“They can’t get it,” said Dad with his usual
deadpan/Eeyore face which always makes it impossible to tell if he’s joking or
not.
“What? I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“I said, THEY CAN NOT GET IT FOR YOU,”
repeated Dad as if talking to a deaf eighty year old. “They tried all their
sources but they just couldn’t find it.”
“No, that’s not right. They always get it
for me. There has to be some mistake.”
“No mistake Darling, don’t you watch the
news?”
“I watch Home & Away and Neighbours,
why is that relevant?!”
“There’s some difficulty getting certain
prescription medications at the moment, it was all over the news last night.”
And with that he pulled out my green repeat prescription slip from his coat pocket, instead of a nice big bad of meds, and the room starting to spin.
“Oh God oh God oh God oh God” I was trying,
and partly succeeding, not to panic. I heard Dad yell to Mum:
“Jill, I think you better come here,
Victoria looks like she might have some kind of fit.”
Mum duly arrived and told me not to panic, adding
“Don’t you watch the news? There was this poor Cancer patient who couldn’t get
her medications so just be grateful.” I downed a whole bottle of Rescue Remedy and was secretly
very glad that it was Dad who had gone to our trusty Lloyds pharmacy to try and
pick up my prescription and not me. It’s unheard of for them not to be able to
get my regular dose of Zomig nasal sprays (the triptan drug that can stop a
migraine in its tracks.) I’ve been using them since 2004. If I had gone to pick
up the prescription and been told it “was not possible to get” I would probably
have done something fairly embarrassing such as: 1. Shouted that this was
surely illegal in the Queen’s own country. 2 Burst into tears and sobbed
hysterically. 3 Sung what I deemed an appropriate medley from my favourite Musicals.
Two of these three scenarios have occured in pharmacies across the globe, I’ll
leave you to guess which…
So, I sat in my bedroom and mentally pulled
myself together like every great heroine. Surely, there would be one pharmacy in
London that could fill my prescription before the next migraine hit? You see, I
was in this blind non-panic because I had committed a classic school boy error – I
had run out of my main migraine medication. I had no Zomig’s left! None at all. And just so you understand, if I don’t
take a triptan as soon as I feel a migraine coming on I can be in deep shit, to
put it mildly, for up to 72 hours. Discovering triptans completely changed my
life. Sadly they don’t work for everyone and they don’t always work for me. I
use Sumatriptan injections for mega migraines, and when those don’t hit the
spot I know I’m in for 3 days of fun! (By the way, I did have 2 Sumatriptan
injections left but you can’t exactly give yourself an injection on the tube! I
also save these for special occasions.)***
A Zomig nasal spray! |
Anyway, you’d think being a migraine pro of
13 years this could never happen to me. I normally send in my repeat
prescription when I have two Zomig’s left to avoid just this type of situation
but this time I got caught short. I wanted to set out on my Zomig quest
immediately but realized I was due at my physio in Central London. But this was actually perfect as it
meant Saint Jill (otherwise known at Mum) could take over the quest while I had
mild hysteria and did an hour of orthopedic rehab. There are also a plethora of
industrial pharmacies near my physio, including a hospital, so I felt fairly
confident the quest would be successful but would you believe it….
Oh my God…just joking, she got some. But
the pharmacists did say they were finding it very difficult to get a lot of
drugs, so it really could have been as bad as I was imagining it to be in my
overactive, catastrophizing imagination!
So, before you judge me too harshly for getting
into this situation, I got the new batch of 6 Zomig sprays last Wednesday and
have already used up 3. It’s frighteningly easy how quickly they evaporate.
When I get a fresh batch I even try to hide one from myself (I do realize that’s
impossible but you get what I mean.) I put two in my bedside drawer for
nighttime migraines, two in various handbags and the final one in my ‘medicine
cabinet’. Isn’t that interesting! And to make matters worse tomorrow I’m going
away for a week so had been meaning to stockpile. So I then had to make a
special trip to the GP. I wasn’t sure whether to lie and make up some random
excuse such as “My friends Dog ate them all which is why I need another load
already!” (Which is partially true, Hello Parsley!) Or just be honest. I was
honest and it was fine in case you’re wondering. Though I did go to Lloyds pharmacy first, to check they could actually get and set aside a box of Zomig for me. Otherwise I was considering importing them illeaglly via eBay.
Anyway, hopefully this cautionary tale has
reminded you all of the mild heart attacks, hysteria and deeply unattractive
sweat patches (which are not good for migraines) that can ensue if you’re silly
enough to run out of your medications. Don’t be like me. Get thee to the pharmacy.
****Irony
For your mild interest - here is the reason my prescription was hard to fill.