Friday haps

Today was an odd day in our pharmacy. Usually we're not very busy on Fridays, but we were jumping all day. We also had to deal with a weird number of people that were upset about various things. Like a girl, first thing, that asked me where our urine cleansing systems were, and when I said we didn't have anything like that, got our store manager, who promptly sent her to the Ex-Lax. Good luck, loser.
The stupid of the day went to a reverend that denied picking up his Viagra script and yelled that we were keeping from his duties. What kind of church he runs, I don't want to know. (The pharmacist found his signature on the pick up log within 5 minutes. Bwah!)
Also, last week, we filled a Suboxone script for a woman that elected to stare at me type the script instead of using our handy waiting area. While waiting, her and her boyfriend were browing our selection of pill cases, cutters and the like. Boyfriend spots a pill crusher. "Hey," he says, "that's when you crush Oxys!" Dumm-y, all the way. I told my pharmacist after they left and she just shook her head. What can you do, really?

What's That Smell?

The world is full of odoriferous emanations. Not all of them are pleasant but hey, how else are you gonna find a meth lab or a body dump? I was consulted by a walk-in about her friend's wound that she was too embarrassed to come in and ask about.

I LOVE wound inquiries because many times they have a good story attached. Any time I get a patient in from the ER with a bandaged finger, hand or arm I will ask them "Did you try to cut it off or just break it?" Many times I will get a laugh and a story because they are already full of pain killers and need a little something to forget about the sh*t sandwich life has given them to eat today.

So her friend had a boil under her breast that popped. So she just slapped a Band-Aid over it and went about her life. Several days later it is a big stinky hole and she still just keeps it covered with a Band-Aid because she is too embarrassed to ask a medical professional about it.

This leads me to think to myself, "Self? What holes on the human body normally stink?"

The nasal openings don't stink unless there is an infection in them.

The mouth stinks when you haven't brushed in a while because it is a cesspool of bacterial activity.

Skin pores don't normally stink unless you sweat a lot and/or don't bathe on a regular basis.

The anal opening will smell a little like poop no matter what you do because it is a sewer opening.

The vagina under normal operating conditions is pretty much odorless unless Aunt Flo is visiting or you have a swarm of yeast or bacteria hijacking your pleasure pool.

The urethra will generally have a pee smell but will smell worse when infection in the urinary tract is present or you eat asparagus.


So the prevailing answer is infection! DING DING DING, WE HAVE A WINNER!!! Bacteria find our subdermal soft tissue delicious! We are the walking talking microbial equivalent of a Las Vegas buffet: open 24/7 and a nice comfortably warm place that tempts you to stay f-o-r-e-v-e-r.

So I tell her to relay this very important message to her friend: Clean the stinky hole out with hydrogen peroxide, cover with Band-Aid and call her primary care physician as soon as the office opens in the morning or go to urgent care to get some oral antibiotics. She is well beyond the point where Neosporin and a Band-Aid will fix it. It will get much much worse if not treated now.

This also leads me to wonder how people can let something fester like that and not even think about seeing a medical provider. Hey Captain Obvious, it is getting bigger and it stinks. Get some antibiotics, for f*ck's sake!

Spring Fun

Hello! This is our first post, so please excuse us if it's not as polished as some.

We're in a rural community on the edge of the plains, with a drive-thru window borrowed/stolen from Burger Doodle...that faces the wind. It's especially entertaining when (like today) the North wind sweeps down with snow, coating everything-money, prescriptions, and one side of our faces-with slushy white stuff. The wind/rain/snow also brings out the secret chatty side of folks, who seem to love watching our teeth chatter and noses turn blue while asking question after question.

Just today, we got a classic phone call, a gentleman looking for syringes. "What size?" was met with an, "I don't know, 23?" for what volume..."the usual?" and the kicker question, "What are you using them for?" (Innocently meant, as we do quite a bit of veterinary work...) you guessed it! "I don't have to tell you that, do I? It's not required." Turns out, all we have are horse needles in that size. So sad.

So stay tuned for more adventures from the plains and the next chapter in the Hidden Hazards of Pharmacy series.

