By Jim Hagarty
I met with a skin specialist in another city a few weeks ago.
She is a very busy doctor and while she always gives me the attention I need, she is forever in a hurry to get to her next patient and I have to be on top of my game to remember everything she says to me. As it always happens, I have already forgotten a few of her instructions.
That day, just before she left the office, she wrote some things down on a notepad with “Clarus – Isotretinoin capsules ISP” at the top of the page. I stuffed it in my pocket.
Twenty-two days later, I found the paper and studied what she had written on it. I could make no sense of it: HBA/Advanced, BMos. What was this? A cream? A spray? A pill? It was not a prescription, so it would be over the counter stuff, but what stuff?
I went into my pharmacy and handed a woman the note. Soon, pharmacists were gathered around, sounding out the words. HBA/Advanced. BMos. They searched back through their professional memories to try to find a medical match, but just couldn’t do it. As they were sounding it out, a vague memory started to creep through my brain.
The doctor had asked after my son and daughter and we got talking about possible university programs. She highly recommended two programs – HBA/Advanced and BMos – at Western University in London and she scribbled them down on a notepad for me.
I had no choice but to call off the investigation by the kind pharmacists who by this time were probably questioning their own competence. They handed me back my note but wrote on it “Western University programs” in the event that I wandered back in with the same problem a week or two from now.
“Could you help me find my way home?” I said, embarrassed. I could hear them all laughing as I left.
At least I could still hear them.
My next appointment is with a hearing specialist on Monday.
