Are any dreaded days looming, for you?

Yes, @longgone , and I really want to thank you for your sensitivity in bringing up these worries,

Sorry.

My son’s birthday and thingiemas. I already feel the doom and gloom. I think I’ll have the boy go to his father’s for thingiemas. More of a ‘family’ environment there. Here there is just his depressed mother.

I refuse to think about the winter holidays until after Thanksgiving (the last holiday no one can frak up for me. If it ends with a belly full of homemade gravy, I’m good).
And right after that one major winter holiday event I turn… 30. eew.

I was dreading Christmas because it was a special family day when we were “intact” but since I’ve been invited to my son’s in Paris, I’m not. The holidays generally are hard for me since i’ve been single.

Everyday I have to deal with a brain dead boss is a dreaded day, so yeah lots of days coming up they just don’t stop.

I am looking at two tooth extractions, followed by two implants and two crowns, at least. Yuck. I hate going to the dentist.

Oh, yes. An appearance in court tomorrow in a matter relating to my son. This is the fourth and I hope the last. The outcome will change our lives in some way, but I don’t yet know how.

By contrast, I’m practically looking forward to a probable tooth extraction on Thursday.

I’ve lived a lot of dreaded days since my ship sunk in this recession between 2010–13. Things are actually looking up a wee bit right now. I am earning some good money but I am still dreading the future, getting older and no longer having the security of a nice nest egg. But hey..I still have a whole 9 years to save oh, about 3 million, so I can retire at 65.

LMAO, it could happen. Not. LMAO!

The coming holidays are always hard. The anniversary of my mom’s death in around Turkey Day. And the whole season just reminds me that I have no family that cares about me. At least my wife’s family is welcoming and wonderful. But I can never shake the dread.

Yes. I’m moving and already all of the required paperwork so far has been daunting. There will be more over the next few weeks.

More scary is we need to buy a new house and u always get some buyer’s remorse with large purchases. The final signature in the bottom line is always overwhelming for me. This time will prove to be scary, because it seems to me we will have to build an additional garage, so we might have to worry about septic systems being where an owner presents it, and all sorts of variables.

Eventually, we will have to have our entire house packed up for the move. That’s a little nerve racking.

Probably the worst thing coming up is driving our truck and trailer through the mountains. It makes me very nervous. I’m afraid my husband won’t go slow enough traveling down hill around turns so that I will be comfortable. I’m afraid of losing control and going over the side of a cliff. Oy. We are going to do it before the final move to hopefully beat any snowy or icy weather.

This week is the anniversary of my father’s death. 32 years, and it still crushes me.
Next month I have another hospital stay. I have had 3 procedures in the last 2 months, and I am weary of it.

A childhood friend was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She needs help even to go to the loo! She refuses chemo and wants her two young girls to remember their mom as she once was.

Aside from my very own personal issues, I have my husband’s health problems to worry about and a host of other family and work woes,. Dreaded days are always looming over me, actually I have not felt carefree for decades!

After all those aforementioned REAL problems, mine seems petty. It is, however, very real to me.

In retail pharmacy, this is flu shot season. Even working with fewer than ever staff, we have to drop everything to give flu shots.
My pharmacy processes 380 new prescriptions per day and sells as many at the pick up window. We do this over 14 hours with one Pharmacist and one CPhT working until the next shift comes on.
Basically, we are expected to handle every transaction in less than 1 minute.
We have 3 incoming phone lines, a walk-up counter and a fucking drive-up window!
“Do you want a fast prescription, or do you want the correct prescription?”

I’m in constant debate with myself over options of; quit this job, shoot myself, punch people in the nose, blow up corporate headquarters or embrace being insane and think of the comfort of a padded cell?

Enter prozac and xanax. Ask your pharmacy professionals what THEY take just to survive

The good news is that in about a week, I head back to England to be with the SO for five months. The bit that is dreaded has to do with his parents’ current health and living conditions.

Earlier this year, they were deemed unfit to continue to live on their own and were moved into assisted living facilities. Separate ones. After over 50 years of a loving marriage, they are no longer together. Dad has dementia and thinks that his wife is living with his (long dead) parents again. He has a lady friend in the same facility, which of course, is emotionally hard on the children to witness. Mum’s mind is also slightly failing which hasn’t been helped by a couple of small strokes.

It will be the first time in eight years that they won’t be with us over the holiday season. Their time with us will be greatly missed, but at least we can go see both. It’s just the initial visits that I dread, no matter how prepared for it.

@Blueroses Wow. That’s just ridiculous. I’m always disgusted when I hear health care workers are overworked with ridiculous expectations put on them. It can kill someone! Interns, nurses, pharmacists, all unacceptable and scary. I always check my script before I pay for it.

