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/.: ShaunC
Fark: Frigax
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...cheers!
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CVS pharmacy has recently entered the Memphis market for the first time. They built a brand new pharmacy very close to my home, and I thought I'd transfer my prescriptions there for convenience, because stopping by my Rite-Aid doubles my commute time home from work. My experience shows that transferring my prescriptions to CVS was a poor decision that has had the potential to compromise my health. If you take prescription medications which are either life-sustaining or intended to maintain your physical health, and you're considering CVS as a pharmacy in the Memphis or Cordova area, please reserve a couple of minutes to read this, and don't repeat my mistake.
For the record, I take 5 prescription medications daily:
- Amlodipine Besylate 10mg (blood pressure)
- Benazepril HCl 40mg (blood pressure)
- Carvedilol 3.125mg (cardiomegaly and angina)
- Omeprazole 20mg ("Prilosec OTC", but cheaper with Rx)
- Paroxetine HCl 30mg (generic Paxil, for stress)
I've been on all of these medications for a year or so. In the past, I'd always had them filled at Rite-Aid #7191, 1770 N. Germantown Parkway, Cordova, TN, 38016. I can recite that address from rote memory because I spent five great years working in suite 3 of that very building, back when the Rite-Aid was a K&B. Most of the prescriptions I had to fill during my teenage years were cosmetic and vanity in comparison to the blood pressure and heart medications I take these days, which actually maintain my health. But my meds have been dispensed from that building since I was 14 years old. The Rite-Aid pharmacist who works weekday evenings knows me by both sight and name, greets me as such, and grabs my prescriptions from the waiting bin before I even make it all the way to the counter. Rite-Aid has always treated me well, it's just out of the way at this point.
And so began my unfortunate CVS experience. I've told you about my five prescriptions, and I tried to transfer all of them to CVS via their website on Friday, February 12th. I created an account on CVS.com, and dutifully entered all of my prescription numbers along with Rite-Aid's information. I never got any confirmation email or phone call, so on Monday, February 15th I stopped into the CVS store to inquire. To my surprise, no prescriptions were waiting for me.
Of the 5 different medications I'd tried to transfer, they only had a record of 3: carvedilol, omeprazole, paroxetine. Amlodipine and benazepril had apparently vanished into the ether. Of the 3 transfer attempts that were recognized, they showed that two of them had already been filled, picked-up, and paid for on Friday the 12th. This is not true, as I never set foot into any CVS pharmacy until the 15th. Worse, they had sent this incorrect information to Humana, who refused to allow my scripts to be (actually) filled on the 15th, because Humana's records said that CVS had already filled them, billed them, and dispensed them three days prior.
Confusing matters further, the CVS website showed that they'd transferred the paroxetine prescription twice - one of which was supposedly filled and paid for on 2/12, and again, I never stepped into CVS until 2/15 - thereby pushing my potential for a refill well into 2011 which is entirely out of line:
Sigh...
I walked out of CVS on February 15th with a fresh refill of a prescription I wasn't low on to begin with (carvedilol), and 0 pills of a prescription I was completely out of (paroxetine). To CVS' credit, the pharmacist on duty seemed just as flustered about the situation as I was. He gave me a $25 gift card for my trouble, and the paroxetine is not essential to my health.
On Monday, February 22nd, I was down to one more pill each of my two blood pressure medications, amlodipine besylate and benazepril HCl. You'll recall these are the two medications which vanished during my first attempt at Rx transfer. This time, I called CVS instead of attempting another web session. I thought I was being "smart" this second time around, I was going to do things through a human being instead of hedging my bets on the CVS.com website which had already proven futile. So I spoke to a CSR, gave her my email address to load my CVS.com account, confirmed my birthdate, and transferred those two prescriptions by reciting the current Rite-Aid pharmacy's phone number and the prescription number on each bottle. I was given a confirmation number and told they'd be ready anytime after 5PM Monday.
On Tuesday, February 23rd, I went to CVS to pick up my two medications. Once again, nothing was waiting for me. Once again, the store had no record of any transfers. Eventually, the pharmacist on duty asked for the empty Rite-Aid bottles I'd flashed. I handed them over. After a half hour wait, they claimed the mix-up was because those two prescriptions were out of refills - but they wouldn't return the Rite-Aid bottles for me to verify that claim one way or another. Anything's possible. I'll be the first to admit that I don't keep track of these things religiously. But I sincerely doubt that I tried to transfer two prescriptions with no refills left on them.
As of Tuesday night, I'm completely out of my blood pressure medications. No amlodipine besylate, no benazepril HCl. I take one of each, each morning. CVS is supposed to call my doctor tomorrow morning to get brand-new scripts, so until this matter is resolved, I'm late for work.
