Is Our Drug Supply Safe?

I have been wrapping up my CE’s.  I only put them off until the last minute cause I meant to!  I thought I would share one of them.  It made me never want to take another pill for the rest of my life!

“I was working on the Munson case when she walked in.  Tall, blonde, lips like a cinnamon bagel.  Yeah, she was trouble and I was needin a little more trouble.

‘I have a case for you’ , she purred like a pink kitten.

‘Not takin any cases right now.’

‘You’ll take this one.  It has you written all over it.’

‘Look, Doll, I run a serious business here.  I ain’t got time to follow ’round the husband so you’se can take ‘im to the cleaners.”

She moved in closer, smelling of spring and satin sheets.

‘I’ll take the bait, Darling.  I’m not married.’

‘Then whattaya here for?  A pretty dame like you could have any poor schmuck falling all over himself to help you.’  I lit a cigarette and gestured for her to take one.

‘No thanks, I’d rather suck on a tail pipe’  She clicked her heels two short steps and pulled a folder from her coat. ‘Look at this.’

I opened the file, intrigued.  Drugs, money, overwhelmed FDA personnel, Chinese corruption.  I snapped it shut.

‘Miss, this ain’t a case, it’s a bomb, and it would destroy you and me both.  Now, be a good girl and take that thing outta here.’

‘Don’t patronize me.  I didn’t pick you out of the Yellow Pages.  I came here because I know who you are and what you are not.’

‘Oh yeah?  Who am I?’

‘You are Joe America, and you are not a coward.’

My palms began to sweat.  She floated around to my side of the desk.  Leaning in close, she stared into my soul, searching.  I broke her gaze.

‘Lady, I haven’t taken cases like these in years.  It’s too big, too much.  I only take the ones I can win.”

She pulled my face back towards hers.  Softly, she pressed her lips to mine.  When she drew away she smiled.

‘Who…are…you?’  I stammered.

‘The name’s Liberty Justice and all that  implies.’  She stood up and glided toward the door.  She turned, smiled, and walked outta my life.

LOL’s!!!!!!

Anyway, the paper I had to read was about how China makes most of the active ingredients in our medications.  The FDA has their hand’s tied and cannot inspect everything that comes in our ports.  Yeah, so, I don’t trust our drug supply at all.

Advertisement

Medical Monday: A Partial Pathetic admission on Yaz

I’m not a fan of synthetic hormones. That should be no secret by now.  Not because I am Catholic (I’m not), and not because I think they are mean, not because I kissed a boy behind a magazine.  Just was never a fan.  I had the Depo shot once after Jacob.  I felt three months pregnant for a year.  A scattering of times after that, I would try the Pill, and find that I did not enjoy it, and would quit.  After Jon and I started to try to have kids, we soon found out that I didn’t need it anyway.  Getting pregnant was TOUGH.

As I began my journey into the pharmacy, I learned a lot about hormone replacement therapy and the like.  I began to dread my future.  Taking a pill that consisted of a pregnant mare’s urine did not appeal to me in the slightest. Women are pumped full of hormones from their first zit to the last chin hair.  It’s nuts.  I am not about doing away with the pill, I think if used properly, it is an acceptable option in the family planning arsenal.  (Would much rather dispense pills than increase abortions, TYVM.) But the fact that women accept them part and parcel as a rite of passage into womanhood, is kinda frightening. Not to mention all the junk ending up in our water supply! (Moobs galore!)

Almost one year ago, I was given one month’s sample and a prescription for Yaz.  I was having some spotting after exercising vigorously.  (Running and anything involving Jillian Michaels.) So my doc touted these new pills as the greatest thing ever.  I wouldn’t gain weight, I would feel great.  Hell, I might even want to stay on them past the three-month trial run.

I took them for a week and a half.  Then I almost died.  After not dying I spent months feeling like I was going to die. After that, I spent months afraid symptoms would return.  In the end, my doctor said I was anxious, the ER got tired of seeing me, and I was left with wonky heartbeats and sheer terror. I had so many x-rays and CT scans I should be glowing.

Turns out I was not alone, I found website after website where women experienced what I had and were told it was nothing.  Anxiety.  Agoraphobia. Paranoia. Only a few had a nurse or doctor who admitted there was a problem with the birth control pills containing drospirenone. Some never got an answer because they dropped dead. Many found their gall bladders destroyed. Most had clots that had rapidly formed in the legs and rocketed into the lungs. Hundreds of women on each site, all with stories identical or worse than mine.

Imagine the surge of optimism when I saw this headline on CNN.com. “Blood Clot Risk Higher in Newer Birth Control Pills, Study Finds”.  Yeah, then I read it.

