Small Town Compassion?

I thought one of the advantages of living in a small community is that people know and care. I never told the entertaining story of when Gabriel ran out of gas recently, but four people we knew stopped to offer him assistance in the 20 minutes it took for me to get there. That's one of the occasions that I've thought, "how nice to live in this community." Well, not so this weekend! My story starts on Friday. Friday afternoon I had a Dr. appointment for Alyssa who I knew had an ear infection. Thursday night, Elijah started coughing and by Friday, he was pretty sick. I called the Dr. on noon Friday to ask for him to be seen as well when I brought Alyssa in. The office lady told me they didn't have any spots for him. I explained that Alyssa was only getting her ears looked at and could they just share her spot. She told me no, but I took my sick baby along thinking that the Dr. I've seen for a few years would have some compassion. See, where we live, everything closes on the weekend, so if you have a sick baby on Friday you get kind of panicky. When I arrived, I explained my situation for the physician assistant (the actual doctor wasn't there) and she told me that they didn't have time to listen to his chest since she wouldn't have time to file my insurance. Now, here's the situation. I am probably their highest paying customer as I have nine children and am there pretty much weekly. I wasn't asking for them to listen to him for free, as I fully expected to pay for two children' s visit. I honestly think that if her only hindrance to helping my baby, who at this point was having breathing issues, was filing insurance, than she could have just listened to him for 30 seconds for free! Really, it could have been her good deed of the week or something. So, I left the office in less than 15 minutes from arrival, through a completely empty waiting room, with a sick baby that they didn't have time for!

Needless to say, we had a rough, rough night and JD and I took Elijah to Urgent Care first thing the next morning. The doctor there put him on steroids, breathing treatments and an antibiotic! Now, our neighborhood pharmacy closes on Saturdays at 1:00. I raced straight there and got in at 12:50. I asked the girl behind the counter if they would please fill the prescriptions before they close. She said, "but that's only 10 minutes." I explained that I wasn't trying to wait until the last minute, but I had come straight from Urgent Care and I had a baby with breathing issues. She looked at me, a well-known customer of 5-7 years, and said, "No, sorry...."

So, after driving to the next "town," I am moving my pharmacy business to CVS in the city. Our neighborhood pharmacy has a reputation for bad customer service but that was the final straw. I'm going to write a letter to them explaining why I'm moving my business elsewhere. As for the doctor? I have been really happy with her, so I'm going to write her a letter explaining the situation with the physician assistant and hope that she would have been more accommodating if my appointment had been with her!

The good side is that CVS will give me bonus bucks on all our prescriptions! I can probably get the kids free flip-flops by next summer with all the money I'll be making! Our friendly neighborhood pharmacy has never even given me a medicine syringe. Several times, I've paid $1.99 for a syringe, but yesterday I watched in disbelief as the cashier pulled a free one out for her "friend" picking up a prescription. Oh, CVS is looking like the promised land!