Braving the World by Pam Saylor

Author:Pam Saylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Indie Author Project

• CROATIAN DRUGS •

One of the first things I did after arriving in Croatia was to go to a nearby pharmacy to refill prescriptions. I didn’t need more medicine yet but keeping my stockpiles topped off felt safer. Dave was with me as I walked into a small pharmacy near our apartment and took a place in line. When it was my turn, I handed over my paper prescriptions and the pharmacist studied them for a long time. Becoming nervous, I exchanged glances with Dave. What was going on? The pharmacist finally smiled at me and spoke. “Can you wait? This will take a few minutes.” I agreed and wandered around the pharmacy looking at the unidentifiable products. Funny how the urge to shop ends when you can’t understand labels and don’t know what anything is.

When she called my name, I handed over my credit card to pay, but the cashier came back from running the card with a frown. “This card is not accepted,” she said softly. I motioned Dave over. He carried a different credit card, which he pulled out and handed over. Luckily his card worked. We left the pharmacy, and Dave jumped on the phone to call our credit card company in the U.S. about the rejection.

“The card was flagged. It was being used in Croatia,” said the account representative.

“Um. That is because we are in Croatia. We’ve been here two weeks using the credit card. Why was it rejected today?” he asked. He was irritated because he had spent a lot of time notifying all our credit card companies about our travel plans before leaving the U.S. Still, it was good to have two problems solved in one day. The company cleared the credit card for use, and the Croatian pharmacy accepted my paper prescriptions.

A few weeks later, I pulled out an inhaler I used. Hmm, this will be empty in a week, I noticed. I kept our surplus medications and supplies in a box in the only closet in the apartment. Pulling out the box, I sat on the bed with it on my lap. One by one, I pulled out and set aside each extra container of test strips and each extra bottle of medicine. I didn’t see a back-up inhaler. One by one, I put each container and bottle back in the storage box. I still had the empty box my inhaler came in, complete with the prescription label on the outside, but I didn’t have another inhaler. Mentally I thought through all of the doctor appointments we had gone to before leaving the U.S. We got shots. We got our teeth cleaned. We got prescriptions. We bought supplies. Then I realized what had happened. I had been hyper-focused on working with my endocrinologist and getting all of my diabetes medications and supplies organized. I completely forgot to ask my general physician for a written prescription for an inhaler. I emailed my doctor and asked if she could email me a prescription for the inhaler, but this apparently broke U.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.