Taking A Deep Breath

As of yesterday, I think I have everything that I needed to get accomplished in terms of dealing with the Lone Star Girl's allergies and asthma at school accomplished. For now. I am pretty appalled that it took me until four days after school had already started. I just had no idea that so many complications would crop up, since we had managed this once already last year and it had not seemed as drawn out or complicated then.

First, there were the refills. We had the Lone Star Girl's annual appointment with the allergist in late July and I went to it blissfully unaware that the 'refills remaining' on her meds can't be filled if it has been over a year. The PA informed me of this so when we got home, I checked all of the meds and sure enough, the refills were out of date and the meds about to expire, except for the epi-pens which had one barely current refill left and which I then had refilled in the nick of time. Then the Lone Star Girl and Lone Star Pa promptly forgot and left the epi-pens in the hot car and ruined them. So I needed more.

I called the doctor's office for more refills on the Lone Star Girl's inhaler and epi-pen, but there were disagreements on what we needed. I asked for three of each - so she would have one set in the clinic at school, one set to carry on her in her backpack for when she's up there after school for rehearsals and the clinic is locked and when she's walking home from school, and one set for carrying in her purse outside of school. It took some time to make it clear why (where classes are located, the fact that she walks home, the nature of medical emergencies during which the nurse doesn't need to be rummaging around for a kid's backpack) there needed to be two sets for school and one for home - apparently doctors expect to only have two sets out at a time period and we just got lucky not be pressured about it last time. Finally, they got it, though.

Then, it was just a matter of actually getting the prescriptions physically filled. I started dropping by the pharmacy once or twice a week and over the course of several weeks, there was always only part or none of what we had ordered there when I went to get it. Communication between the doctor's office and the pharmacy was leaving something to be desired, on the pharmacy's end as far as I could tell. It took weeks to get all three inhalers and epi-pens (actually four epi-pens since they come in two-packs). Weeks.

Then there was the matter of getting the medicine and the benadryl (which I forgot the first time I went) to the school nurse, who works the same hours I do and went back to school at the same time I did making it hard to get to her, job-wise. I finally managed to get over there on a day she had stayed late and I had left promptly, but there was also the paper work that the school needs from the doctor about the Lone Star Girl's medications, including authorization for her to self-administer them. The doctor's office is open late on Wednesdays (we go there for the Lone Star Girl's ant bite injections every fourth Wednesday evening) so I took the paperwork there the next Wednesday after work (as I was already back at work) and dropped it off to be signed and faxed to the school.

Time passed. The nurse didn't get the papers. The allergist's office said they had faxed them. I went back this past Wednesday, picked up copies of the signed papers, and came home and made more copies just in case. Yesterday, the Lone Star Girl delivered them to the nurse at school.

Whew.

I think I'm going to ask for copies of the papers for next school year at the end of this school year and start this whole process again in June.