Burger Doodle Chicks

Intro Post!

Hi, I'm Drive Thru Wench!
A few points about myself-
I'm a technician, have been for almost 8 years, which cracks me up. I cruised into the store that I work at one day, looking for a part time gig that was close to my house, and now I'm our head tech. Turns out I'm a pharmacy geek and my only regret is that I discovered this at 22 and not in school, where I could have actually went to pharmacy school. I work for a big corporate pharmacy, which has good and bad points (it's so great never having to figure reimbursements or AWP, my nifty system does that for me, but it's bad having boss upon boss upon boss). We're considered a bad store, because of our depressed, mostly ethnic neighborhood and because we're the Medicaid store. I happen to love our store and our pharmacy team rocks! Still, we have our share of crackheads. Did I mention I hate crackheads? Because I do, a lot. I'm sure you're familiar with the excuses, and the "I need one pack of 1 cc syringes, for my grandma" while visibly twitching. Oh man do I hate the crackheads!
So, long story short, tech, ranty, hates crackheads. I will have plenty of stories to share, believe me.

Hay everyone out there!

You'll have to be patient with me - I've never used Blogger software before, although I assume I can figger it out.

Before I start making posts with the meat and potatoes of my pharmacy-related posts, I thought I'd do a little bit of introducing myself. I'm a (mostly) male, twenty-something pharmacy tech for a chain pharmacy, who's a little bitter about not getting into pharmacy school. (Long story there, I'll apply again next year, no big deal).

Most of the things I complain about are completely minor things, like the lack of lemonade in our house tonight to mix with my sweet tea vodka. I'm good at improvising though, like my use of ice instead. I call it problem-solving.

I work in a store where, for some reason, we only need two full-time pharmacists, one part-timer, and then a couple of floaters a week, at least. I shouldn't bitch, we have (not counting lunches) a full 7 hours of pharmacist overlap. It keeps things new and interesting as far as relationships with pharmacists go - I've always been interested in the dynamic between techs and pharmacists that develops over time, I'll have to add that to the list of topics to cheat an entire post out of later.

Anyway, I thought I'd keep things lighthearted and friendly for my first post - we'll see how things progress from there. Expect lots of parentheses, and the occasional list.

Toodles!

(does Blogger sign my posts automatically for me?)

(It turns out that it does not.)

--Fries with That

Sugestions For Blogger Name Variations

I have a small list of things that could be used or abused as blogger names or variations thereof:

$5 Footlong (I think we may already have that one covered by a tech)
Double Meat
Cold Cut Combo
Kentucky Fried
Big Box
Spicy Snack Box (gonorrhea?)
Chicken & Biscuit
Cole Slaw
Hush Puppy
The King (might have to fight Elvis's ghost for that one)
Whopper Jr.
Chicken Sticks
Cinnamon Cluster (sounds like a disease not a dessert)
Want Fries With That?
Eat More Cows
With Cheese
Fudge Nut Brownie (sounds like something from a porn, like a Hot Carl)
Baconator
Honey Mustard
Triple Stack
Waffle Fry
Spicy Nuggets (isn't that what happens with jock itch?)
Sourdough Jack
Boneless Wings
Home Style Chicken
Fish N Chips
Shrimp Scampi (another name for body lice)
Frosty-cino (gotta have a gangsta')
Run For The Border
Outside The Bun
Fourth Meal
Gordita Supreme
Pintos N Cheese
Fiesta Platter (sounds fun)

Jesus LOVES you! Everyone else thinks you are an asshole

I love that saying. I will never, ever get tired of saying that in my head when a customer is acting like a brat, a nurse can't get her/his shit together to call in an a-mo-cee-leen (yeah-that happened today) prescription, Dr. DB (not to be confused with the awesome Dr. Grumpy) is soooo put out for having to call in a script at 8 PM on a Friday night and the junkie with 650 pennies starts pouting b/c cannot get a bag of needles for "granny" b/c we only sell them by the box. Yes Jesus-you are so right!!

Love,

Filet