So, I have this night time cough – I’m guessing because it’s so freaking windy & dry in my little piece of Southern California Paradise.  My skin is cracking & my hands are as dry as a bone.  (P.S. I hate the wind!)  I don’t feel sick, but my voice is hoarse.  Yes, mother, I’m gargling with hydrogen peroxide & drinking tea with lemon and honey before bed.

HOWEVER, COMMA, none of that has helped!  I have woken up for a total of 5 hours the past two nights due to a dry cough.  It’s obnoxious.  But not as obnoxious as being told that I can’t have a refill of cough syrup.

After a night of coughing fits on Monday, I called first thing Tuesday morning to request a refill on some cough syrup that I was prescribed in December for a similar condition.  I called the Pharmacy back in the late afternoon to see if the Doctor had filled it & if it was ready to pick up.  Nope.  Weird.  Too bad the Doctor’s office was closed, so I couldn’t call them to see what was up.  Well, thankfully, I had a smidge of cough syrup left from the previous prescription.  And I do mean just a smidge. Like, I had to fill the bottle with water to get the stuff that was lodged on the sides of the bottle & that didn’t even really help.

Cut to Wednesday morning, I called the Doctor’s office to see what the deal was & after I was put on hold for 4 minutes and 36 seconds, I spoke with Lydia, who was cold, unsympathetic & told me that my request for a refill had been denied.  “Cough medicine contains codeine and codeine is an abused substance.”  I was really pissed at the innuendo … I’m an adult woman, a mother, a wife, a responsible, upstanding citizen, NOT a 13 year old crackhead trying to get high on codeine!

Not only was I incensed at being denied for a refill, I was flabbergasted as to WHY no one from their office bothered to call me and inform me of this fact yesterday.  She claimed the Doctor did call me!  Um NO.  I have caller i.d on both phones, so show me the records.  Lydia accused me of being hostile.  W.T.F.?  I asked Lydia why I had been denied, she said that it was because I hadn’t been into their offices recently.   Well, Lydia, I haven’t been sick!  And also, your office is about 20-30 minutes away from my house & there is an average wait time of 60-90 minutes in your office until I’m seen, so that doesn’t really jive with my busy mom schedule.  It’s not a convenient outing for me, feel me, Lydia?  And it’s not like it’s some mystery as to what is wrong with me – I HAVE A NIGHT COUGH – I can self-diagnose & know what I need.

Lydia challenged me: If I really wanted a refill, I’d come into the office.  Oh really?  When?  Should I take my son out of school to make him sit in your petri-dish of an office just to get an ok for a cough syrup refill?  Or should I skip one of his therapies in the afternoon and get charged for a missed session?  She said I should get a sitter.  I asked her if the Doctor was planning on paying for a sitter.  She asked me to stop being rude.  I asked her if she had children, she said no, and I asked to have the Doctor call me immediately.  She informed me that he only returned calls at the end of the business day.  Oh, great – what good would that do me?  I’d have another sleepless, coughing night.

I hung up with Lydia, quietly cursed her in my car & then called the office back and got a Jennifer on the line…. Jennifer was much more sympathetic & I had calmed down some.  Just some.  Not a lot.  But enough.  I explained the situation to Jennifer & asked her if she knew how it felt to be a mom when you’re tired from not sleeping & don’t feel good & on top of that just started your period.  Do you know how hard that is?  To my surprise she said “yes.” She promised that the Doctor or at least his nurse would call me back quickly.  Stupidly, I believed her.

Cut to 5pm … no call from the doctor or any of his cohorts & on a whim I decided to call the pharmacy to make sure they didn’t get the refill request, so that I could call the doctor and get crazy on him. Oh, nope – to my surprise, the Doctor’s office DID, indeed, call in a refill & I had The Husband pick it up on his way home.  I open the bag and there is this HUMONGOUS bottle of cough syrup, as if to say “Please don’t ever call here again.”  OR, “We’re sorry, we fucked up.”  I’m not sure which, but it made me laugh on a day where I’d been upset and frustrated for the majority of my waking hours.

Anyway … Off to codeine dreamland and hopefully a more restful sleep.  Sweet dreams, dear reader 🙂