The first blunder I attributed to growing pains for CVS. New stores in a new market with new employees and new customers, there are kinks to work out. I can't forgive it happening a second time. If you have prescription medications, I cannot possibly recommend transferring those meds to CVS. |
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Way back in ancient times (October, 2006), shortly after my boss had introduced me to reddit, I registered the domain redidt.com. I'm no typosquatter, though if I'd had the foresight to register yuotube.com or dacebook.com, that might be a different story and I'd probably be posting this from the lanai of my secluded beach house somewhere on the north shore of Oahu. I simply made the redidt typo one day, and wondered how many others were doing the same. So I registered the domain for the hell of it, and put up a little you-goofed page, reminiscent of some Slashdot typo domain of years past. Visitors were informed, without any glitz, that "You probably made a typo. That's okay, it happens to the best of us. :)"
It wasn't too long before someone noticed, but reddit wasn't exactly a booming intertube metropolis at that point, so no one even bothered to comment. redidt.com has had exactly three incarnations over the years:
10/30/2006, the original
10/07/2007, after a post on Digg
11/15/2008, can't recall why, though it must have come up again somewhere
The fact that the cycle seems to repeat on an almost annual basis is not lost on me, though I have no explanation.
A couple of years ago, reddit's (now-retired) co-founder Alexis Ohanion messaged me out of nowhere, offering a bunch of reddit t-shirts in exchange for the domain. It was the greatest orangered of all time, and we talked back and forth a bit, but for some reason it fell through. This morning, I received another unexpected orangered from kn0thing. This time, Nasty Conde's counsel is in on the discussions, so I'm quite sure I'll be getting a box of reddit t-shirts soon enough... And that I will not own redidt.com much longer. |
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| Tue, Jan 26, 11:04 PM |
97 1983 |
A place to stay,
Enough to eat,
Somewhere old heroes shuffle safely down the street,
Where you can speak out loud about your doubts and fears,
And what's more,
No one ever disappears, you never hear their standard issue kicking in your door.
You can relax - on both sides of the tracks -
And maniacs don't blow holes in bandsmen by remote control.
And everyone has recourse to the law.
--Roger Waters |
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Here is the State Department's Foreign Affairs Manual Volume 9, Sec. 40.37, Visas. It describes in detail the procedures for issuing VISAS VIPER (suspected terrorist) cables from CIA and diplomatic posts back to Washington, through which channels they should be routed, and how other agencies may contribute.
I'll leave VISAS DONKEY as an exercise to the reader... Hang on, there's a knock at the door, must be New Year's revelers ;) |
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Mirroring from Cryptome,
The USA Merit Systems Protection Board published an online Opinion and Order which involved a TSA employee. A footnote states:
*The original unexpurgated version of this Opinion and Order contains Sensitive Security Information (SSI) protected by 49 C.F.R. Parts 15 and 1520. Per agreement between the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the TSA has redacted all SSI protected by 49 C.F.R. Parts 15 and 1520 from this version so that it can be made available to the public.
The SSI redactions were made in an insecure manner and could be easily removed.
The document with redactions lifted and SSI highlighted: tsa-ssi-02.pdf (80KB) |
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According to Cisco, USA is no longer the biggest emitter of spam, losing that claim to Brazil. However, A quick peek at a mailbox of mine not protected by SpamAssassin reveals otherwise. The majority of the spam I'm getting is for Russians, by Russians, and I don't have a damn clue what they're selling.
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The neighborhood stray cat, Big Orange, just made an appearance for the first time in months. I haven't seen him in a long time, and now he's not exactly Big Orange. He's thinner and smaller. I tried to ask him what his secret was. He just kept rubbing on my legs.
I can't adopt this cat, because my own cat tore me up so badly the last time I tried to introduce them that I ordered a collar and considered putting her outside. And if I try to make him my outside cat, all of the raccoons and possums and skunks come out of the woods to eat the food.
So what do I do? I don't know. This cat very clearly remembers that I used to feed him. We haven't met in months, but he still loves me. And here we come upon a winter, where I don't want to see him outside.
But he survived last winter, so he'll survive this one. I hope. I just can't help him. |
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Tonight I was listening to Memphis Mayor (pro-tem) Myron Lowery, during the replay of his radio appearance this morning with Drake and Zeke. He gave out his email address on the air, so I thought I'd write about a traffic signal issue.
For some time I've thought there should be a left-turn arrow for eastbound traffic on Walnut Grove to turn northbound on Sanga; the traffic here only seems to be getting worse during the evening rush hour. I sent Lowery a brief email at 8:49PM, asking who I should contact about these matters. He replied at 9:01PM, telling me that Wain Gaskins was the man for that, and he CC'd Wain on the message.
