CVS: Their Pharmacy Dangers

So I worked as a lead pharmacy technician at CVS Pharmacy for several years until my manager finally got so frustrated at my hurt back that she screamed at me not to return until my back got better. Which I did actually return to work in the front store, much to her annoyance, to help out while a co-worker was on maternity leave, but even that proved too much for me to handle. My back was too hurt, and has been, and still is. As I am facing my second surgery I have decided that I really need to stand up for myself more than I already have, which has been very little, but more than it has been in the past.

Years now I have been going to CVS store # 9859. I will willingly specify it! I know the Pharmacy manager there, Ron. He offered me a position several years back, shortly before my car accident, the one that changed my life, and I turned him down. Why? Because my manager at my home store promised me 40 hours and a raise... The raise was small, and the 40 hours soon dropped to 35 and then less than that... My loyalty was very misplaced. But that I misplaced my loyalty and had that car accident, I was forced to reconcile my entire outlook on life and the way that I viewed things and how I am forced to behave and stand up for myself and speak up.

I do sort of regret not taking the job though, especially when I have days like today, 8/27/14 though, when I see how crappy the service has become at his store. His store used to be a model store, and now it is a piece of shit, breaking so many rules, regulations, recommendations, and committing so many violations it is quite alarming. I have been warning the pharmacy employees for months now that I was going to contact the higher ups if they continued breaking policies and protocols, and after today, I realized that I really needed to. They endangered my life for the last time. And yes, I said endangered my life.

Medications are prescribed for various reasons, and sometimes they are prescribed for reasons that are to help life-threatening conditions such as high blood pressure, seizures, pain that might be so severe it could cause a heart attack, and so many other things. As a pharmacy technician I know that when I go to the doctor I need to keep track of how many prescriptions I am getting from the doctor, and then how many are the pharmacy giving me. What did the doctor prescribe, what is the pharmacy giving me? Also if the doctor writes out the prescription I always make sure to check that they don't forget anything like directions, dose, amount, date, my name, you know, things like that. You might be surprised.

So today I was given a prescription for a higher dose an anti-seizure medication which goes by the brand name of Topamax, also know as, topirimate. I already had been on it, at a much lower dosage, any idiot obviously could see it was a new prescription at a higher dose. Per CVS policy this is what should have been done, and as a good employee this is what I would have done if I had received the prescription.

The RX came in, but my the time it came in, it has exceeded the "monthly fill limit" for Gold Coast, which is the Medicaid program for California. Now I would have "cashed it out" which would have caused an "action note" to be printed. Here is what this means. A monthly fill limit is a limit put on the number of medications Medicaid patients in California may have filled per month. Cashing out a prescription is choosing to not run it through insurance any more, and run it through as "cash" which makes the paper that comes with your RX come out with a form that needs to be filled out, which is called an "action note", instead of advertising about flu shots, or ready fill, or minute clinics.

An action note is one of the most controversial thing that you will find in CVS pharmacies. Countless lazy employees will cash out prescriptions, meaning that they see the insurance rejection, and the form is printed out, and instead of simply writing on there why it didn't go thru insurance, they leave it blank, let alone bother to try to complete the rest of it! Also when someone cashes something out without doing the action note- something will appear like it is ready and it is all OKAY to the person checking it for the patient, up until the patient comes to pick it up... then it is discovered that there is a problem.

SO- one writes down why it didn't go through insurance, and then, what I would do as a competent employee, would go to the next line on the form of the 'action note.' You try to contact the patient, and if you can't, you leave a message, or write why you couldn't reach the patient, but you make an attempt. This store has constantly received prescriptions from my doctors and just stuck them on hold because there were insurance problems, and instead of 1. trying to fix the problems, 2 calling the doctor/insurance as is THEIR JOB to fix the problem if that is how it needs to be resolved or FINALLY 3 needing to contact me because it is not going to be filled, or cannot go through the insurance---they have contacted me a grand total of TWO times. I recall both times. One time was Alex, who is a very nice young man, whom I met on his first day there, I actually aided him a bit on finding his way thru the system. (God- it is still muscle memory for me.) The other time was a girl, who I don't think works there any longer.

