A minor emergency hopefully avoided

So a brief rant on Day 3 if I may...I got up this morning after a restful and much needed sleep and immediately went for my meds for Day 3 which include my dexamethasone (steroid), my proton-pump inhibitor Pantaloc for Gastro-esophageal reflux (heartburn, sour acid stomach) and most importantly EMEND for prevention of nausea....important...note prevention of nausea.  As an anti-emetic EMEND is designed to be taken during three-days of chemo treatment to prevent the onset of nausea (which has been a relatively intense side-effect for me during the first few treatments) NOT when the nausea has already appeared.  For that I would take a "rescue" drug but unfortunately it interacts with EMEND so I need to be careful when I would take this drug.  I opened the EMEND blister pack and reached for my Day 3 dose of EMEND 80mg and lo and behold the blister was empty.  No pill.  SOL.

I waited until 9:30 when my local pharmacy that dispensed the EMEND was open and called them. They gave me both good news and bad news...the bad news was that they had no EMEND in stock and had to call around to local pharmacies to source.  The good news is that after trying 5 local pharmacies they were finally able to locate a Shoppers Drug Mart about 15 minutes away that had EMEND in stock.  The challenge would be in co-ordinating payment for the drug, delivery vs. pick-up etc. etc.  After a bit of discussion with my home local pharmacy they appreciated the urgency of getting my meds as soon as possible in light of being infused and still in treatment.  They had orginally proposed to drive over to the other pharmacy at the end of the pharmacist's shift at 3pm to pickup the drugs and bring back to their pharmacy for me to pickup.  That wasn't going to work for me as I needed the drug asap (as I mentioned earlier I need to take this drug to prevent nausea onset).  So...it was worked out that I would stop by my local pharmacy and pickup a label to take to the Shoppers pharmacy that was holding my EMEND for me and waiting for me to pickup.  It would be no Cost to me as this was to be worked about between the two pharmacies...and btw the folks...the costs of these drugs is an issue.  EMEND is $120 for three-day pack and is only partly covered by insurance.  I had already paid and been reimbursed by my drug insurance for this script so submitting another claim would be problematic.  I will leave it to the two pharmacies to work out.  Being employed by a pharmaceutical company myself I recognize the importance of reporting this product complaint to the manufacturer (Merck in this case) as the issue seems to be at point of packaging as the blister pack contained an empty blister.  Again, I will discuss with my local pharmacy to push forward with this.

Anyway, may not sound like much to get too anxious about but needless to say after several phone calls back and forth and an unplanned drive across town to pickup medication that I should have had onhand this morning, a minor crisis was averted.  I have taken my meds for Day3 and so far no nausea...keep the fingers crossed.

Thanks to Steven at High Park IDA for his sense of urgency and great customer service to resolve this issue for me as promptly as he did and with as little impact to me as he could manage including financially.

Rant done.  Time to wait for my nurse visit to remove my infusion bottle, flush out the port a cath lines and remove the dressing from my chest (along with a handful of chest hair I am sure - ouch!) and then SHOWER, freshen up and ENJOY my SATURDAY!!!

I hope everyone reading this has a great day today and embraces the day!