Pharmacy. Jim Plagakis. Pharmacist

It hasn’t changed one bit in 45 years.

My drug store is right next to the University of Texas Medical Branch. This is an 11,000 employee medical center and school. They teach aspiring MDs, nurses and other assorted medical professionals. The area around UTMB is the historical district. Doctors own beautiful renovated oak-shaded ante-bellum mansions that are right beside homes that are marginal, run down and ugly, owned by little old widows who have lived there for decades. They’ll become a doctor’s place when she dies.

I’m just giving you a little flavor. That neighborhood is where they opened up The Galveston National Laboratory two weeks ago. An eight floor high security lab that studies that worst shit on the earth. Ebola and stuff like that. The GNL is drawing scientists from all over the world and bio-tech firms to the neighborhood like ants to a picnic.

Galveston will be okay. The face will change. Eventually the “Redneck Riviera” will be gone. That is the area to the east end of Seawall Blvd. The seawall sidewalk hookers are already gone. The lowest level of drug dealers too. They will never be back. The poverty-level enclaves were destroyed by the storm. The residents went to Houston.

You know that JP is a bleeding heart liberal, but I do not think that the loss of this group of people is a bad thing. I have a grandson who I want to be able to attend Ball High School in safety in about 13 years.

Hard Luck dvdrip

I will talk about “The Storm” (as Hurricane Ike is referred to in Galveston) a lot because The Storm has had a profound effect on me, my family and every one living in our town. The stress is insidious. I went over to the spa at The Moody Gardens Hotel today. (Right near my townhome) and got a deep tissue massage in Guangzhou with all of the panache and ambience of the first class hotel. They like locals. They took good care of JP. My back and shoulders were so tensed up, she found little knots to work on. It hurt so good.

There is worry about UTMB. Just a few less than 3,000 employees were laid off this week. All levels. Yesterday.. 126 faculty members. All clinics are up and running, but only a few are at home in Galveston. They are spread all around the county, in borrowed or rented offices.

Now, my essay for today. A blast from the past, 2008 style. The UTMB medical school is running full speed. A first year student presented an Rx for Ritalin 20 mg, #60 1 tab q AM and 1 tab q HS. I took the packet to her myself and asked her to come over to the consultation window and talk with me.

“Do you usually take this at bedtime?” She seemed like a normal kid. Why give a girl with ADHD a bedtime dose? Was it a doctor’s error?

“Well, yeah, I guess.”

“You are not going to sleep,” I said. I watched her and she got a little skittish. “Talk to me,” I said and grabbed her eyes with my eyes and smiled. No judgment. Just talk with your pharmacist.

“Well, it is not for that,” she said, “It is for studying. I tend to let my mind wander when I am tired.”

“And this is crunch time. Medical school! This is finally the real thing.”

She nodded. “The real thing,” she repeated. “I like that.”

“It’s time to act like a grown up.”

She nodded gravely, “That’s right.”

“Now, Bristol,” I said, “You gotta sleep. You can’t take this to study every night.”

“Oh no, not every night. The doctor gave me a lecture about it, but you are easier to talk to.” She frowned. “Can it hurt me?”

“It can if you take it every night.”

“Oh, I promise. Not even every day. Maybe not even every week.”

I laughed and told her that nothing has changed since 1963. Forty-Five years and students in the medical universe are using drugs to get wired to study. I told her about Eskatrol Spansules and Dexamyl Spansules. They were popular diet drugs. No more controlled than Penicillin G. There was no DEA. At my home drug store, we had rolls of samples down in the drug room in the basement. I’m telling you hundreds of spansules. Every pharmacy student I knew brought a stash to school for mid-terms and finals.

