Brendan Gates

We have returned, from Playa Del Carmen in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. Actually, we were just outside of Playa at the Hotel Valentin Imperial Maya. I took some pictures, you can see them on my Flickr page here.

It was a great trip. Very relaxing, lots of time on the beach. We couldn’t have asked for more.

A few comments:

– The Mexican people were extremely friendly, and not just the resort employees who could have been pleasant just for the sake of a tip. Every person we came across, down to the airport security employee who searched my bag, was amazingly friendly.

– Based on a consumer reports review, we went with a Walgreens brand sunblock. That stuff worked great; easily the best sunblock I’ve ever used. I thought for sure my fair pseudo-ginger skin was going to fry, but it didn’t. I have a little color from walking around without sunblock in the morning, but otherwise I look much the same as I did before I left. I can’t recommend this sunblock highly enough, especially considering it’s a discount brand and I put it to the test, spending at least 4 hours a day out at the beach or pool in the blazing Mexican sun. It was the Walgreens Sport SPF 70+ Continuous Spray. If you want to spend some time in the sun and not burn, even you fellow paper-white peeps, get this stuff (and don’t forget to reapply).

– And for other teetotalers out there, you can get non-alcohol beer in Playa Del Carmen. I had about a 50% success rate in getting it when I asked, and about a 85% success rate in getting a weird look for asking for such a thing. At the Argentinian Steakhouse in Playa they had O’Douls Amber, and at the resort they had Sol Cero.

– Back to sunblock, be advised that the super fantastic sunblock I was just evengelizing above will do you no good if you go snorkeling or swimming in the caves. Those are protected areas, and as such you’ll need biodegradeable sunblock. Predictably, it doesn’t work nearly as well. But if you’re going the cave route you probably won’t see much sun. Snorkelers should buy the bio-friendly stuff ahead of time so as to not be forced to buy the overpriced versions when you’re at the snorkel shop in Mexico.

– There is no shortage of “day adventures” you can sign up for, and the zip lines alone are worth the price of admission. We did the Tulum Xtreme and were led around by a great guide named Gus. You can see a video of me riding a zip line here, ladyfriend here, and Gus here. Our day trip was offered by Aventuras Mayas, and we would definitely take a tour with them again given the opportunity.

I’m sure there is more I can say, or there are details I’m forgetting, but the pictures and video links are the most interesting things anyway. If I think of anything else I’ll come back and append this post.

I don’t seem to have great luck with my pharmacies.

Last fall Walgreens gave me the wrong drugs for a month. I’ve also consistently run into issues with them either not having my full prescription available when I show up, or with the wrong doctor being called to approve my refills. So I decided to go straight to the source, and try mail ordering my drugs from my Pharmacy Benefit Management (PBM) company.

That PBM is Express Scripts. I placed the order via their website on 5/29. It arrived this morning, 49 days later. Is it just me, or is that a really, really bad turnaround? If my book from Amazon takes 49 days to get to me, I’ll probably be pretty annoyed. If my prescription drugs take 49 days to get to me, I could be pretty dead.

So what was the hold up? It wasn’t the shipping. The package shipped UPS Next Day Air from Arizona yesterday and showed up on my doorstep at 10am today. It also isn’t likely to have been my doctor, since I’ve been taking these drugs for 5 years now and getting refill approvals is a routine matter. Walgreens usually has the order ready in 24-48 hours; even when there have been questions or Walgreens had trouble reaching my doctor I never had to wait more than 5 days.

The truth is, I have no idea why it took 49 days for my trunk of pills to arrive. I sent two emails to the Express Scripts Patient Care Team specifically asking what the holdup was, and if I needed to contact my doctor or resubmit the order. Both emails were greeted with apologies and vague bolierplates about possibly needing to get approvals and how my patience was appreciated. They also listed their standard interval, which was that it could take up to 2-3 weeks for the order to reach me. Even that probably padded estimate of 21 days seems way too long to me, but they still missed it by a mile (in this case a mile = 28 days).

Express Scripts is headquartered in my hometown, and I have family and friends who work there, so this rant is certainly not personal. I wanted nothing more than for the transaction to go smoothly. I was going to place the order and have it arrive a week or two later, and I was going to be so happy with the process that I would ditch Walgreens and permanently convert to the masterful mail-order method. Not so much. I guess I’ll try Target next.

If you want to see what 1080 pills look like crammed into a chilled styrofoam trunk, I put pictures up on my Flickr account here.

Walgreens emailed me yesterday to tell me that it would take a few days to fill the prescription I ordered. Actually, I would have loved it if they were that specific. “We’ll let you know… Call the store if you have a problem with that” was the gist of the non-specific note I received.

So I went to the store. Mostly because I wanted to get some cold medicine, but I figured that I could ask the pharmacist when my prescription would be ready while I was there.

While I was in line, I noticed my phone had just buzzed. I didn’t recognize the local number, and I probably couldn’t have answered it fast enough before voicemail picked up anyway. Besides, the pharmacist seemed to be finishing up whatever was keeping him from me.

It was the same pharmacist I always dealt with. Beardy, we’ll call him. He’s a year out of pharmacy school, and he has the bedside manner of a puppy that’s convinced you’re going to punch it in the face at any moment. I explained to Beardy that I had gotten the email, and I wanted to know if I needed to go to the other Walgreens to get my fix. He typed my name into his computer and seemed to wince at what he saw.

Beardy: I just left you a voicemail.
Me: Great! So you beat me to it, I guess…
Beardy: ….
Me: So, do I need to go to the other Walgreens?
Beardy: We gave you the wrong prescription last month.
Me: What?
Beardy: …I sent a fax to your doctor already
Me: Um, okay
Beardy: …and your refill this month will be at no charge.
Me: Great. That $10 co-pay I save will do me a lot of good when I’m dead.
Beardy: [weeps] Please don’t yell at me!

Okay, so I made up the last two lines there. But the rest is for reals. Walgreens gave me the wrong prescription last month. A month, I might add, that proved to be more symptomatic that other months in recent memory. And for my trouble, I get essentially a $10 coupon.

What exactly was the mixup? The prescription I take is cyclosporine, and there are two-formulations of the drug. Modified and Non-modified. I take the modified formulation, which is more bioavailable (i.e. more potent) than the Non-modified formulation. Last month, Beardy and crew gave me the Non-modified version, which effectively cut my dosage strength down. It’s basically the same thing as if I had taken the correct version of the drug, but fewer pills each time.

I didn’t notice the error myself, partially because past prescriptions were all delivered in familiar branded-boxes. Last month’s however, had been removed of packaging and all put into a non-branded orange bottle. The other reason I didn’t notice was because I didn’t want to. The “wrong” pills were smaller and less stinky. It’s too bad I don’t get to keep them.

Anyway. I’m still waiting to find out when I’m going to get my refill, of presumably the correct formulation of my daily drug. CVS Pharmacy, anybody?