No, it’s not ok, it’s NASTY.

Originally posted January 29, 2008

Once upon a time, one of our regulars came in with a question and asked to speak to BossRPh. Now, you need to set this scene. We didn’t have a consultation area at this point. All consults are handled at the register, or the drop off area if it’s something the pharmacist wants to go over in more detail. This regular is quite deaf, and so any conversation that you have with her is immediately broadcast throughout our store.

So now this tiny, barely hearing woman came up to the register area. She demanded to speak to BossRPh and launched in with questions about hemorrhoids. She can’t hear anything less than the volume you’d use to order drinks at a loud club. It wouldn’t have mattered where they had their consultation, because unless BossRPh took her into the creepy basement, everyone in that store heard everything. We all heard about her hemorrhoids, and how one was bleeding. “It was all over my nightgown!”, she told all of us, whether she intended to or not.

Also, it was swollen and painful, and what should she put on it.

BossRPh listened to her, and they went over the pros and cons of this patient’s scripts for either a cream or more suppositories. Suppositories hurt, and we’ve already had discussions with her about her dislike of creams because she doesn’t like the way that they make her ladybits feel. The patient was yelling because she can’t hear herself, and BossRPh is yelling because the woman couldn’t hear her otherwise.

BossRPh tells her to go home and call her doctor.

An hour later we received a script for more cream. The patient also called us to ask if she could put ice on the swollen parts. BossRPh, patient as hell, explained several times (at varying volumes), that ice would be perfectly fine but that she needs to wrap the ice, not apply it directly.

The patient came in a couple of minutes later. BossRPh was at the register with her, and asked if there were any other questions. The patient told her (and everyone else within earshot) “I USED A FROZEN CHICKEN WING, CAN I DO THAT? IS THAT OK?”

Please, if there is a pharmacy god in any mythology, please please PLEASE let there never be another day where I need to hear about an elderly woman using a frozen piece of poultry in her nethers for any reason whatsoever.