Eskatrol, by the way, was dextroamphetamine and prochlorperazine. Dexamyl was Dexedrine and amobarbital. Yeah. I know. The last time I took a Dexamyl was for a mid-term in 1963. There were three or four Kappa Psi brothers studying at my basement apartment off campus. I was a very good student. I was on my bed reading comic books. My studying was done by midnight. But with 15 mg of dextroamphetamine being released slowly into my blood stream there was no hope of sleeping. Why did I take that shit? Ritual. That is what we did. Young men whose dorsal lateral prefrontal cortexes were just maturing. Certainly, my impulse control was not good enough to tell my friends that I was not partaking.

Madhouse trailer My studying buddies left at around 3:00 AM. My roommate was sound asleep. The basement was dark. My mouth was dry and I felt hot. I was horny like only a pharmaceutical amphetamine can make you horny. No hope. No girl friend. I had the five bucks but I didn’t have the car to drive over the river to that famous farm house with the clock on it. We called it “The Clock” and the clock replaced the red lantern. Shit, you guys would feel like I did too. I have no clue what amphetamines do to you girls, but there is one universal and brilliant consequence that turned many housewives into prescription forgers after they lost the weight and their asshole doctors cut them off from the drug. I told Bristol.

That night in 1963, I took a long shower for my itchy skin. After the shower, I had to walk through a dark laundry room to get to where Faber and I lived. I took three steps and had an auditory hallucination. A voice as compelling as any I knew said in a loud stage whisper, “Jim, come here.” As I write this, the 45 year memory in my limbic system is making the hair stand up on my legs. I retreated into the bath room and took another shower. I tried again and again, “Jim, come here.” Three tries and I locked the door and stayed in the bathroom until morning. After that, it was no problem to say, “I’d rather sleep tonight” and refuse one of the speckled green capsules

I told Bristol about my experience (minus the horniness). She was my buddy now. We shared something. We had laughed together.

“Bristol,” I said, “There is something that I have to warn you about.”

“What is that?”

“Euphoria, Bristol. Flat line euphoria. The EVERYTHING IS ALL RIGHT EUPHORIA. NOTHING CAN HURT ME EUPHORIA. I AM QUEEN OF THE MOTHERFUCKING WORLD EUPHORIA.”

“Is that a real bad thing.”

“It is a very bad thing. That drug will make you experience a sense of well being that is so powerful that you might want it when you go to a club on the seawall on Saturday night. You might want to feel that good on your breaks at your parent’s house. You might be going back to your doctor telling her that you lost your pills or had shared them to get more. This class of drug could sabotage your goal to be a doctor. You could flunk your ass out because of Ritalin.”

Bristol looked at her pills, then at me. “You are scaring me.”

“Good. You’ll know exactly what I am talking about with your first pill. It is going to make you feel very good, Bristol. Promise you will come and talk to me, Bristol. Come and talk or call me if you sense it could be getting dangerous.”

“Promise. I promise, sir.” She took my card. “I really promise, sir, thank you.”

I watched her cute little bottom as she walked away. I sighed. I wasn’t her dad. Just her pharmacist.

For 20 years, I have been calling myself out on THE DOCTOR SYNDROME. In that first year when I practiced pharmacy in Ohio, flush against the shores of Lake Erie, I suffered so badly from THE DOCTOR SYNDROME that I am lucky that I didn’t just drop dead. I was a supercilious poser. I was an insufferable PHARMACIST spelled in capitals. I went to the ends of making myself an absolute expert on the few antibiotics out there. Declomycin was a big one. So was Gantanol. I mentioned to a doctor who wrote post cibum on everything that that particular specification was not a good idea for Achromycin V. He jumped me. This guy was an obese MD who saw his patients sitting on a stool. He took three hour lunches ala southern Europe, but made up for it by staying open until 8:00 PM.

I can remember the conversation because my crystal DOCTOR SYNDROME trophy was shattered.

“Who are you to tell me that?”

“I’m a pharmacist. I can tell you why…….”

“You don’t tell me anything. Just sell your drugs and mind your own business. I mailed him the package insert and circled the NO MILK, NO CALCIUM directions in red. He quit the “after meals” sig after that. I never said another word.

