Provided by The Pharmacy Chick
Not words you hear ever day. I can honestly say that most of my days are rather mundane drudgery. We take in prescriptions, we pump out prescriptions. People pick them up , whine about how much they cost, give us grief and move on. Most of what I write about can best be appreciated by the people who share this profession: Pharmacists. I am amazed that I have so many NON-pharmacist readers. But , I appreciate all of you.
Occasionally we get a ” Thank you”, but its rare that we get a compliment like the one above, followed by ” I am going to call the newspaper..they need to know”. ( I really hope she doesn’t call the paper).
Lydia has been coming here to PC pharmacy for about 2 years. Only recently have I come to know her very well. Once she caught me just as I was closing the pharmacy and needed to pick up a prescription ( never one of my favorite patient’s moves) but I patiently rang her up and said nothing. She told me her deceased husband was a pharmacist. He had died from some undisclosed illness long before he should have because she is only in her late 50’s. Its been a struggle for her financially since then. She has never had insurance since she has been a patient of mine, so I try to be mindful of what she has to pay, and use discount cards for her pricing. She just qualified for “disability” but somehow that doesn’t include RX insurance…something is amiss, but I can’t fix that, so I try to keep her expenses down as best as I can.
She takes a handful of meds each day, one of which is hydroxyzine, which used to be dirt cheap, but isn’t so much anymore….and she takes a lot of it.
She told me once that she has had this terrible itching and it drives her to distraction, and she has been to all kinds of doctors trying to get some help. She asked me if I had any better solutions. I told her “honestly no, if you have been to the best in their field, I am not sure anything I can recommend can make any difference”. and all I could do is tell her that when its really bad that cold compresses can take some of the heat off of it and tone down some of the fire in her skin. She mentioned that sometimes she would press her arms against the cold brass of her bed and that is would help a bit, so she would try the ice towels I mentioned.
She stayed on my mind however. She has scars from scratching, and pock marks from the sores.
Two weeks ago, she called again, to order some more meds. We had a brief prefunctory conversation and then hung up. For no other reason than ” it had to be a God thing”, I had a thought pop into my head and I called her back. ” Lydia, this is PC from PC pharmacy…Have you ever heard of GLUTEN?”
I told her what it was and she told me that she has a nephew that has to be gluten free because ” it makes him sick and gives him a rash”. She never thought it might apply to her because she has been itching for so long.. I asked her how long..and she said ” since 1978″. I said ” Lydia, you have nothing to lose, would you consider going gluten free for a month? Just to try it? It can’t hurt and all that itching might be food related”. I then encouraged her to go on the internet and find out what is gluten free and eat only gluten free foods…no cheating. I also told her that since gluten is high in the media, lots of foods are now marked gluten free including breads and pastas and its not hard to eat gluten free since there are more choices. She wasn’t reluctant at all, after all this time, she was happy to try anything that may help.
She came into see me 5 days later. I was busy at the time so didnt’ immediately think about our previous conversation. Her first words to me were ” You changed my life!” and I could only say ” What?” She said ” I haven’t itched in 4 days…that has never happened in 33 years.”. I was stunned. She went gluten free the moment we hung up the phone. She said the itching stopped within a day. She then threw away everything in the house that contained wheat, barley, etc…
As grateful as she was, she was also angry…” I have been to so many doctors over the years!, I have spent so much money on medicine! Why didn’t any of the allergists ever tell me about this?’ I didnt’ have an answer. She then asked me..” what made you call me back last week?” I told her ” I think I have to give credit where its due…It had to be a God thing..a thought popped into my head and I acted on it.” Lydia wears a cross around her neck. She knew what I meant.
It wasn’t like I had been thinking about gluten. I hadn’t read any articles recently, and I didn’t have any recent interaction with a gluten intolerant patient. It just kinda popped in there and I picked up the phone.
If this is for real ( and she is convinced it is) then this will go down as one of my shining moments in pharmacy. Just don’t pin any awards on MY jacket. I’m not taking any credit. I was just His mouth piece.
The Pharmacy Chick is a retail pharmacist in the Western United States, gutting it out in fairly busy store. She ticks off each day as one more day closer to retirement, after 22 years in the biz. She remembers typewriters, rolls of labels, want books, and everybody paid cash. Now all she wants to remember is what all her passwords are!
The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.
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