Spending the last week sick-as-a-parrot has been unpleasant, to say the least, but the worst part of it has been the frustration. While I can appreciate the need for childproofing drugs, must they be so ridiculously difficult for a weak, snuffling, bleary-eyed I-REALLY-NEED-THE-MEDICATION person, too? The entire process of getting well might have happened sooner, IF the dispensing of tablets, capsules and glow-in-the-dark fluids had been easier.
The antihistamine I required now comes in a blister pack that one must peel like the tiniest, wafer-thin banana known to man. It used to just punch out through the back of the packet. Try that now and you pulverize the tablet inside, making it impossible to ingest without looking like a crazed, curbside fiend. Were it not for my sneezing, runny nose, itchy/watery eyes and throat I might have been able to read the fine print instructing me to PEEL > but the raging symptoms affecting my ability to see at all made that out of the question.
Nighttime sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever, so-you-can-rest medicine was no more sympathetic to my weakened condition either. Again, presented with a blister pack I was better prepared to not make a fool of myself and managed to read the back of the package first. Printed at a bizarre angle all across the back were the words TEAR AT NOTCH. Simple enough, as said notch was clearly indicated. What was not-so-clear was the nuclear torque required to achieve the tearing part of this process. While scrappy and all that at my optimum, when ill my motor skills aren’t all that hot and I was defeated by the one inch of foil, plastic and paper that promised peaceful oblivion for at least four to six hours. As a public service announcement I’d like to suggest you not attempt to release the glowing kryptonite-like capsules with manicure scissors. It will not end well.
My latest attempt at feeling better involves a nuclear orange viscous concoction that comes in a bottle, with faint hieroglypics showing how to open the bottle, but only if you tilt and maneuver the bottle in the light just right in order to see it. Hello? If one of the symptoms I’m trying to eliminate involves itching and watering eyes, did it ever occur to the good people at Novartis that seeing might inhibit my ability carry that task out? Especially, if the drug I’ve purchased includes the words SEVERE right there on their label?!
What, me cranky? A little. The pharmacist should be happy that all of these maddening pills and potions are sold OTC (over-the-counter), or I’d come back there and poke him squarely in his not so congested nose. Instead, I’ll continue to stand in the cold and flu aisle staring at the overwhelming number of boxes and bottles to choose from that I’ll never be able to open without assistance from a child, who seems to be the only one in my household able to do so. Which I think is the farthest thing the FDC had in mind in the first place. Maybe their own bad cold and flu symptoms kept them from thinking too clearly about that.