I did THE DOCTOR SYNDROME for about a year in Ohio. I bought Mister Barco jackets, the sports coat style. Shirt and tie, but if you have been around JP for awhile, you know all of this. I worked very hard and spent too much money to live up to THE DOCTOR SYNDROME standards.
Then I moved to California I learned quickly what a sucker’s game THE DOCTOR SYNDROME would have been. I would have been laughed out the front door of the drug store. These were Californians. They had bigger fish to fry.

The San Francisco Bay Area was the center of the world. Think about it. 1966. The Summer of Love. Jimi Hendricks, Janis, Jefferson Airplane, The Dead. These were the weekend acts in small venues on Market Street. The Dead often on the meadow in Golden Gate Park. What a Sunday afternoon. The Beatles showed up and I said to my wife, “That band is playing Beatles tunes.” We were on the other edge of the meadow. A good quarter of a mile away. We didn’t bother to walk over.

What an incredible time. Free love. Now this was a fascination for me. I had my quota of testosterone and just six months after the big wedding I wondered why a neighbor asked me what I would do if my wife was having an afternoon visitor when I was at work. This could not happen to me. I was in denial. She married me for love, didn’t she?

There was no hope for THE DOCTOR SYNDROME at Thrifty Drug Store. But there was a lot of hope for free love. The voluptuous cosmetician spent a lot of time near the pharmacy. We talked. I’ll just say that it was probably the biggest temptation of my life. I didn’t do it. The game ended when she rented a hotel room and I did not show up.

Give me some slack. I was a boy from Ohio. I had said, “Until death do us part.” What an idiot. Nine really horrible years until I got the message and left for good. I had THE DOCTOR SYNDROME beat right out of me.

The young pharmacists today don’t have to play THE DOCTOR SYNDROME. They ARE doctors. I was talking to a patient and happened to mention Doctor Marinakis. She was my partner at Pay ‘N Save in Oak Harbor, Washington. This is the location of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. Cheryl Marinakis was the wife of a naval aviator, the elite.

She played the officer’s wife to the hilt. She always wore a skirt and a blouse to work. Her hair was always impeccable. She had a white streak that she colored with henna. A stunning woman who wore heels to work, even on her 12 hour days.

I used the designation “Doctor Marinakis” and this woman said, “Who? Who’s the doctor?”

“Cheryl is the doctor,” I said.

“Pharmacists aren’t doctors,” she argued. “Don’t try to tell me that pharmacists are doctors.”

“Not all,” I said, “I’m not a doctor, but Cheryl is.”

“Don’t try to get me to believe that she is a doctor.”

That was around 1991. Has it changed? Do patients refer to you as “doctor”?

Oh, by the way, I have met Pharm Ds who still play THE DOCTOR SYNDROME and I’m not talking about the pharmacist kind of doctor.

I am giving you a blog I wrote a long time ago for the MDNG website. You might want to take a look at MDNG. They publish for almost every medical discipline. Anyway, the people who live or work in Galveston are impatient right now. Some are struggling and that includes pharmacists, doctors and
nurses. But this doctor practices in Dallas. A long way from the gulf coast. Can you spell “Witch” with a bee?

Here it is: Published by MDNG in August, 2008

The voice on the other end of the phone line seemed distracted. First, she had to finish up with a prior conversation before she could talk with me. I could tell that she was not holding the phone near her mouth.

When she finally got to me, she said, “I want to call in a prescription for mumble mumble mumble.”

“I’m sorry. I do not hear you very well.”

I am not alone. There are plenty of pharmacists out there who do not hear as well as they did a few decades ago. But get us on a conversation where the information imparted is critical to a patient, we better get it right. (From JP. Remember, most of the readers at MDNG are doctor. I like to pull their chains)

This is what happened when I could not understand what this doctor was trying to order for a patient named mumble mumble mumble.

“I can’t hear you,” I repeated. “Please put the phone closer to your mouth.”

“I know how to use a telephone, honey.” Those words I heard very well. She DID put the phone closer to her mouth for the “honey” sentence, but the rest was mumble mumble mumble.

