today there is no corner of the table available.. because this table is covered in blood from the patient's coronary IV line. So I sit. Indian-style like a 5 year-old child on her first day of kindergarten, and I begin. Rapidly, efficiently, effectively.. and frantically.. drawing up dose after dose of medication after medication to keep this failing patient alive. This failing patient who happens to be 6 months old. This is how I started today: a day in the life of a children's hospital pharmacist.

This isn't everyday. This is just today.. this Saturday.. with this little boy. As it was last week.. with a different patient.. a little girl.

Today's patient didn't survive the arrest. But as I walk back to the pharmacy, ready to check more amoxicillin syrup and sign more heparin syringes, I pass by the room of last week's patient. She did survive, and she's sitting in bed playing with an ugly little stuffed elephant. She'll go home next week. She takes the sting away, if only for a moment.

And as I walk through the pharmacy door, my tech calls out "there's a nurse on the phone wondering if sodium chloride is compatible with normal saline." ...This is a day in the life.