‘Bayer, the maker of Yaz, challenged the study’s methodology and the databases used,  saying that they “provide less reliable conclusions than are available from existing scientific evidence.’ ”

Of course.

“According to Bloomberg News,  6,850 lawsuits  were pending in the U.S. as of February 1 over alleged injuries and deaths as a result of the use of Yasmin, Yaz, or generic versions of the drugs.”

To Bayer, all those women are lunatics and liars I guess. The stuff is not safe.  It should be pulled from the market.  I am just so very thankful that my family did not have to sue on behalf of me because I left this world too early.  I will write a post one day that fully explains what happened to me.  Because the findings on all of my tests were inconclusive I was not able to sue.

>It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday..eeee!

>It’s my last day at the pharmacy. What ever shall I do? I am terrible with goodbyes. No, I am not a big crier, or a gift giver. I am downright weird. With all the emotion of the moment, one would think I would just burst with the weight of it all.

Me? Nope. I freeze. I go blank. I think in my mind, “Hey, I should be streaked with mascara, covered in boog’s , flying through tissues!” It just doesn’t happen. There is a safety protocol that I have running in the back ground that stops all emotional response until I am alone. I drive home, blinded by tears, crying my eyes out.

What is that? Why not share those moments with people I have told all my wacky stories to for years? The ones who have advised me, loved me, have done gift exchanges with me during the holidays? Great people who have loved, lost, (in one case lost everything in a flood!), struggled, and triumphed all while standing with me shoulder to shoulder in the pharmacy. It has truly been a wonderful blessing, and I have grown so very, very much.

It will take some time to remember some aspects of pharmacy fondly. A LONG TIME. Like the lovely folks who come in 3 minutes to close with prescriptions for Percocet, Ambien, Keflex, Diflucan, and some obscure cough syrup that was pulled 25 years ago. Or the husbands that call at closing on Sunday and tell me their wife forgot her meds and it’s a REAL emergency, can we please fill it now? Sure, of course sir, what’s the medication? It’s her birth control.

Or the fine people who can’t seem to EVER figure out how to pay for their meds. They slide their credit card before the register is even open, then when prompted to slide again, they gripe then demand to know if they will be charged twice. (Most could avoid this whole scenario if they just READ the prompts on the machine!!!)

Another fave for me is the person who has to have everything BRAND, because generics give them a rash, a headache, eye twitches, or they just “don’t work”. So we have bottles of Vicodin, and Tenormin just for craps and giggles. To top it all off, most people that demand brand drugs blanch at the sight of the cost, then make us switch it to generic anyway.

I will NEVER miss the addicts. It’s both heartbreaking and infuriating! I feel like a chump! I have heard every excuse in the book. I know my co workers could write a set of encyclopedia’s on this subject.

I know I have barely scratched the surface of a rock the size of El Capitan, but I want today to be bittersweet, not just bitter. Oh, but I have to throw in the customers who yell and scream at the pick up counter that they have NEVER paid that much for a medication (or that ALL their meds are COMPLETELY covered) but then we go back in their profile and look…lo and behold…they’ve paid the same price for MONTHS! One customer picked up a certain medication then when he got home and told his wife what he paid, she picked up the phone and chewed my butt out. It was my fault that they had spent all of their grocery money! She also let me know that WALMART had only charged them four dollars for that medication. After hearing that I was purposefully overcharging poor people, (she was going to bring in a NOTE from WALMART showing what they had paid, and show my store manager!!!!!!!!), I was told that I made too much money and not everyone has a job, she hung up on me.

Sigh.

I called WM. They had been paying the same price over there. (NOT FOUR DOLLARS!!!!) For months.

Double sigh.

Things I will miss:

1. Birthday cakes.

2. Kari’s red hair. I love it!!!!

3. Sheila’s love for her boys, grandkids, and HOT MEN!!!

4. Brenda’s infectious laugh, and sharp wit.

5. Phil’s drugs. (and his sarcasm)

6. Sunday’s with Susan. I could talk to her for hours.

7. Mike’s sweet songs that he sings under his breath on a busy Saturday.

8. Sweet loving Shawna.

9. Justin!

10. Laurie and her soft pretty curls,

11. Shouting at Steve for overrides. His love for puppies.

12. All the other great folks I have worked with, who made work fun. Corrina, Dean, Charity, Reid, Kyla, Megan, Marlee, Dave, Gordon, Judy, the bakery gals, the Starbuck’s gals, the deli gals, checkers-Tina, Tony, Kathy, Ashlee. I’ll miss Phyllis (sp?), Alana, Ralph. I can’t forget Garth, Lana, or Amy.

So many, who have touched my life. I know I will remember more after I post this.
It’s been real. I love you all! XOXOXOXOXOX!