Please bear with me, weeks and months go by with nary a ripple in the otherwise smooth placid river of my life.......
My DH takes strong prescription medication for compression fractures and osteoporosis. His doc started him out on hydrocodone and because of the nature of pain meds and nephrotoxicity, he's careful about dosage. Eventually he'll be on morphine at some point but he lives with a certain amount of pain in an effort to push that day into the future. As a 100% service connected disabled vet, he receives all of his medical care at the VA.
The prescription has to be rewritten every month. If he presents more than 3 days before, the VA refuses to write the script. He never exceeds the recommended dosage and his normal routine is to drop the empty bottle off before other scheduled appointments. By the time he's through, he's able to pick the medication up and he's set for another month.
Yesterday he was completely out...His last dose had been 24 hours before so he showed the empty bottle to the receptionist in the clinic area, we walked 15 feet to the pharmacy and he showed his empty bottle to the tech behind the bullet proof glass and we sat down to wait. The receptionist had to get up from her chair and have the doc rewrite the prescription and enter it into the computer system so it could travel 15 feet electronically to the system in the pharmacy.
We had been waiting quietly for 90 minutes reading year old copies of the VFW magazine when the pharmacy tech came into the waiting room to tell us that she still hadn't received the order. She suggested G should go back to the clinic area to check on the status.
Okie dokie. No problem. G left and I picked up a 6 month old Reader's Digest and tried to ignore the ever present babble on Fox News. (every single television in every waiting room in every facility is permanently tuned in 24/7)
He approached the receptionist and asked about the status of his order. She told him the doctor and the his nurse were both tied up with patients. He then told her he had a critical medication that had to be rewritten and he would wait to see one or the other... He sat down in the empty seating area.
That's when the two federal cops showed up.
Dressed in black uniforms, wearing bulletproof vests with their hands on their sidearms. They walked into this empty waiting room, called his name (they mispronounced it and he corrected them) and when G answered, he stood up.
The cops immediately took an aggressive stance and began to tell him to back up.
This is a 5'4" hunched over man wearing a mask. When he's not using a wheelchair, he gets around on crutches or a cane. When he stands up, he has a sort of lurch to get his prostethis under him and bleed air. They took him into an empty examining room and proceeded to verbally berate him for intimidating the receptionist. They hassled him about why he stood up when his name was called.
He never once raised his voice, never used threatening hand gestures or enthusiastic arm movements. He didn't swear or call the receptionist any number of unmentionable epithets.
He stood up when his name was called.
I wasn't privy to the conversation that took place between the cops and G in the examining room. According to him, he ran down to them what had taken place, reiterated that he hadn't been the least bit aggressive in voice, tone or stance and asked them which presented the more threatening scenario; a stooped one legged double transplant recipient wearing a surgical mask or two six foot storm troopers.
After a short period of time, he came out and the cops told him his prescription had been written. He and I gimped back to pharmacy and waited another hour and 45 minutes for it to be filled.