March 7, 2026

You have to Bring Us the Med

I’m new to this additional drain on my time as a member of the sandwich generation. Maybe it’s just injectable medications that this is happening with? Friends of mine who have lived abroad tell me that they have to go get antibiotics and bring them to their hospitals when prescribed (instead of the hospital having them there) whereas others have told me that in some countries there are antibiotics in vending machines that people can purchase without a prescription. Well Dad was prescribed a vitamin to be injected. Mom was recently prescribed another medication that needs to be injected. Dad is now taking that vitamin orally, but when he was getting weekly injections not only was he going into the doctor’s office to get them, but he had to go to the pharmacy to pick up the medication and bring it into the office. If something is being done at a doctor’s office, why is the patient running to get it? Something else for the patient and family to do. Mom’s medication is extremely expensive so we had the doctor send it to an online pharmacy. Then we found out that the deal it looked like we were going to get was not going to work out and picking it up at the local pharmacy was the same price. Due to Mom having surgery and recovering in a rehabilitation facility we didn’t know when she was going back to the office to have this medication injected so we waited to order it and now it is too late to order it from the by mail pharmacy anyway. But now the prescription has been sent to the online pharmacy so we had to call the specialist’s office to ask them to call it into the local pharmacy again. Anytime you place a call there it takes them at least 48 hours to get anything done and every time I am wrapping up with work the doctor has left for the day and anything we are looking for is a tomorrow problem (if that). So she has an appointment for next week for the nurse to inject her, but we must get the meds first and we have to refrigerate them and remember to bring them along. The first time I hurried Mom over there for a nurse appointment for an injection I forgot the medicine in my fridge. Thankfully they did have a sample they were able to use but I had to put in a reminder not to do that again. Mom has home health coming to the house for PT and OT post surgery and in preparation for her next knee to be replaced. The nurse saw her for less than a week and signed off saying we only needed PT and OT. I asked could she please stay on until next week to give Mom the injection at home so we don’t have to take Mom to the specialist’s office just to have a nurse give her the injection. The nurse declined to stay on for one visit next week and said that even though her home health agency is owned by the small hospital system just like the specialist’s office is there would have to be a whole separate order for her (the agency nurse working for the same company) to give the injection that we are paying for and picking up instead of the nurse who works at the specialist’s office. No problem, I’ll just lose a whole client session in the middle of my work day to bring Mom to the office after losing work time while on the phone with the office to get the prescription transferred. And you don’t even want to know how long it took with both Mom and I calling and using the portal to get the specialist’s office to let my dad come pick up Mom’s injection that they were storing in their fridge (because it comes in a 2-pack so once we get it to the office one of them can remain there until the next appointment but getting them to store it was a whole thing that they almost didn’t do also) and take it to the rehab hospital (which by the way is also part of their own hospital system) so Mom could get the injection while she was in there because they didn’t want to transport her to that nurse’s appointment at the specialist’s office.

I as the sandwiched daughter and advocate was told that I could give the injections at home to avoid all of this if I am comfortable doing that. I am currently quite hopeful that I will not have to become comfortable with that. There are many reasons I chose to work in mental health.