MY LIFE - DECEMBER

Friday, December 29, 2000

Okay, I know it's been five days since I last wrote. A couple of you have been more than willing to let me know this as well, although some people already know why I haven't written since Christmas Eve. I'll get to that in a moment though.

I just want to mention before I get to my excuse that this Christmas was probably the best I've had in a long time. No, I didn't get a lot of presents, but I got to see my relatives for the first time and I saw my dad for the first time in over a year. I wasn't exactly thrilled with that, but I'll admit that it was nice to see that he's trying to do better, that he's trying to get things together.

It was nice to see that my relatives all missed me. They all chided me for not visiting more, but added they understood the circumstances behind why I hadn't stopped by more or called more often. They all asked me how I was doing, where I was working, how my mom was doing, and if my future plans were still the same. I spent a good amount of time explaining to them how work was, how things worked at my store, and what I was going to do in terms of school.

My cousins looked the same thankfully. They all recognized me too, which could either be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your point of view. They remembered me as the one they liked to try and go after and I remembered why I had to always keep my guard up around them. Case in point, at one point in time, a shoe hit me in the gut. It had come from across the room from one of my cousins who thought it would be cute. I guess it was funny from his standpoint as I clutched my stomach and fell over. I wasn't too thrilled, but I didn't throw it back. No, I let it go.

Then some people who I'm only related to because they're related to my uncle who married my dad's sister came by and I'll say this about the 15 year old-girl. She was flat out gorgeous. She was really nice too and we talked for a little and got along pretty well. However, I didn't get too carried away since she's somewhat related to me, she's only 15, and she lives in California. Strikes 1,2, and 3. So we just talked from time to time while I tried to keep the little kids from going too crazy.

It was a good time, probably the smoothest things have ever gone in my experiences with my relatives. I didn't have any problems with the kids and no one was on my case for anything aside from not visiting more. It seems that they really missed seeing me and have a lot more respect for me than maybe I thought previously. I guess maybe I didn't give them enough credit.

Regardless, I had a good time and would definitely consider stopping by my aunt's or grandparent's again in the near future. It was a good time and I was able to see that my family isn't mad at me.

Now then, why I haven't written since Christmas Eve. First off, I got home late Christmas and was too tired to really write anything. I thought nothing of it since I figured I'd just write that entry after I wrote the entry for the next day.

Except that I got sick the day after Christmas. I mean, I got really sick and haven't felt up to writing up until today and I still don't feel like writing. It started off with a simple sore throat and quickly degenerated into something more serious. I started getting a pounding headache that encompassed my entire head. Then I started feeling a little achy in certain places on my body. These were not good signs.

Yesterday my throat hurt so bad that I couldn't talk very well or very loud. My voice isn't very loud to begin with so that made it even harder for people to figure out what the hell I was mumbling. I still had a good headache and my nose decided it wanted to run. I was a pretty good mess and was in the middle of a stretch of six days in a row at work.

Today, my throat hasn't hurt as bad but doesn't feel that great either. I can talk without pain, but eating and drinking are still tough. It's almost pointless to eat in a sense. I can't taste what I'm eating or drinking so everything tastes the same. I can tell if something's hot, spicey, or cold, but I can't tell if it tastes good or not. I wouldn't even know if something I'm eating was bad because I wouldn't be able to tell if it smelled good or bad.

My entire head now hurts too. This seems like I have a decent case of the flu right now and I'm hoping that it goes away soon. I work 9-5 tomorrow and 8-4 Sunday, so I really don't need this. I have enough trouble without the help. It's also put my co-workers in danger of catching what I have and I don't want that to happen. On the other hand, I don't want them to be short of help on certain days.

So I've pretty much struggled through it.

But hey, I have a cell phone now. It's cool too. It has text paging, voice mail, and all sorts of other neat features that are pretty much useless, but cool to have. If you want, you can send a text message to 2165773882@mobile.att.net (make sure it's less than 80 characters) and it'll show up on my phone. For all you geniuses out there, the first part of that address happens to be my cell phone number.

I have Caller ID though, so I don't have to answer any calls that I don't recognize or feel comfortable with. It's cool too because the entire state of Ohio, part of Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virgina, and another area are part of my local calling area. My long distance is pretty cheap too so I don't have to worry about getting killed with long distance charges that are extreme.

I'm kind of excited about that. I'm going to have my pager service terminated and since I got two phones for free, I'm giving the second phone to my sister so she can have one as well. This should really help since I'm always forgetting things when I'm at the store or when I'm going somewhere. Now I can just call and harrass my mom or anyone else that way.

Anyway...Work was pretty good. I'm beginning to think that people have a lot of respect for me and realize that I have some decent experience. More than once, Regina, the pharmacist tonight, turned towards me and would ask me something about a policy or law with prescriptions. The first time was when we were talking about the lead tech thing. She asked me if it was true that you had to take a national certification test before you could be lead tech and I said yes.

The second time involved a script that was faxed to us from another CVS (coincidentally, Mike's store). Now, normally when we fax scripts to another store, we send the customer over with the hard copy so the store has that to keep on file. Well, the pharmacist at this store didn't do that and we almost turned the customer away. Regina turned towards me and asked me about scripts being faxed, that the customer should bring the hard copy in. I told her as far as I knew, that was required by law and by company policy.

The customer showed up and was understandably upset over this mess. She also added that she wasn't mad at us, but at the other pharmacist for not giving her the hard copy back. We eventually went ahead and filled it and called the pharmacist up and asked about it. He said it was okay, but we said it wasn't. He then apparently said something about it recently being okayed by the State Pharmacy Board, but we looked it up in the Drug Laws book and saw it said something different.

We called him back and requested that the script be mailed to us immediately. My manager also added that the company policy does not allow stores to freely fax scripts back and forth like that without the receiving store getting the original hard copy. The other pharmacist then made a pretty incredible claim, that all the stores did it.

I told Regina that at my old store, we never gave a script out from fax until we received the hard copy and we almost never faxed scripts to begin with. Tom doesn't like doing that and I know this. The pharmacist at this store insisted that my old store sent faxes to him constantly and vice versa. Maybe so, but we always gave the hard copy back to the customer. Any store we dealt with, we did the same thing.

I thought it was pretty bold of him to make such a claim like that too. I worked at that store for three years and we never did anything like that. If we sent a fax, we sent the hard copy over with the customer. If we received the fax, we didn't allow it to leave until we had the hard copy. It's the same at my store now.

In any case, I think Regina's going to call the Board and inquire about this as she should. I would like to know what the specific laws are pertaining to faxing prescriptions if they have changed since the Drug Law book was last updated. I'm also going to call Mike and let him know that his pharmacist may have broken the law and let him know what happened.

Other than that, it was a decent day. I'm just hoping that I get over this sickness soon because I hate being sick and I really do not want to go to my doctor if I don't have to. I don't like taking medicine very much.

Maybe this weekend I'll get a chance to rest.