I am so glad you are taking advantage of those resources, and the granny bag. I am actually really shocked the backchannel didn’t work. I know it is bad that we have to use the backchannel, but in my experience, it has worked.

Oh, fuck, Hec & JZ. I am so angry that you are reduced to this frankly still dangerous workaround (although relieved you have it!) What a goddamn mess.

frankly still dangerous workaround

The contents of the granny bag are what JZ was originally taking in the hospital, so it's not a total MacGyver of random meds. And, honestly, the deal with expired meds is this: if they're liquid, they should be tossed, because they can get nasty; however, as long as pills/tablets aren't crumbling/discolored/smelly, then the worst that may happen is that they'll be less effective than they would have been when they were still within their "use-by" window. They won't cause additional problems.

(I say that noting that I am SUPER cavalier when it comes to my own personal attitude toward meds, even pain meds [which is dumb and I admit that], but I would never ever EVER give dodgy advice to anyone else. If I thought for a nanosecond that expired meds might be dangerous, I'd say to toss them out. But it helps that the granny bag meds are meds JZ has taken fairly recently, so they know it's a med she can tolerate. If they're the fallback option, the outcome will range from No Pain Yay, to Adequate Pain Control, to Dang This Isn't Doing Shit.)

I know you would not give bad or dangerous advice. I assumed they were the same meds, because I would have probably given the same advice (or texted a nurse friend).

To be clear, they aren't my meds, they're my mom's, from her various hip and face surgeries. She didn't have any resources in Reno to safely dispose of them, so I brought them down here and it's just random chance that I hadn't gotten around to it yet. But one of those meds is also one of the meds I was on during my ER hallway spa days.

eta: Doctor S is checking back in and clarifying some things and I love this careful methodical little man so much. I can feel my BP dropping every time my phone pings and it's him.

I'm not saying don't use them, it's just a worrisome amount of amateur guesswork and calculation that goes into deciding how much to take that is a little scary. I'm hope you can find a dosage that works to tide you over, for sure!

But it is ridiculous that you have to do this!

After 45 minutes on hold I got somebody to answer at UCSF General Medicine A Clinic (where JZ's primary care doctor works).

I explained the situation and she looked in the files and saw that indeed we had called many times but JZ's doctor was booked all day seeing patients.

I explained it all very carefully and said, somebody needs to go interrupt her between patients for at least one minute and call the fuckin' Pharmacy and rectify the situation. (The Pharmacy had called her as well and she hadn't responded.)

The person I talked to seemed to grasp the actual details of the issue and was going to get a Nurse Practitioner to re-route the prescription to UC's Walgreen's pharmacy and then also talk to JZ's doctor's nurse.

So...maybe that will work. At least somebody is trying to do something other than make a note in the system that we called again.

Fingers crossed!

Yeah, fingers crossed. Jesus.

Dr. S is also calling them--he did some detective work and found that there's a regional shortage of 2 mg tablets, so the wording of the prescription might be the problem--controlled substance, must be dispensed exactly as written, so if it says one to two 2mg tablets and all they have is 1mg or 4mg tablets, they have to hand it back and say, "Not in stock."

He also found that almost nobody has updated the pharmacy hours listed on their websites since Covid, so the on campus one I thought closes at 7 closes at 6, as do most of them, and a lot aren't open at all over New Year's weekend. The best option may be to call an entirely new carefully worded prescription to the 24-hour Walgreens on Castro. He's on hold waiting to talk to the practice manager now.

I haven't worked for him for at least a dozen years; he's just doing this out of sheer goodness (and cantankerousness; nothing refreshes and invigorates him like fighting a bureaucracy). One of the greatest strokes of random good luck in my life was getting assigned to him as a temp worker back in '92.