My Crazy Work Weekend

I spent the weekend industriously dispensing drugs and advice to the general populace. It must have been a full moon Saturday because boy did I get some WEIRD questions. Would you like a sample? I thought so! How about these?

1. Husband calls complaining that his wife's low-dose birth control is too expensive. She used to take regular-dose birth control but the high hormone content gave her mood swings. However, she still has a pack left. Can he just break those pills in half and give her half to save money? (I was like, um, if you want a baby!)

2. This was the day for people wanting to take half their pills. A LOL (little old lady) called to TELL me - not ask me, since she already did it! - that her doctor had her on an antibiotic twice a day but it upset her stomach. So she had just broken the pills in half and took halves instead of the whole thing. But now instead of ten days' worth she has 20 days' worth - should she take all twenty days or just ten? Oh and her infection doesn't feel a BIT better! I wonder why.

3. Mom picks up tylenol with codeine - for pain - for her ten year old son's ear infection. I clearly discuss the directions which state to give one or two tablets every 6 hours as needed for pain. We agree to start with one tablet and only givehim two if the pain is unbearable after 6 hours. Mom promptly goes home and, distraught by her son's moans of pain, gives him three tablets right off the bat, which is a big fat overdose for her son's weight. She then calls me to tell me her son is hallucinating and thinks he's a terrier.

4. I recommend pseudoephedrine for a patient's nasal congestion. I tell her she has to present her driver's license to purchase it. She doesn't have her DL with her but tells me her passport is in her car. So you drove here without a license? Not smart.

5. A woman visiting her parents asks her pediatrician from home to call in an antibiotic for her son. There's a bit of a hold up filling it since the doctor forgot to call in the drug strength on the answering machine. She arrives to pick it up while I'm still on hold with her doctor. This infuriates her and she begins shouting that we are incredibly incompetent and no WONDER she moved away from Louisiana to West Virginia. Ok, no offense, but I used to live in WV and I hardly think of it as a state of model efficiency and work ethic.

So that was my weekend. I guess this is what I have to look forward to for 40 more years! Ha!
So how about yours? What happened fun or interesting this weekend?