new world, new life, new questions, and, as always, a cat

If our embarrassed government decided to inaugurate Obamacare for pets, it could only aspire to operate on the caliber of the megapharmacy I’m now dealing with to procure Coolidge’s new prescription.

My veterinarian has researched thyroid formulations for Coolidge’s sensitive skin, and, based on past experience, decided to use an out-of town compounding pharmacy that features free overnight shipping. It’s an online megapharmacy serving humans and pets nationwide. All I had to do was call in my payment info so the pharmacy could have Coolidge’s prescription to us tomorrow.

I dutifully called the pharmacy this morning. I listened to the recorded menu instructions until finally I qualified to do something. I pressed “0” because I am a Pet Owner.

Twelve minutes of obnoxious wait music later, I began to wonder whether I was going to be making a free overnight call. But finally a friendly human voice displaced the muzak. The sequence is universal. First, the cat’s name, always. No one seems to worry about duplicates. Then our vet’s name, and lastly, my name. The friendly human voice belonged to Dominique. She found our vet’s name, but not Coolidge’s name or mine. This was not seeming to go well.

Ah, but our vet called in our prescription on Friday. The megapharmacy was closed Friday. They probably didn’t want customers to expect Black Friday discounts on their prescriptions. So the order would be among their voicemails, voicemails from all over the country, which, Dominique told me with some (but, I thought, not quite full) confidence, they would get to by the end of the day. Someone would call me for my payment info, and Coolidge’s new skin-safe thyroid meds would be in tomorrow’s mail.

Before heaving a sigh of phone fatigue, I realized I had said my vet “called” in our prescription. In point of technical fact, she faxed it. I use “called” interchangeably, but I suspect Dominique is more particular. Faxes are not voicemails, and I had led Dominique on the entirely wrong trail. In a nationwide megapharmacy, for all I know, voicemails and faxes are in separate buildings. Or it could operate out of some guy’s basement.

In my state of gumption depletion, I called my vet’s can-do person and asked her to please relay the correct information to Dominique. Doctors and their people get to press a number that by-passes the wait music and gets a knowledgeable human specialist on the phone right away. Mere pet owners must wait, and while they wait, they should be comporting their thoughts to the specialized language of megathings.

I have so much yet to learn, not only in treating my cat’s illnesses, but even how to give and receive information to and from entities the likes of which I have never dealt with before. It can be frustrating and discouraging, but it has come into my life.

Isn’t that part of what sanctification is—seeing that a customary way of doing things has been just wrong all along, and no longer works in a new life?