Shari’s Gone Country

Ya’ know… it could have been worse.

Oh, you didn’t know there was more than one crash? Yes, “Shari’s Gone Country” has been missing in action for a few days. That is the result of a hardware failure at the datacenter.

At the same time, I’ve gone missing in action thanks to a tooth that “went sour” and abcessed… not a fun thing. You see, I look more than “chipmunky”… I look like a pocket gopher with a full pouch.

That’s really bad news, too… Cindy dispatches those critters with her handy .410 shotgun!

Now, let me tell you… when you live in the desert, have no income ’cause you don’t have a job, you’re at the mercy of “the system”. Thankfully, we have a clinic in Enterprise (17 miles away) that at least provides an evaluation. The Physician’s Assistant is very nice and knowledgeable… except about teeth and abscesses that occur.

I got lucky, if you could call it that.

The clinic knew of a free dental clinic in St. George (67 miles one way). The catch… I had to get there within the next 4 hours for an “intake evaluation”. That means they’d discover I have no income, I have a very swollen jaw, and say… yep, you’re qualified. See you at 10 on Friday… two days later.

The PA had also prescribed a “kick butt” antibiotic that they assured me was on the Wal-Mart $4.00 generic Rx list. She had wanted to shoot me, but didn’t have the med on hand, so would have to pick up a ’script while I was in St. George. Enterprise is too small to support it’s own pharmacy.

Wouldn’t you know it. The folks at the Wal-Mart in Bloomington were being their usual selves. We arrived there at 4:25 pm to pick up a ’script that had been called in at 1 pm. No, they didn’t know anything about it… oh wait… “have you been here before? We found it… and need more information from you.”

At that time, we again confirmed the kick-butt stuff was on their $4.00 list, and they agreed.

Forty minutes later (after standing in line three times) the cashier said “that will be $49.52 please”. Say what?????

Now it was after clinic hours, no one answered the phone… Good Grief, and I was supposed to take this stuff IMMEDIATELY… as in as soon as possible after we could hustle our butts from Enterprise to St. George.

So, ask the nice pharmacist… how much could I get for $4.00? I could see at least 14 maybe 20 tabs in the bottle. By my math, that would let me get started on this stuff while we got a different ’script. Even if there were only 10 in the bottle… at $49.52 that would be $5.00 per pill… but no, there were at least 14 or more.

His reply… each pill is $12.00!

I’ll do your eyes a favor and not repeat what I wanted to say besides “see ya!”

So, it’s back to Beryl with no meds. But there’s good news… Jackie the PA had prescribed a combo of Ibuprofen and Tylenol. I could run the dose up to 800 mg of Ibuprofen (had to figure if it was in the Tylenol product). Now, that stuff kicked the pain… and even helped reduce the swelling.

Let’s see… It’s now Wednesday night. This tooth went bad over the weekend, and the swelling started Monday night. So there was little sleep Monday, less sleep Tuesday… I mean even the dog slept on the couch since I was flopping around like a fish out of water.

I did get a good night’s sleep Wednesday night.

Thursday… it’s back to St George to a different pharmacy for the ’script. Only this time, I take the “Enterprise Senior Bus” as Bev is the driver. We leave our house shortly after 8 am.

Now, the road to St. George isn’t exactly a super highway, except for that nice smooth 4-lane section at “The Ledges”. The bus isn’t one of those smooth-riding coaches. It’s a rattle-trap with few amenities other than heat and air conditioning.

The good news… about 11am I finally take the first dose!

The rest of the day is spent ferrying folks from place to place. We go to Costco, Deseret Books, Wal-Mart, IFA and finally to lunch at “The Golden Corral”, an awesome buffet. Not having eating more than a couple of small containers of yogurt over the past 60 hours… I’m famished. Thankfully I can handle the meat loaf, mashed potatoes/gravy, mac and cheese, steamed zucchini, and even bread pudding.

That took the edge off!

And with that, one more store stop and then back to Enterprise to off load the groceries and supplies into the truck and on to Beryl. Boy did the hot pack feel good when I got home!

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 3rd, 2007 at 3:28 pm and is filed under About Beryl, About this Site, New Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.