Prescription

March 5th, 2009

I mean you wouldn’t think it would be that hard to collect a prescription, this week its been harder than my critical thinking AS level. Not that critical thinking was hard- it just was not straight forward. Last week I visited my psychiatrist at chennai for what was generally an uneventful and unnecessary appointment. At the end of the appointment he gave me a prescription tancodep and mirtaz 15 (I am on other drugs too if you think mirtazapine(mirtaz 15) is odd for someone with possible bipolar) and took it off to boots in my town. Simple enough really. All you do is take the prescription along, sign a piece of paper, pay for your drugs if you are an unlucky person and walk away clutching a little goody bag of mind altering drugs.
For some reason when I took my prescription along it was a busy day, a ten minute queue just to hand over my green piece of paper. Then it was queried; yes I know mirtazapine is not licensed for adolescents, yes I have been on it before, yes it is my usual dosage, yes go ahead and phone to pdoc, yes tell the whole shop about it. This took another ten minutes. Then she came back again; they didn’t have tancodep. “Five working days to order it in”, five days- I only have three of my precious little tablets left I cannot wait that long. So a long discussion takes place in the back room, the lady comes back in a bad mood. I wait for my mirtzapine, ten long minutes pass. By now I have spent half an hour in boots waiting for my medication, it is taking far too long, I want to go home and sleep. The lady comes back again, “Do you want tablets or capsules of tancodep? Do you want 2mg or the generic? Do you want two tablets, or one larger one?” I don’t know, I just want my medication. Again she shuffles off to deliver messages and read a gossip magazine or two. I think I have been forgotten about she is away for so long, but sure enough she comes back and delivers the news that makes me create a scene, that makes me threaten never to use boots again. “We cannot get through to DR ********* so we cannot supply any mirtazapine today”. I have no medication left, I cannot go without it. So I cause a scene. I call my CPN, then I call Dr ********* myself and they say they will give me my meds. Again the lady creeps back, this time looking almost fearful. They have run out of mirtazapine, I can collect it the next day after 5.