Our first pharmacy foray, as Anthony realizes he is out of his Omega-3 fish oil pills. He does not actually have a cholesterol problem, so much as he has an ego problem, and when the doctor told him his cholesterol was just a smidge too high to be in the perfect zone, he promptly went on a regimen of extra oatmeal and Omega-3s.
In the pharmacy, Anthony and I easily find a bottle of 100 pills, and we pass the bottle back and forth trying to decipher the price tag stuck to the bottle top. We are often confused by numbers here because they use commas where we use decimal points, and sometimes (but not always) vice versa, and as far as I can tell they sometimes don't write out the hundreth's spot. So 14,9 could be the equivalent of 14.90euros, if I am, in fact, correct. Since we both are clearly misunderstanding the sticker, we ask le Monsieur who works there for a price clarification, then nearly have the heart-attack we are trying to avoid with the fish pills when he confirms it is 102,9 -- that is 102.90euros or about US $150 -- for the bottle. Well, that's only 10 times the price for one-fifth the pills. "I'm sorry, honey, but at those prices, you're just going to have to live with imperfectly high cholesterol. Now shut up, and have some camembert."
So you can understand my sense of impending doom when I run out of my thyroid medication, a prescription pill I need to take daily, and walk into the pharmacy. Not only do I not have a prescription, but I haven't figure out my medical insurance yet, and I do not have a suitcase of cash with me. In the US, I pay $10, with insurance covering the rest, each month. I walk in, show them my bottle and the French translation of the chemical name, explain I don't have a French doctor yet, and approximately 2 seconds later, she walks over to me with a box of exactly the right pills, in a neat pack of 30, and sells them to me for 2,54 -- that's right, about US $4. This feels so much like winning the lottery that I go into 2 other pharmacies and do the same thing, effectively stocking up for 3 months to give myself time to find a doctor and get a real prescription.
When I get a migraine, and need to return to the pharmacy, I don't know what will happen. It's like playing Russian roulette around here. In addition to the fear of pricing is the fact that the last time I had a headache in France was when I was an exchange summer camp counselor during college near Biarritz, in Southern France. I walked into the camp nurse with a headache, and she handed over a suppository. I re-explained what was wrong with me, complete with lots of pointing and sign language. But no, she understood me perfectly, and again tried to hand over the suppository. Finally, I said to her, "OK, then just give me whatever you give the campers" (who were 3-12 years old). She held out her hand with the suppository in it, "This is what we give the campers." Oh screw it. I'd rather have a headache.
The pharmacist answers all my pain-killer questions, and I do find something that while not exactly Excedrin Migraine (my own personal miracle drug) does seem to have some of the same active ingredients, is taken orally, and only costs 5 times what I wish I were paying. When I ask about pain-killer for children, she shows me some pediatric acetaminophen and tells me, "We have chewable tablets, syrup, or suppository." Hmm...just how much of a true French experience do we want the girls to have?
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