My Learning Experience of the Day

This week I caught some sort of flu bug that left me with a porcupine sore throat, earache, sore crampy muscles and a fever. Never a good thing when you have two little guys to keep up with! Thankfully my in-laws were a huge help and I was able to recovery relatively quickly...except for my ear. I have always been prone to ear infections and generally lose hearing for about a month in the infected ear - no joke. So when I woke up this morning, I knew I had to get to the doctor as soon as possible to hopefully nip this ear infection in the bud before I lost my hearing. Thankfully my doctor was able to get me in this morning and prescribed some strong ear drops to get the infection under control. Phew! He even prescribed me some pain meds - earaches hurt!

Hang with me here, I promise I'm going somewhere with this. =)

I was able to go pick up my prescription this afternoon. The bag had my name on it -as to be expected - and I paid my co-pay then picked up a few other items at the store. As I was paying for those items, I decided to check my prescription bag because I could only feel one bottle of meds - and I knew the doctor had prescribed me ear drops AND pain meds. So, I open the bag and see only a bottle of pills. Assuming they just gave me the pain meds and forgot the drops, I head back to the pharmacy.

I asked them to check and see if there was another bag for me as I didn't receive the ear drops I needed. The girl checked the computer, asked to see the bag I had, pulled another bag from the shelf and took off to the back of the pharmacy. Turns out they had given me someone else's prescription! The bag had my name on it - but the bottle belonged to someone else. Gulp! I doubt I would have even checked for my name on the label as I just assumed the pills were the pain meds the doctor had prescribed.

We got it all straightened out, but here is what I learned: ALWAYS check the label of your prescriptions! Even if the bag and receipt are labeled correctly, check the label too! Maybe I'm the only person who hasn't always been careful about checking the label for my name (though I check it for dosage and directions of course,) but I will always check from this day forward. I know that however this mishap happened, it wasn't intentional - it was just a mistake. We all make mistakes. But I guess that's why it's important that we are our own line of defense - just in case! I'm just so relieved it all worked out before I took pills not meant for me!

So, just thought I'd share my learning experience of the day. =) I have much more to blog about in the near future! And pictures too!