CREATIVE THINKING GETS IT DONE

2023—We’re into a new year, and I’m still on two feet. As the years pass, I’m always a little skittish about whether another year will take its toll as I get older. 50 seemed like a real milestone. Now I realize that 50 was perfect—still youngish but with experience. Now, with each year, I look at the changes that have occurred and want to turn back the clock. 

So many things are more difficult now. Eyes—although I am not as sharp as I was in the past, I rarely use reading glasses. Although 6 and 8 look alike, I can still usually manage to read newspapers, product labels. Howard, on the other hand, needs reading glasses more than I do. Or, he uses me as his human near vision corrector. But his distance vision is great—20/20 in one eye; 20/25 in the other. Apparently I’m married to Superman. Though his knees aren’t what they used to be, so he can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound. Hearing—as we watch TV, Howard and I look at each other and get crabby because the actors mumble and the sound engineers haven’t done the greatest job. Or, is it us? Memory—we watch Jeopardy to keep sharp. I don’t know if it really works, but we can answer many of the questions. Though in other situations—Howard tends to open a kitchen cabinet and forgets to close it. When I take a shower, I can never remember whether I washed my feet or not. I probably did, but I do it again anyway. So, as I age, I do have the cleanest feet around. And when I look in the mirror, I see Einstein. Just the hair. If his hair were darker and he didn’t have a mustache, you’d think that we were related.

But the worst part of aging is my back. I’ve had back problems since I was 14. Now, it’s so much worse. There’s no good fix, so I cobble together a range of ways to manage. One option is the prescription level lidocaine patch. Not a cure all, but it helps. The brand formula is good, but extraordinarily expensive. When I was covered by employer sponsored insurance, the carrier actually paid for brand name. In a moment of lucidity, I think that an insurance medical director realized that expensive as they are, they’re less expensive than a more invasive intervention. But now, I’m on Medicare, and they don’t cover the patches, other than for treatment of shingles. So, I’ve gone with generics. (Quick tip—still expensive, but with Good Rx, the price isn’t that bad. And Good Rx can be used for covered drugs. Sometimes Good Rx is less than the insurance copay.) 

After some experimentation, I finally found a generic that was as good as the brand name. When I tried to reorder last month, the pharmacy said that they could no longer get the specific generic brand that I needed. I tried another pharmacy—same answer. Couldn’t the pharmacist try a little harder? Apparently not. What to do? What I always do—find a way.

I googled the company that made my generic brand. The phone number that I found just rang and rang. No email addresses—nothing. So I googled a bit deeper. I found that the manufacturer of this generic had been bought by the manufacturer of the brand name. I guessed that someone at the parent company should be able to get me to someone at a higher level within the generic company. I reviewed all of the titles of the executives listed for the brand company and emailed an Operations executive and 2 other executives, thinking and hoping that one would get back to me. In my email, I explained my dilemma and asked if one of them could direct my inquiry to whomever would be able to look at the problem and work with me to solve it.

I received a call from the Operations executive within an hour of sending the email. He explained that he didn’t have any ability to find my patches, but could get me to someone who could. He gave me that person’s name and copied him on the email. The brand executive also invited me to contact him if I didn’t hear from his contact within 24 hours. Sometimes, Corporate America employs Good Guys. Within 24 hours, I heard from the generic brand contact person. He explained that there was more demand for the product and they were having difficulty keeping up with production. But, he also gave me the name of three wholesalers who had first dibs on supply. We agreed that I needed to have a pharmacist call one of those wholesalers.

I called the pharmacy and gave the pharmacist the information. However, he said that they get patches from a different wholesaler. Dead end? Of course not! I walked him through a solution. Thinking broadly, I asked him if he used any of the prime wholesalers for other drugs. He admitted that he did use one of them for a couple of other drugs. I suggested (instructed) him to call that wholesaler and see if he could obtain the patches from them. He didn’t sound enthusiastic or optimistic, but of course, I pushed. I was waiting for some type of stonewall and planning to go to the Executive office for that pharmacy chain. But I didn’t need to do that. I was surprised with a call from the pharmacist a couple of hours later. The wholesaler had the patches and they’d be at the pharmacy later the next day. 

Problem solved! This old lady still has the creative juices to solve a problem and the gravitas, fortitude and persistence to get it done. Maybe being older has some value in situations like this——Nah, I would have solved this problem the same way when I was younger. Whatever—it worked.

IF THE FRONT DOOR IS CLOSED, TRY THE SIDE DOOR. DON’T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER WHEN YOU CAN FIND CREATIVE WAYS TO FIND A YES.