“Please, doctor. Cooperate with me. I want your patient to get exactly what you want, in the correct dose with the correct instructions. I can’t do that if I cannot understand what you are saying.”

“I’ll go slower,” she said with another sigh. “Mumble mumble mumble.”

“Slower doesn’t matter,” I said. “You just have to put the phone closer to your mouth.”

“I don’t HAVE to do anything. You HAVE to listen.”

“I’ll listen as best as I can. So far, I don’t even know who the patient is.”

“I told you twice.”

“But you did not have the phone near your mouth. I did not get the patient’s name.”

There was a silence. “Oh forget it,” she said and hung up.

Now, I do not know what happened next. Did she whine to the patient about the pharmacist and suggest a second pharmacy? Did she call back later WITH THE PHONE CLOSER TO HER MOUTH? Perhaps she called when I was at lunch and talked to a pharmacist with 50 something ears. Did the patient have to go without?

This was a young doctor and she was balanced precariously on the ego high wire. How long before she fell off with a thud?

How many of you work for a large chain that asks you to make sure that prescriptions from other stores have been entered properly while you are not busy? I do and since Hurricane Ike smashed our neighborhood, the area around UTMB, many of the Medical Branch doctors have moved to temporary offices on the mainland. I usually have plenty of time to do this. I have been especially proud of our own techs and their accuracy because I see the damndest stuff from technicians at other stores.

How about: “Augmentin given in the RIGHT EAR”. “Apply small amount BY MOUTH”. There have been wrong patient, wrong doctor, wrong drug. I am a nice man, but I can’t control myself when it comes to having fun, sometimes. Yesterday, I was doing prescriptions from other stores when I came upon a triamcinolone LOTION Rx. The tech had entered CREAM.

Upon rejecting the Rx as entered, I wrote: “Can you spell LOTION”? I had a picture in my mind of a youngish, red head technician who was really tired after pounding in Rx after Rx. I hoped to give her a chuckle.

No such luck. The technician called me within three minutes. She read me the “riot act”.

“How dare you insult me,” she said.

“I beg your pardon.” She didn’t even tell me who she was.

“You are a real Smart Aleck. Of course I know how to spell lotion.” I could see the smoke coming from her ears over the telephone.
In short, she was challenging me AS A PHARMACIST and I could not let that stand.

“I had no intention of insulting you,” I explained. “I merely wanted to put some levity on the situation.”

“What does that mean?”

“What? Mean what?”

“Lev.. Leverty or whatever you said. Are you insulting me again?”

That’s when I realized that all she wanted was a fight. She most likely WAS really tired. It probably was an error that she would never make again. But she was not getting her fight with a PHARMACIST.

“It is not your place to question me. I am the pharmacist. I have time to verify prescriptions from your store today. I am just doing my job.”

“Well…. not very well.” This had a Nah Nah Nah tone to it.

“It is not your job to question me or my choices,” I said again. “You are the tech. I am the pharmacist. Your job is to make the correction. Period! If you have doubts, then discuss them with your pharmacist.”

“Of course I can spell LOTION. How dare you……”

“Let me talk with the pharmacist.” I had had enough. This woman needed to shut the fuck up and get her ass back to work. She had entered CREAM. The Rx was for the LOTION. Period. I wasn’t about to apologize because she had tender sensibilities that afternoon. Geezuz! Whoever heard of a tech running the show? I have had techs dig their heels in with me over the years, but it was only when I was wrong about something.

This tech just hung up on me and I shrugged and went to get a bottle of water. When I came back, the technician was all grins as she handed me the phone.

It was the pharmacist at the store of the sensitive tech. He told me that I shouldn’t be sarcastic when I rejected prescriptions. He said that techs had feelings.

That was enough for me. “I just won’t verify prescriptions from your store. I will send them back out into the Internet ozone and let you do them yourself.”

There was a pause. “You have to verify them.”

“Who is the boss there right now?”

