Adventures in the supply chain

[flemmings]

So there's this antibacterial wash you're supposed to use for two days before surgery. Available at your pharmacy. Well, no, not at mine. 'You'll have to go to Starkman's,' she says. Call Starkman's. They don't carry it. 'Call Rexall.' Rexall isn't answering their phones. Try Shoppers Drug. Shoppers Drug webpage offers me various soaps but not the one I'm supposed to get. Go on Amazon. Large size, $47, ships from the US, border and customs fees and will arrive the week of the 18th except the smaller size which will arrive the 22nd. But someone in this chain of 'No we don't/ the webpage doesn't reflect what we have in stock' mentioned that it's correctly called something other than what the hospital handbook calls it, and *that*, hallelujah, is available from amazon.ca. Not from any of the pharmacies, you note.

I celebrate with chocolate covered almonds and promptly pop a crown. Dentist will glue it back tomorrow, so I must count my numerous blessings one by one. (John Gardner's Grendel quote. We go back fifty years on that one, when both Grendel and Gardner were considered All That by the callow English majors of my acquaintance. Wrongly, I now think.)

Comments

[conuly]

I'm glad you finally got it, anyway. (BTW - the stuff works wonders. It cleared up a minor toe fungus on a friend that she didn't even realize she had until she washed all over before surgery.)

[flemmings]

Really? I have a semi-chronic toe fungus, souvenir of Japan's mizumushi. Maybe I can finally say good-bye to it.

[kore]

Not to be Hlepy, but I had a terrible case of toenail fungus (possibly genetic -- my dad also had it) and using equal parts hydrogen peroxide and water in a foot soak cleared it up amazingly.

[flemmings]

I never know if I have a fungal infection or just delicate skin (between toes) and a tendency to, um, toe hangnails. Could see what an antifungal accomplishes.

[kore]

What a runaround!

Grendel and Gardner, I remember that. Updike gave it a glowing review I think. Franzen seems to be one of the last of the 'Great' White Male Colossi (fingers crossed).

[flemmings]

Updike would.

I doubt the breed will die that easily.

[anna_wing]

I read that as a teenager, and remember nothing about it except that I was not terribly impressed either.

[flemmings]

Everything was new back in the 70s. We've just become jaded.

[incandescens]

Multiple gah. Much sympathy for the tooth.

[flemmings]

A dentist trip is a nuisance but the tooth doesn't hurt, so I shall be grateful. Only it seems that anything toothlike on that side, even a missing crown on a dead tooth, makes my sinus unhappy, so those stray thoughts of 'maybe time for an implant' gets answered with 'no way.'

Then again, at my age both my parents had full sets of dentures, so once again, grateful.

[incandescens]

I have a longstanding tendency that whenever I have a cold and it gets into my sinuses, my teeth ache in sympathy. It's always worrying.

[flemmings]

Simply that one's sinuses and teeth are a lot closer together than dentists will admit? Pressure is pressure, I figure.