Before I go further let me explain pharmacy techs jobs a little more. When things reject in insurance it is the job of the pharmacy worker to try to solve the issue-- today when I asked about solving my problem about the monthly limit- I asked if Medicaid still did TARs (Treatment Authorization Referrals) that the pharmacy has to do, or is a P.A. (Physician Authorization), required for the monthly fill limit to be fixed-- I was told to call to fix it.... when it is entirely the pharmacy technicians job. I do not have an NPI. I do not have a DEA number either. How am I supposed to deal with Medicaid? Especially when it is no longer my job? Countless other times I have also come to pick up items that were supposed to be ready only to find that they were, yes, on hold, not yet filled, because they were not filled and the action note (you know with the contact the patient part done) and I couldn't ask the idiot technician handling the prescription what insurance were they trying because I have a couple in my file due to some reasons and sometimes the computer messes up and will assign like the Topamax card to try to pay for something else that is not Topamax, and the moron handling the prescription just sees that itis rejected by insurance, puts it on hold, and makes no attempt to contact the patient... who is me.

So because today when I called to fill my anti-depressant, which given that I've been dealing with serious PTSD lately, and I have bad depression, it is an important medicine, and check to see if my seizure RX was received and filled, imagine my disdain when I found out that the seizure medicine was on hold... and no one had even contacted me to tell me hey- it didn't go through insurance. The person on the phone actually had the audacity to tell me that I could not fill my anti-depressant until the first of the month because I had exceeded my fill limit! I was astounded, offended, shocked, and disgusted. This person actually I think broke law if I recall correctly because they advised me to go off a prescription medication for 2 days... That is medical advice-- Only pharmacists can give that.

I asked if I had anything that was already prepared and not yet picked up, and I was told that yes, there were 2 RXs ready but not yet picked up, so I requested that they be returned and the person on the phone was upset at me! I am now a patient, and I was making a request that two medications that were "as needed" in the directions be put back so I could fill two medications that were one important to my mental health and one direly important to my physical health, and I was getting flack? How dare they?! For starters they had no right, because the seizure medication should have already been filled, and I should had been called when it didn't go through the insurance, but because this store is full of lazy employees, they rather just see the insurance reject it, and they put the RX "on hold" or not filled, and just lying in wait in the system, and so there is no way that the patient will EVER know about it.

How many prescriptions are CVS pharmacy employees putting on hold, like so many of mine, because they are too lazy to fill out the action notes of why it didn't go through insurance, contacting the patient and telling them that it didn't go through insurance-or even before that- trying to SOLVE the insurance problem. I mean how many RXs are going on hold because technicians get a refill of an important heart medication or cancer medication approved but somehow a discount card for a skin cream gets put as the primary insurance and so it rejects in the insurance, and they put it on hold, the patient calls to see if their medicine is ready, and no, it will never be ready. There is a reason that CVS has policies to contact patients when refills are denied, when insurances reject, and automated calls go out to patients when things are ready, safety, safety and convenience. 

Ramblings of abuse from childhood

So it's been over a year since I've had a boyfriend... It's been like over two years since my long term boyfriend of years broke up with me over my back. Yet in my head as I am facing the possibility of dating someone new, what tugs at my mind? The incident in which my confidant that I confided all of my secrets about my childhood abuse and molestations, that very first person that I really opened up to and who let me begin to heal, and then when on a normal day I was told to open Firefox to pull up an internet video, but the previous session was restored, and it was child pornography.

Every wound that had begun to close of course was immediately ripped wide open again and maybe even deepened, or at least they began to bleed again. I have no idea why but I keep having nightmarish relivings of memories from my past every night. When I wake I don't even know where I am at first, often I think I am back home near Chicago, and my mother is still alive. That video The Amazing Atheist made didn't start the nightmares, but it certainly has made me waking in the night gasping for air more frequent because someone saying, hey why don't you just stop living in the past? That really doesn't help you get over trauma. Imagine I come and murder your whole family and then ten years later I tell you to just get over it and stop living in the past on the anniversary of their death. Yeah, not so nice is it?

