Single Dose Toothache Knockout!

Today a lady calls and asked what I thought about her giving her mother some of her amoxicillin to knock out her Mother's tooth pain.

I told her what I thought. I told her about why dentists and doctors prescribe antibiotics with a duration sufficient to make sure the infecting organism is eliminated entirely. I told her that neither her nor I could possibly diagnose her mother with the same condition she's being treated for. I told her about federal laws which state medicine is only for the person prescribed. I told her that If I advised her "Yeah sure, give your mom the medication" and she became hospitalized or deceased I would be liable. I told her absolutely not to do it.

She laughed at me. She explained that one dose of amoxicillin always knocks out a toothache and that "You have to save them up for using later!" She said that no one is going to arrest her for giving her mother her medication and then laughed some more.

REALLY?

Why do people call with questions like this when they've already made up their mind? 

But they FELL into my Cereal...

Mrs. Norco is a regular of ours. We call her one of our "Frequent Flyers"...  she's pretty much hopped up on Norco all the time. She knows the game and plays it well. She knows to request a refill on her Norco several days in advance giving the MD time to see the fax and respond.  And she somehow seems to know right when to show up when insurance will pay for it.

Mrs. Norco also has a tendency to take too much of her medication on occasion. She's gone through all the standard excuses that we don't buy anymore... such as it was stolen out of her purse, then stolen out of her car, then taken by her housekeeper, her kids' friends... a monkey that escaped from the zoo, etc. etc. Mrs. Norco has had to get more and more creative to get an early refill on her medication every time. 

I think she was sensing our displeasure in hearing one lie after another, so the latest lie involved a bit of staging. She starts out her story by telling me that that her husband brings her a bowl of cereal while she is in bed every morning with her medications for the day. On this particular day she goes to open her bottle of Norco and "Theysa jus jumped all overs the place likes an ex-po-shun!" According to her, the majority of them landed IN her bowl of cereal. When I asked her why she couldn't just dry them off and still take them, she just looked at me. I don't think she thought ahead enough on this one. I was told no, that just wouldn't do at all. She needed a NEW Rx for the full quantity (despite the fact that you can see in the following staged photographs that there are at least 35 tablets perfectly placed around the bowl of cereal -- why she couldn't take these -- I don't know.)

Mrs. Norco was quite proud of being able to submit photographic evidence to both her doctor and our pharmacy as to why she needed an early refill on her happy pills. She was almost beaming when she showed them to me. I'm just waiting to see what she comes up with next time...

Happy Mother's Day

The year was 1976. It was April, the day before Easter. That was the day my mother lost a long and hard battle with cancer. What started as a dark-shaped, irregular sized mole ended up a few later as brain cancer. She was young, only 52 years old. The last two years were very hard on her. She suffered from chemotherapy, loss of function on the right side of her body... using her left hand to write grocery lists for me to get things for her. She suffered the wrath of a mean old man: my father. I remember the seizures, so very frightening to a young child. I remember her pumpkin pie and bologna sandwiches. She loved Gunsmoke and Bonanza and Mission Impossible. She let me win at Checkers. She was an expert bowler, a member of Mensa, and knew how to fly a plane. I remember more about my mother than most kids who lose their mother at a young age. I remember so much, and there are so many things I wish I could have said, things left undone, regrets. 

I was lucky. My father remarried and my step-mother accepted me and never once tried to do anything but right by me. So for those of you who still have your mother, please don't let the time go by and end up with these same feelings of regret. Tell your mother HAPPY MOTHER's DAY today. Now. Turn off the damn computer and go call your mother.

Here's some funny stuff you can forward to your mom later, AFTER you call her:

The Last TRUE Sport in America

...or so my brother-in-law says.

This is actually a lot like me at the pharmacy. That's me on the left just after someone comes to the pharmacy and asks something stupid like "Hey, where's the Tylenol with the Motrin in it?"

Boobie Update

Inverted nipple problem?

A new gadget from Japan will nix your nuisance nipple!

Just affix the appropriate attachment, and then turn on the suction and apply it to your nipple. Then turn it off, and then back on and off again for a few minutes, giving your nipple a chance to adjust. Three or fives minutes a session per day and your inverted nipples will gradually start to improve.

What if you just don't like the way your nipples look? 

Ladies—and, yes, gentlemen—are you nervous about your nipples? Anxious about your areolae? Is your left larger than your right? Is the right darker than the left? Is one too high? Is the other cracked? Or are they just too big, too bumpy, too smooth, or too small

A new craze in the United Kingdom can fix this: nipple tattooing. 

And should you even be wearing a bra?

A new French study suggests that wearing bras might be worse for breasts, not better:


Professor Jean-Denis Rouillon, a sports medicine specialist from Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Besancon in Besancon, France, published a study that shows that wearing bras may not prevent women's breasts from sagging, and may in fact increase it.

"Our first results confirm the hypothesis that the bra is a false need," Rouillon told France Info. "Medically, physiologically, anatomically, the breast does not benefit from being deprived of gravity. Instead, it languishes with a bra."

And of course, a new book of boobies in 3D....

All right, this particular item is definitely going to come across as a little bit strange. Wait a minute, I take that back, it is a whole bunch of strange – an entire truckload, if you will. The £24.99 The Big Book of Big Breasts 3D would arrive in a glorious hardcover collection, where it features images that were curated from vintage and classic nudes, arriving in full spectrum red/blue anaglyph 3D effects and of course, it throws in a pair of 3D glasses for maximum effect. Definitely a book for those who appreciate one of the finer features of the female form, where there are more than 110 images that were hand picked from a collection of classic and vintage photography, and all of these shots have been transformed into a multidimensional mammary masterpiece by the very same folks who work on Tim Burton’s movies.

Favorite Question of the Day

Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring...

Me, EXTREMELY busy, "Thank you for calling the pharmacy. This is Crazy RxMan, may I help you?"

Agitated man, on a cell phone driving down the road with the radio on: "How late can I come in to get a lotto ticket?"

Me: "This is the pharmacy, we don't sell Lotto tickets. They do that up at the front counter."

<more noise> Does he have his window down too? Man: "What time do they close it up, 7pm? 8pm?"

"I honestly don't know."

<Click>

Why is the pharmacy consistently an information desk and switchboard? Why, why, why?

Light Up Tie

The corporation I work for insists that male pharmacists dress in white shirts and ties. We look like we're all stuck in the 1950s. Interestingly, I can shave my head and have swastikas tattooed all over my scalp and that's ok as long as I'm wearing a white shirt and tie.

Here's a cool LED Tie. I wonder if I can get away with wearing this tie? I think I'll order one and see what happens.