Only time will tell whether or not I get a follow-up, and certainly I'm aware that one complaint isn't going to get a new traffic signal installed. But I emailed the mayor of my city at almost 9PM, and had a meaningful response within about 10 minutes. As a resident of Memphis for the last 25 years, allow me to describe the ways this surprises me:
- I emailed the Mayor of Memphis. No big surprise there, I guess.
- The Mayor responded to my email. Whoa! really? And it's not a form letter?
- The Mayor's reply correctly delegated my inquiry to the appropriate city official, and CC'd that official. This wasn't just a token thank-you, he actually read the message and took the time to redirect it to the right person.
- It was almost 9:00PM. I think our previous Mayor would have been getting his swerve on around that time of night.
- The reply only took 11 minutes. Is this for real?
I realize the man's campaigning to keep this job, so he's going above and beyond in order to impress his constituents. That said, consider me impressed. Myron Lowery earned my vote tonight. |
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"How are you?" I'm doing well, how are you?
I must answer this question a dozen times a day or more, passing coworkers in the hall or engaging in idle chat on the elevator to bide the time. The butcher at the grocery store, the cashier at the gas station, the waitress at lunch, the neighbor across the street when I'm opening the mailbox. They all ask the same question, but they rarely mean it. And I almost always give the same answer, because I rarely mean it either. The question (of which I'm just as guilty of asking insincerely), or the answer.
The biggest lies, somehow, are the easiest to tell. And why not? It's only a few words, simple enough to pawn off as fact. Standing and facing someone, not feeling at the present moment as though you're about to faint, it takes surprisingly little effort to tell them that life is good and you're doing just fine.
Truth is, the last time I remember doing just fine was in May.
It's frustrating how a heart problem can manifest itself in so many stealthy ways. You have trouble swallowing, you suspect a cold or perhaps strep throat. You can't breathe, you wonder if it's asthma or - as a smoker - something worse. You get light-headed, you probably just need to eat something, or maybe you didn't sleep quite long enough the night before. Eventually you have all of these symptoms at the same time, and your physician responds with nonchalance and yet another new prescription.
Then comes the day when despite every physical effort and all mental command, your body refuses to obey. You attempt to stand out of your chair, and find that doing so is entirely beyond your capability.
That was me, June 24th, 2009. I couldn't stand up.
I couldn't fucking stand up.
Since that day, I've received infinitely better medical care. I owe a great deal of thanks to Dr. Michael Pruett, Mid-South Internal Medicine; and Dr. Ray Allen, Cardiology Specialists of Memphis. Were it not for your time and your help, would I be able to write this today?
Over those same months, I've watched my quality of life decline rapidly, only to rebound but not yet to normalcy. I haven't driven on the interstate in more than a month, because driving at that speed makes me feel as though I'm going to pass out (I'm fine as a passenger, it's something to do with the stress of driving). I have to watch precisely what I eat, how much, and when - sodium is to be avoided, and if I get too full, I can't breathe. After mowing the lawn on a hot day, downing a great big glass of iced tea like I would have done last year is out of the question; cold beverages make my chest hurt and the rest of my body pulse with discomfort.
Yes, we're talking angina. And cardiomegaly. And mitral regurgitation with tricuspid regurgitation. And let's not forget reduced left ventricular systolic function, because what kind of party would it be without that one?
Why do I mention all of this, and why now? Because tomorrow, Tuesday, will be the scariest day I've ever faced. I'm scheduled for a coronary angiography, more commonly known as a heart catheterization. A three-foot-long tube will be inserted through a punctured artery in my groin, wound around through that artery into my heart, and poked here and there amongst the heart's chambers to determine what's the haps. It's a routine diagnostic procedure, they say. Only 1 in 1000 patients die during their cath, and only 1 in 250 have complications. Like heart attack, or stroke. Hey, I'm a gambler.
This is supposed to be an exciting week in my life. I turn 30 on Friday. But on this birthday, I won't be celebrating the milestone as most do. No party, no fun, no getting drunk or going out on the town. No, this Friday - this Friday it's going to be exciting for an entirely different reason.
For a new lease on life, I hope.
Catch y'all on the flip side. |
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At my internist today, the nurse got a BP of 130/90, and that was after I'd made the hike from the Baptist parking garage to Medical Plaza 2. Once I'd been sitting around waiting for the doctor, with plenty of time to relax, he got a 128/80. That's the best I've seen in a doctor's office since I was diagnosed with hypertension.
Doc wasn't too happy to hear that the cardiologist couldn't see me until September (and that, even with his office's cajoling). I might get a nice bump in that schedule. For now, more of the same: no changes in medication. |
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