Just again and again and again in my head I keep trying to change what happens in my head. I wish I could stop my sister from taking a part in it especially. She tried to call me about a month ago now, and I never returned the call, and she honestly has no clue why. The whole sexual abuse issue actually came up, and the part about me being sexually abused was mentioned that it caused her trauma and she was the real victim in what went on during those events that she gave her older friend permission to do what ever he wanted to me... Not sure how she was abused there, but my ex-best friend and sister were both adamant that I had nothing to be upset about. Being touched, being forced to touch, being forced to do a LOT more than touching, none of that was I to be upset about, despite my sister taking witness and actually granting her permission several, if not every, time(s).

I don't even know why I keep thinking about this particular abuser... I had several... I had a female friend of my sister's who was older, there was the neighbor medical student, but then there he was, there was Will Doughty... I am writing this now just to get it out of my head I hope. Him taking me to the basement to play, for as far as my mom knew. How he would make me take my clothing off, and I would cry. How I would be chastised if I cried too loudly.

I learned how to cry quietly from my experiences with Will. Well, Will and my sister. It is actually kind of sad, Will would be at a loss when I would start to cry so my sister would be the one to start threatening things to me to get me to be quiet with my tears and sobs, so that her friend could continue his fun. To this day I honestly wonder if she got some sort of sick pleasure out of it all. During our entire childhood and even early adulthood she made it very clear that she despised me, didn't think I was much of a human being at all- without any sort of reasoning, and saw me as the "golden child" she would say, that our parents always would favor me no matter what- because I was perfect and just better for no reason!

My sister seemed to ignore the fact that at our respective ages when she was sleeping around with guys I hadn't even kissed. She was drinking and hanging around with drug users, I was getting honor roll in college classes, had a part time job, was in gifted theatre, and was involved in a lot of church activities. While she flunked a grade, I was like the model child... except that I got a B in one of my classes... ONLY 2 people got A's.... come on...

So maybe my sister got pleasure from watching me suffer at the hands of her friend. All she saw was that I got gratitude from our parents for doing good things, getting good grades, and I didn't get into trouble because I saw her doing bad things and I saw her getting punished and saw that I sure as hell didn't want to do that! Or even a perverse sexual pleasure, but I doubt that, I bet it was either she enjoyed watching me be punished, or that she was jealous that the guy that she liked so much, Will, wanted to do sexual things to her perfect little sister... Which would be a recurring trend in her life with men. They often would want to prey on me instead of, or also her. Which would just piss her off...

How did all of this happen and my sister is oblivious as to why I am reluctant to speak to her... is it her in my head and that is why I keep thinking about what Will did to me? I wish I could banish the memories.... it is odd, it is like specific sets of memories, only ones of events in the basement. I mean things occurred in the forest, in my bedroom, and in my sister's bedroom, too. But it is the basement that I keep remembering, like the first time that he playfully wanted me to do something, with my sister gingerly allowing it..... no it wasn't the first time, it was the first time it was------well that I was forced to use my mouth.

I think she hit me like really hard for crying... something hit my head because I made a noise too loud. My sister was freaking out she was so nervous, so we went into the bathroom that was downstairs-then my memory is blanked out. Once upon a time I didn't remember any of it. But then I got my friend boyfriend and he decided that we should have sex, and try as I might, we had sex, despite my fighting efforts to stop it. That hurt. What was worse was walking home, too, in the freezing weather with just my hoodie, and the sore ache of being raped.

It was after he broke up with me, I realized that he had been abusing me, raping me, and I realized that it hadn't been the first time that I had been raped, the first time that I had been abused. Everything, well a lot of things, came back, like a storm, a terrible storm, I started crying, curled up in a ball and started mumbling things and scared my ex-best friend so much that she called over another friend of ours who just held me as I cried. I cried for about six hours, then stopped and just coldly stated that I remembered things from childhood, and that was it.

Will Doughty is dead now. I remember when my sister told me about it. I was 18, she had told me that he had OD'd on heroine and I said that perhaps it might have been for the better, he had stolen personal property from our family multiple times, he had gotten violent with her, too... and she slapped me, and said, "How dare you!" I don't ever say this lightly, but, I am glad that Hitler is dead, I am glad that Kim Jong Il is dead- thou I wish that his son hadn't replaced him, I am glad that Will Doughty is dead.

