I Miss My Pharmacist

Today I need to go to the pharmacy for strips and Humalog.  I am not a hater of the pharmacy, although big Walgreen's will never feel like home to me.  In the town I grew up in, there is a small pharmacy, where they know my name as soon as I walk in.  I remember when one of my orders got mixed up (new behind the counter worker), my mother said, "Just ask for *wicked awesome pharmacist (WAP)*.  He knows you and it'll be fine."  And it was: always.  One day I went to pick up insulin, and of course it was right before I was leaving for somewhere, and insurance got mixed up.  For some reason insurance didn't think I needed insulin yet (or something).  But what did WAP do?  He gave me one bottle, fought with my insurance, and I was good to go.  WAP is the pharmacist that I remember for as long as...well, I've had diabetes.  There's something about automatic doors, and neon signs and not being able to see the pharmacy as you walk in, that just can't feel like home.  I've been spoiled, and WAP, I miss you.


After I posted this, my mother emailed it to said WAP and attached this note.

WAP, 

Below is an entry Briley posted on a Blog.  I think she explains quite well how much we appreciate your professionalism, caring, and independent pharmacy.  My favorite memory was a Christmas Eve when I had mixed Regular and NPH insulins, ruining the remaining bottles.  You were about to close, yet stayed open as we rushed down for new bottles.

Thank you.

And then WAP emailed her back:

You and Briley just made my week!  It really is nice to hear something like that to reinforce what we try to do here to make a difference. The struggle to keep an independent pharmacy alive gets more difficult each year and knowing we are appreciated is the main reason I haven't sold out to a chain. The fact that we have great customers like you and Briley makes it worthwhile.

Thank you for sharing that with me,

WAP

A Diabetes Memory

December 3: Oh Christmas Tree

This song will always make me think of one of my best childhood friends.  Her mother is German, so never knew the words that we knew.  I remember that I knew the words to this song in German at one point as a child, and then again in high school when I was taking German.  

Back to diabetes.  We love it, we hate it, we live it every single day.  But sometimes there are little changes that we miss.  Like grabbing a new bottle of strips for instance.  Today, if I forget to grab a new bottle, I come back to my apartment, or stop at CVS, Walgreens or Target and just buy a new box.  When I was in third grade, I was at my friends house, and it must have been a day we didn't have school because I needed to test, meaning I was eating lunch there.  I went to test (and you should see the bag I used to carry around, it was huge!), but there weren't any more strips.  Her dad piled us into the car and we drove to the pharmacy.  This is a local pharmacy (where if the pharmacist didn't get the prescription from my doctor, he'd at least give me enough to survive the day), and closer to my house than hers, and he buys me a box of test strips.  I show him the one I usually get (the largest one), and that's the one he buys me.  We go back to her house, and I'm starting to realize that this is big.  We finish our day, and her father brings me home and Mom & her dad talk, especially about the trip to the pharmacy.  Mom goes to her purse to pay him back and I remember something to the effect of "If you pay that much all the time, please let us do this."  It was a huge day for our family.  Firstly because I wasn't prepared.  But because someone else just picked up and took care of my diabetes the same way (but with less blaming) my family would.