Saturday and Sunday we had two glorious days of spring weather! Warm days with not a cloud in the sky…all experienced from our windows, since we have to remain in our homes. But not today. Today the weather turned cold, gray and we got rain with a mixture of snow right after I headed out to the pharmacy and grocery store. The weather people say we will have this winter weather all week, but lucky us, next weekend is supposed to be warm and sunny again, though no one can go outside to enjoy it.
I don’t know if it is a supply chain problem because of the travel restrictions or if all pain medication is being diverted to hospitals because of the coronavirus, but I can’t find a pharmacy that has my pain medication. You see, I suffer from chronic migraines caused by changes in the barometric pressure. A nasty side effect from a sinus surgery that I had years ago that cannot be fixed and has caused me to be under a doctor’s care for pain management for 14 years now. The best way that I can explain it is if you have ever flown with a head cold and your inner ears are swollen. That horrible inner ear pain during take-off and landing is the pain that I get, but it doesn’t go away until the barometric pressure rises again. Sometimes that can go on continuously for 2-3 days.
So today, I stood in line on crutches outside a pharmacy in the snow/rain for 15 minutes waiting to see if I could get my pain meds, only to be told they were out. I then tried a second pharmacy, but it was closed for lunch from 2pm to 5 pm. I then tried a third pharmacy, only to be accused by the pharmacists of bringing them a color photocopy of my doctor’s written prescription and having them tell me they couldn’t fill it because it was not the original prescription. It WAS the original prescription, and after arguing with them in Spanish for 15 minutes, I gave up and started home. I had a backpack heavy with groceries and my arms and shoulders were so tired that I could barely walk with my crutches. By the time I got back to my apartment building, I was exhausted and sobbing in frustration. My neighbor was coming out of the building and stopped to ask if she could help. She ended up taking my prescription with her back to the pharmacy where they basically told her that they don’t give out codeine to anyone and tried to convince her it was a photocopy. Joder!
All they want to give me is paracetamol, which would only help if I could schedule my migraines to happen between 6am and 2 pm because it has caffeine in it! If I take it after 2 pm, then I can’t sleep. So, to all of you doctors and pharmacists who think that paracetamol is the magic answer to codeine-based pain killers, you are HORRIBLY wrong and have obviously never had a migraine in the middle of the night that makes you feel like your inner ears are going to explode.
Sorry, but I really needed to vent.
Other than that, life is just swell. I have very little work, which means very little income. I can only leave my apartment for groceries and to walk my dog. I haven’t seen my friends in weeks. My last physical contact with another human was March 25 when a doctor removed my stitches. And we still have another 15 days of lock down to go, though most of us think it will be extended. Yep, just living the dream in quarantine during a pandemic. At least I can mark that one off of my bucket list.
Dispatches From Madrid 