@Blueroses My daughter works for Mckesson medical and is part of their flu team, distributing thousands and thousands of doses of the flu vaccine, they are going crazy right now too. I get mine next week. haha

Well, Saturday is my sister’s baby shower. I’m going to be an aunt! But… The baby’s father is my ex-boyfriend and he and some of his family will be there. It was a long time ago, and I’m happily married, but I dated and lived with this person for nearly 3 years, and we still slept together for years after. So… yeah. Halloween will be more tricky and less treaty this year.

I’m in the midst of preparing my doctoral applications. They are all out-of-state, and my household as well as my parents’ household will be moving to wherever I get in/choose. I’m down to making sure the letters of recommendation get submitted and finishing up my personal statement (and specializing it for each school). I completely hate my job (I haven’t ever really liked it in 7 years) and am preparing the job for a new person to take over once I give my notice for school. I’m going to a conference this weekend for several days and, although I nurse my youngest only twice a day, I’ll have to transport a breast pump… which makes me think about giving up nursing… which makes me sad.

I’m looking forward to a few weeks from now when the applications have (mostly) been submitted and I can relax a bit more.

But some of you are seriously dealing with some shit. I feel bad complaining.

@JLeslie Checking your script before you pay is very smart and I wish everybody did that. Even putting aside the fatigued pharmacy staff, prescribers often batch scripts for everything you take , including OTC aspirin and supplements, into a massive e-script dump on the pharmacy.

There’s no reason at all for you to pay $11.99 for #30 Melatonin when you can buy a bottle of #100 for $8. We try to catch all of those as they come in, but a lot get filled anyway. Look at what you’re buying and reject what you don’t need… once you leave the store, it’s non-returnable.

@Blueroses That’s nice that you tell customers they can but things cheaper OTC. My friend just complained to me a couple of days ago she paid a $22 copay for Nizoral shampoo, and later she found out she can buy it off the shelf for $12. I told her she should always come to me first (joking—sort of) that I had just told my husband to buy it last week. It’s certainly worth asking the pharmacist or googling the drug to see if there is an OTC equivalent. Sometimes Rx is cheaper with insurance, and sometimes the Rx has a higher dose that is difficult to achieve with OTC. You can take an extra ibuprofen, but you can’t increase the percentage of cortisone in an ointment.

Very true @JLeslie. The majority of insurance plans reject payment for ANY meds that are available OTC, regardless of difference in active ingredient percentage. The 2 common examples I see every day are, hydrocortisone suppositories for hemorrhoids (Rx, over $300 vs just $10 for the equivalent OTC ointment) and Phenazopyridine for bladder pain (Rx $30 for #6 of 200 mg vs $14 for #24 OTC 98.7 mg. Just double-up for Rx strength)

Pharma is full of thieves. Seriously, the fed, or grass roots watchdogs need to crack down on the the extreme profits being made by so many pharmaceutical companies. The insurance companies are not addressing it and neither are the retail stores. If they are doing anything, it’s not enough that’s for sure. Now Walgreens and CVS are basically like an Oligopoly in the marketplace. I like to think Walgreens has some morals and ethics knowing a little about those who have been in charge, like Randy Lewis. I might be idealistic. I don’t know much about CVS, but I like shopping there.

If there is an OTC equivalent it’s likely the patent is up. If there is a generic, obviously the patent is over, and the company has already covered research costs and broken more than even.

Thank goodness my daily drugs are fairly inexpensive. I would have serious consequences without them.

Well, it isn’t pure thievery on the part of the developers/manufacturers. That would be the easy answer, but it isn’t entirely true. It costs a LOT of money and takes a very long time to bring a new drug to FDA approval. The reason Pharma developers are granted a 12–18 year patent is to recoup the expense of trials. They may pay for those costs within 7 years, but additional revenue goes toward expensive trials of new R&D and astronomical liability insurance.

USA citizens feel entitled to absolute safety guarantees. There are a thousand lawyers ready to file class-action suits at the most spurious suggestion that a medication causes harm. Thus, getting large incomes from settlements.

There are only three ways to combat the high cost of medications that I see.
1— Tort reform. Stop allowing legal firms to advertise on television to collect plaintiffs.
2— Truly bring health insurance companies out of being for-profit industries. They have too much power defining their formularies and are allowed to question a doctor’s orders/deny claims.
3— Medicare Part B is a fucking mess.
but now I feel like I’m hijacking the OP’s question, and I should move this into a different post.

Well, the state of healthcare in America looms over me to bring it back to the OP’s question. I have no problem with the patent, and I know all about the research and phases of testing. Here is a Q that illustrates what I am talking about without me having to write more out. You are singing the song of the money makers. We are easily taken advantage of when we are afraid of being crippled or dying. It is a gouge in my opinion. There are federal laws about gouging, but somehow when it comes to healthcare they don’t apply. I don’t understand it. Another example was the recent news story on the AIDS drug, I don’t remember the name of it.