Ugh. I’m tired of this story (so tired, apparently, that I avoided finishing it for a month. Um…summer break?) But anyway:
(Part 1 and Part 2)
Having had no luck at the doctor’s office in its many and varied forms and no luck at my normal pharmacy, I tried my case at City MD, where I had been assured that they “routinely write same-day prescriptions for SSRIs.” I went there prepared to pay $125 out of pocket to be seen, since for some reason they take all major insurance except for mine. I signed in on their fancy iPad, I was called back to a room and required to sign something stating that I would pay out of pocket, which made me immediately suspicious, and I spoke to a physician’s assistant about why I was there (I tried to give her a short version. Are you surprised that I did NOT succeed at that?) She went to get the doctor…and I sat in their weird industrial lazy-boy thinking that this was potentially going to end the same way it had with the doctor and the pharmacist–that is, with no Zoloft and a proclamation of “My hands are tied.”
(I was right!)
(Well, it was “It’s a liability issue,” if we want to be verbatim)
They said BOTH the doctor’s office and the pharmacy had been negligent. They were also intent on explaining that it wasn’t just SSRIs; if I had walked in needing a blood pressure medicine prescription, they wouldn’t have been able to write that either, even if I had records (I HAD SCREENSHOTS) of being prescribed it up until now.
So…you would just let someone walk out without the blood pressure medicine that’s keeping them alive, then?
(I fully understand that in a lot of ways, their hands ARE tied by the system, which is so utterly fucked that I can only be grateful this wasn’t a life or death issue like, well, blood pressure medication).
I think that was the point at which I started checking with friends to see if anyone took Zoloft. No! Here an Effexor, there an Effexor, some Prozac, a Lexapro…aha! In Connecticut lay my salvation–a friend who had STOPPED taking Zoloft and could bring me an entire bottle when we met up later that week. So at least I only had to worry about four more days of feeling like my brain was shivering jello and that my edges were blurring (yes, I was reading a lot of Ferrante just before this adventure).
I am aware that health care professionals will frown upon medication borrowing or re-gifting. I’ll stop doing it when the healthcare system stops imitating Kafka.
In addition, I would actually be able to pick up my (incorrect) prescription the day after that! An embarrassment of antidepressants.
And FURTHER, I would be seeing the doctor that same day to get a new prescription written!
But first…I had the next four days.
TO WRAP UP: The following day I went to the pharmacy where my prescription (with the incorrect dosage) had most recently been filled, told them that my regular pharmacy had said that they, the new pharmacy, should have given me a week’s worth of pills, and received the response of, “We can only do that when someone doesn’t HAVE a prescription, or is in-between prescriptions.”
I said, “I understand that this isn’t your fault and that there’s nothing you can do about it, but I just want to clarify: You’re telling me you can’t give me six Zoloft now, but you’re happy to give me 90 on Wednesday?”
And then, almost off the cuff, I said, “This is a generic that costs pennies–I can’t just BUY some?”
“Oh!” the pharmacy cashier said, “you want to pay for some out of pocket?”
Words had already failed me, so they did one better and died, then came back to haunt me. I managed to stammer that YES, I would be thrilled to do that.
It was $12 for 6 pills. Why did no one suggest this in the preceding four days?? I was so relieved I started crying when I thanked the cashier, who looked embarrassed and said, “It’s okay! You’re getting them! You don’t have to cry!”
And that was how I walked out of Duane Reade as the happiest person ever to pay 1000% markup on something.
There are two punchlines to this story:
- The morning of my doctor’s appointment, I woke to a voicemail from the office…saying, “I’m sorry, but the doctor called in sick today, so your appointment is canceled. Please call us to confirm you got this.”
When I called the number they specified–at 9:15 am–I reached a message that said “You have reached our after-hours answering service. The office is now closed. Our regular business hours are Monday-Friday, 8:30 am to 8 pm…”
Because of its proximity and just how punchy I was feeling, I decided to just go to the doctor’s office on foot. I continued trying the number as I walked there, so I could be really justified in my righteousness. Some things happened there–I spoke with the site director, who was a giant man and looked like he hated having to deign to use a tiny keyboard, and who said he didn’t really understand the computer system (I was hoping to see where my voicemails and the theoretical emails that had been sent on my behalf had ended up); he told me he could try to schedule and appointment for me later that day, but he didn’t know when it would be; he asked me, “What do you want?” and I managed to refrain from leaning forward and hissing dramatically “I want to NEVER COME BACK HERE AGAIN”–but now this is not a punchline but an episode, so I will stop.
2. So you know that I don’t think I’m blameless in this fiasco: A few days later, brain feeling normal again and with enough generic Zoloft to dump out and Scrooge McDuck around in, I went to visit relatives for the weekend. When I reached into one of my bag’s pockets to get my travel toothbrush, I found a tiny tupperware container…WITH NINE TABS OF ZOLOFT in it. I must have never unpacked it after traveling back in March or June.
The end.
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