“The PIC is not here.”
“YOU are the boss, my friend. NOT the tech. You are going to have a miserable career in retail pharmacy if you don’t get that simple concept down.”

“We are a team,” he said.

“Bull shit. Team! Check with the state board. It is your ass if a bad Rx gets out and does damage. Not her ass. I’d suggest that you start taking charge. The techs may be a team, but you are the coach, the manager.”

“But, she’s been here a long time. I just started….”

“Time to learn a valuable lesson. The pharmacist is at the peak of the pharmacy department pyramid. The technicians are two layers below.”

“Are you sure?”

Poor kid!

I have always loved working with young people. They are energetic, idealistic and, if you can keep it interesting, they stick right with you . If you are fair, you will get what you want.

Sazzad is a 29 year old Bengali-American, born and raised in Chicago. He just finished the management classes that our pharmacy district manager invited him to attend. He has been curious about me. At work, I don’t like to talk about what I do outside of work. If they know about my relationship with Drug Topics. That’s cool, but I’m not going to tell them. I am certainly not going to talk up TPA. I am too visible and too many people would hear the word “union”, which TPA is not. Far from it.

Sazzad finally asked me one day, “How many years were you a manager?” I told him that my first pharmacy manager job was at his age. I told him that I could not sustain for a whole, entire career. It would have been bad for my “chi”.
So, when I divorced my first wife around age 35, I quit and went to Europe.

His eyes got big. “You just quit? You just went to Europe?”

This is an impossible dream for many of you, but Stop! Think! You make terrific money. You can get a job when you come back much easier than I could in 1977. If not now, when? This is your life we are talking about. “Someday” will never get you to Copenhagen. Scratch that Copenhagen. With the brutal exchange rate, go south to Brindisi or Paraeus. Maybe the Aegean. Mykonos is nice .. in the winter. Too many ugly Americans in the summer.

I explained to Sazzad that I spent a few months in Europe and then came back and went back to work. Part time. I never worked more than 3 days a week. 24 hours. Until around 1981 when my pad money ran out. I knew it would happen eventually, but, oh, my friends, what a brilliant ride while it lasted.

That’s when I started my second career. I was a staff pharmacist for 2 years and then I was a manager for the next 23 years. There is something to be said about maxing out a 401k.

Sazzad is a smart boy. He asks questions. He is receptive for teaching, so I teach him when the time is right.
“Take care of your people,” I said, “treat them well. Respect them and, most important, protect them from the store’s management.”

He was very surprised when I told him that all he had to do is identify what is important to his boss and to do that really well.

“Go all out to be the star of the district in the district manager’s pet projects.”

“Yeah, but some are so dumb.” Sazzad is a typical 29 year old.

“Sazzad,” I said, “You would be wise to ride the horse in the direction it is going.”

He gave me a look.

“In a company this large, there is no wiggle room. You cannot be an entrepreneur. There is no place for a free lancer.”

“But, I have ideas.”

“Sorry, Sazzad, as a PIC, your good ideas will just gum up the works. Express them, but never implement them unless you are given the green light.”

That same day, there was a dazzling teachable moment. Before he went to lunch, Sazzad showed me a prescription that we couldn’t fill because of glaring ambiguities. It was a popular, expensive medicine for seizure disorder.

“When did she bring this in?” I asked.

“Two days ago.”

“Sazzad, you cannot let the doctor get away with this. This patient may be out of her medicine. What happens if she has a seizure and breaks her head?”

“Well.” He threw his hands in the air. “What am I supposed to do? I’ve called each day. The ball is in his court.”

I picked up the phone and got the doctor’s nurse on the line. First, I chatted her up for a couple minutes. We talked about the storm. “How did you fare with Ike?” I asked.

“We’re okay.” She got 4 feet of bay water in her first floor. Her husband rented a container to store stuff, but they lost everything downstairs. They were living on the second floor. “I’m tired of eating sandwiches.” She laughed lightly.

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes release

“I’m exhausted,” I said, “Everyone is Galveston is tired.” Sazzad was watching me, his arms crossing his chest.