Rape, Feminism, and The Amazing Atheist

So Robin Williams committing suicide affected me dramatically. It is strange just how much he seemed to mean to a lot of people now in retrospect. He got hell for being an annoying actor, but now that he is gone, so many are mourning him, many of whom made so many jokes at his expense when he was alive. The people who used to hassle him remind me of the kids I went to school with in 7th grade. They would tease me some and harass me relentlessly. Also yes, I do mean harass, physically, sexually, and verbally- no teacher or administrator did a thing except when some sexual harassment got so severe that my mother found out she got the boy expelled. Most harassment that I suffered my parents seemed to assume was teasing, but having your chest grabbed and having a used condom placed on your lock that locks your locker is not teasing.

So the teens I went to school with would hate on me relentlessly. Then one day I stopped showing up for school, and I did not return for over a month. When I returned the first thing that someone said, not to me, was I wonder where she was. Someone else answered, "She was probably pregnant and had the baby." Most of the class erupted into laughter and the teacher couldn't get them to stop laughing. Before I had entered he had spoken to me and said that if I felt I needed to leave at anytime that I could. So as they ignored the teacher and kept laughing, I stood, walked to the kid's desk, and slammed my hands on it and the class went silent.

"My mother died you fucking asshole," I said in a raised tone dripping in hatred, because he was one of the ring-leaders for teasing and harassing me. He was sort of flabbergasted and finally managed a sorry but I ignored it and the teacher pulled me outside and asked if I wanted to go, and I said, no that I was fine now. After that no one at that school ever teased me. It took something so tragic as my mother dying and me also displaying a warning of possible violence, which I never swore or did things like that back then, to make it all stop. So Robin William's death stirred up memories of that. Great thing though he got in trouble, and I actually didn't get into a lick of trouble at all for swearing at age 12 hehehe.

Also, as I am an actress, writer, and lesser so an artist and I also struggle greatly with bipolar Robin Williams was someone that one of my therapists of doctors at one time had pointed out to me. Now that he is gone, we have all lost work that he was meant to do in his future... and I feel as if perhaps that I am meant to do more in my future. But then I also feel a pang of regret that he was able to so successfully asphyxiate himself and I have OD'd epicly several times and survived... It makes me feel somewhat embarrassed being reminded that I've tried to commit suicide several times and failed.

One thing that I saw that annoyed me was that on the Amazing Atheist was that men and women commit suicide equally, but women try more, so men are a lot more successful because they don't take a bunch of Tylenol then call 911. That really got under my skin a lot. What I heard later was that men blow their brains out. I don't own a gun, and I have never owned one. I have often tried to look for guns that others have owned so I could blow my brains out though. Never could find one though, so I would calculate a minimum dosage of medication that would depress my respiratory system and take way over that and not call 911, and results were sleeping for over 48 hours, sleeping for 24 hours, falling then hitting my head leading to a concussion so severe that I vomited up the likely deadly cocktail, and others calling 911. Not quite taking a bunch of Tylenol when you have taken enough tranquilizers that it should have killed you, but for some reason it didn't. I've taking more dosages of medications than celebrities have taken and then died, and lived! Been hauled off to the ER against my will, monitored, and survived, then forced to be watched for 72 hours. So the idea that all my attempts at killing myself were so horribly botched pissed me off. When I was 17 I went out into the woods and sliced my wrists so they were streaming out blood, reveling in the feeling and I forgot I had my cell so I had to answer it so it didn't appear suspicious that I wasn't answering it, and I wound up changing my mind. I have also self mutilated to the point that I should have gotten stitches but didn't. I mean, I cut about a cm strip out of my leg several inches long, several mm deep...

But yeah, I often like watching The Amazing Atheist's videos, like I like Thunderf00t's work, too. So far I have no surprised appearances in TAA's videos. There was one video that my best friend did not want me to see though, Rape, Feminism, and the Amazing Atheist, because of some of the comments that TJ, his real name, had made in heat of the moment times. He was apologizing and explaining most of them, except for one. One he stood by and even was trying to make it seem like it was so true and that all survivors of sexual trauma should abide by his comment. Especially because he got a reply that someone was helped by it. 