I got to the point, “Dolly,” I said. “We have a big problem.” I explained the two days. I explained the drug. I explained seizure disorder. “Dolly, this is entirely inappropriate. The doctor is neglecting this patient. He has a responsibility to do his job and that includes cleaning up the ambiguously written Rx so the patient can have her medicine.”

Dolly did not say a thing.

“This is not personal. We, as pharmacists, have a responsibility too. This has to be handled. Not later today. It needs to be handled right now.”

“But the doctor is…..”

“Dolly, I don’t care about excuses. You can get the doctor. You can do it. I know you can. I’m calling this woman and I’m going to tell her to come in at 3:00 PM for her medicine. That’s two hours.”

(Later, I explained that sounding angry would negate the message. You are just doing your job)

The next time I worked with Sazzad, I heard him tell a nurse. “This patient is out of medicine. This has to get done today.”

Many years ago, during my first weeks as a registered man, I felt like a complete failure when I was asked for a concoction that I was clueless about. The guy wanted something called Doctor Hardy’s Hot Drops.

I was 25 years old and I suffered from a bad case of doctor syndrome. I thought I knew everything. If you could walk like a doctor, I did it. If you could talk like a doctor, that is how I talked. I certainly looked like my picture of a doctor. Dress shirt. Regimental tie. White lab coat. I was insufferable. My head was huge. The Hot Drops request was only one of many incidents that brought me back to Earth.

I asked the guy, a farmer from the south of Ashtabula County, what Doctor Hardy’s Hot Drops were for. He gave me a look and turned red. He stuttered and stammered and finally came out with, “The drops. They help me do my husbandly duties for the missus.”

I stared at him. Remember, I was 25 years old. I did not have a missus yet.
My experience was limited. I said, “You mean the drops help you in bed?”

He blushed redder and looked around to see if anyone was eavesdropping. “Can you sell me some Drops or not?”

I admitted my ignorance and the farmer, with shoulders slumped, turned on his heel and left the pharmacy. I was actually relieved to see him go. I did not want to deal with patients who tested me that much. I wanted to stay in my comfort zone.

Men don’t need Doctor Hardy’s Hot Drops in the twenty first century. All they have to do is ask their doctor and they can get free samples of Cialis, Viagra and Levitra. Most of the customers I deal with are very comfortable with it. There is no embarrassment.

There was one notable exception last week. The guy had a fit when I said the word Viagra out loud. He frowned at me and said, “Shhhhh. Don’t say that word.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “There is no one here listening to me.”

“I don’t care. Don’t say it out loud.”

“There is nothing to be ashamed of.”

“That’s what you say.”

“You shouldn’t be embarrassed.”

“I am not embarrassed. Just don’t say that word.”

I never saw the guy again. He took his six tablets of Viagra and disappeared into the murky world of sex and humiliation. His wife was the one to come in and have the prescription refilled ever since that incident. She was always chatty and friendly, but I never said the word out loud again. I am a quick learner. When I talk to patients about any of the big three, I always refer to it as “the pill”.

Then there are the guys who expect to be super studs. They hear on television that erections that last longer than they should require a doctor’s intervention. They love it. They want some of that stuff.

“Here I am, baby. Come and get it.” These are the guys who probably spent big bucks for Bob’s male enhancement pills from TV.

I had a guy practically salivating as I filled his prescription. “Can I really get one that will just last and last?” He had a dopey grin on his face. I immediately felt very sorry for his missus or girl friend.

“I doubt it,” I said. This guy was a boomer throw back to the 80s. The top three buttons of his silk shirt were open at the neck. He wore a thick gold chain with a heavy Italian horn hanging from it. He was poured (too big on top, too skinny on the bottom) into tight black slacks and wore shiny pointy toe shoes. His hair was slicked straight back. In two words, I thought of “Joe Namath”. Sorry, Joe, you just came to mind. This guy probably drove a vintage Plymouth Charger from the 70s. He probably watched re-runs of The Dukes of Hazzard.