The comment was as follows, "Rape isn't fatal. So imagine my indignation when I saw a chatroom called 'Rape Survivors.' Is this supposed to impress me? Someone fucked you when you didn't want to be fucked and you're amazed that you survived? Unless he used a chainsaw instead of his dick, what's the big deal?' "Just because you got raped, you have to rape the English language? You vindictive bitch! Also don't you ever get tired of being the victim? How many failed relationships are you going to blame on a single violation of your personal space?"

"First of all," TJ says, "this was a piece designed to motivate rape victims to not let allow their victimhood to oppress them; to encourage them not to dwell on past events and to move on with their lives." "It's meant to be a humorous piece"  And he says I am sorry, that several rape victims this comment has motivated them move on with their lives, and not a SINGLE rape victim has told him that it 'increased their trauma' . Well I guess I am patient 0.

My long term boyfriend that I dated for years, he would always get angry at me for everything. He would be so pissed when I would be afraid of him when he was angry, because I had been conditioned that angry man=he is gonna beat the shit out of you, from my first and only bf before him, and my father. And that I couldn't stop being afraid of him being angry it would anger him more and fear me more.

He would yell and scream at me that I would be dwelling on my past when I would have a trigger PTSD event. I was raped so many times that I cannot remember, and many of them I have blocked it out. The first time I believe it was by my neighbor when I was 12, unless I blocked out something even earlier, but my first boyfriend, I can't recall how many times I was beaten or raped. TJ seems to have a blaze attitude that trauma is something that you can force yourself to get over. I try, I try really hard, but I can't stop the flashbacks from triggered, no matter how hard I try, and I do try very hard. I want to be normal like any other girl, especially because I am physically challenged now.

When it was something that happened over and over and over and over, how can you just get over it and make it not pop up in your head when you go to do it again? I was in a production of Footloose, whenever I hear the songs I feel a trigger to sing and do the dance choreography that I learned. When I start up my computer, my hands often go to where they would for playing World of Warcraft. I get into a car, I buckle my seat belt. There are so many instances in my life that when something happens I am used to something in the past, so I am triggered to do something, remember something.

I did find it really F$#%ing hilarious that he said that just because you were raped you don't have to rape the English language though... I had to pause that because I was laughing so much. Jacksfilms who does Your Grammar Sucks I love because I used to share the same things with my friends all the time, and now he does it en mass.

TJ was probably generalizing, or I hope that he was, about the rape survivors. There is a difference between being raped once by a stranger and being molested since age 5-12, raped at 12, then raped, oh and beaten, for the entirety of a relationship, then raped by your next boyfriend to boot.. Also the boyfriend who raped me, when it first happened, if you haven't read earlier posts, I wanted to go to the police, but I knew that he would kill me. Mandi Blackwell is not the name that I was born with, because he still wants to kill me. I went to my father for help cause I was 17, I knew that the cops would probably want to talk to my parent, (he had kicked me out at this point, and my apartment's door lock was broken you could jiggle it open). He said that he knew I was lying, so I had to just put up with that boyfriend until he was tired of using me... Then because I was a devout Catholic I was convinced that I was going to hell because I had been raped and he hadn't married me. (Deuteronomy) Which lead to suicide attempt 2.

I also hope that the comment about suicide by Tylenol was a jokingly generalization, too. Because when I was 17 and took gm's of a tranquilizer that I won't name due to safety reasons, I should have died. I awoke very refreshed though.

So I have been drawing, painting, sculpting, writing, and still playing WoW, and I found that On Stars Not Falling is now publicly available, and I am toying with the idea in my head of possibly trying to shoot it like a student film. With my depression slinking its hands around my neck while it pulls me under icy cold water that feels so thick, something like that would be so awesome... 

Because I never liked those falling stars, I always admired those stars in the sky who could hold on, like you, and you, and you....

I wonder if the script's been changed. God that'd be a pain in the ass to figure out.