“I don’t know, man,” I said, “I have heard the television commercials too, but I just don’t think that the side effect of a dangerously prolonged erection is very common.”

“Why not?” He was chewing his gum furiously now. Snapping it and switching it from side to side. A young woman showing the jewelry in her belly button walked by and Joe Namath leered at her, nodding his head appreciatively. “Hey, baby girl,” he said.

“Are you serious?” she laughed.

That is when I realized that this man was just not aging gracefully. He was in his mid-fifties and it was scaring the bejeezus out of him. He wanted to be young and virile and he was suffering from erectile dysfunction. Not a good combination.

I sold him the prescription and did not see him again until it was time for a refill. I couldn’t help it you guys. I had to ask him. “Did you get that hard on that lasted a day and a half?” I couldn’t say it with a straight face.

He tried to look studly, but he failed. “Not that long,” he said, sort of quietly, but with that same dopey grin.

“But the pill worked the way it is supposed to, didn’t it?” I was egging him on a little.

“Yeah, it worked.”

“You are satisfied with it then?”

“Yeah, but is Cialis better?”

“Well, Cialis is supposed to work for 36 hours,” I said.

“36 hours?”

I knew that he had visions of a long lasting erection again. What could I tell this guy? I did my best explaining that he and his partner could be more spontaneous.

“Well, give me Cialis then.” He was swaggering a little bit again. “That sounds good to me.”

I told him that he needed a prescription if he wanted Cialis. He said that he already had a prescription. I told him that his prescription was for Levitra. You get the message. He finally left with the Levitra and told me that he would have his doctor call in Cialis. His final words were, “What happens if I take both?”

Erectile dysfunction has been an issue for decades and we didn’t even know it. It is like Alzheimer’s. Before the name, it did not exist. The difference is that ED is now a problem for the baby boomers. They do not want to get old. They will pay anything and not just for ED medicines. That is just one small expense for only one small expenditure in the enormous keep-me-young industry. Viagra is the first drug designed just for the boomers.
Now, you are still asking, what are Doctor Hardy’s Hot Drops? I asked my boss the next day. He laughed and told me that they were just a very dilute solution of Nitric Acid. They irritated the urethra and caused the desired effect. He told me where to find the solution. A 60ml dropper bottle sold for $5.00 and that was when $5.00 was money.

I said, “$5.00? Why so much?”

He said, “Because Hardy’s wouldn’t work if it was cheaper.”

Three years ago, I read the book The Great Influenza about the pandemic at the beginning of the 20th Century. Compelling reading. Great writing. Like a novel. Loaded with remarkable information. Pharmacists were better educated than doctors. Read it. It got me to use the wipes on the shopping carts at the grocery store.

After Hurricane Ike, Galveston has done well cleaning up the debris, but the amount was staggering. People threw their regular garbage onto the debris piles. There was no pick up for a few weeks. All of a sudden, flies are an issue when they have never been a problem here before. Little gnats are everywhere.

I wash myself better than I ever have. The smallest cut gets swabbed with Povidone Iodine after being washed with soap and water. Too cautious? Listen to this.

A half mile from our place is Luke’s Deli. The owner stayed and rode out the storm. He wanted to see how his store made out so he waded through water up to his waist to get to the store. This water came from storm surge from the bay side of the island. It was brackish and dirty. He had a little cut on his leg.

Just Like Heaven full

You read the warning every summer. Do not go into stagnant hot water areas if you have a cut. Wash yourself. There is a “flesh-eating” bacteria that grows there. We hear of 2 or 3 cases a year.

The owner of Luke’s Deli did not clean his leg. He did not use povidone Iodine. His leg was infected by this bacteria.
A month after the storm and they had to amputate his leg. Not good enough, he died last Friday.

If you were his pharmacist, what would you tell him? Did his doctors let him down by trying to save the leg? Granted, just getting to a doctor is an issue here with UTMB closed down and the clinics moved to the mainland.