Wild Goose Chase

Hobbes is a puker. Anyone who has been around him has either been repelled by his constant state of wetness, or baptized by a large volume of baby vomit. All babies spit up, but his puking seems excessive, although it doesn't seem to bother him. It bothers me with the extra laundry I have to do, and the fact that he has ruined my carpet! I brought it up with his doctor at his 6-month check-up, and he prescribed a reflux medication, Prevacid (Lansoprazole), in pill form. We were to administer it by crushing it up and mixing it with some baby food.

Keep in mind that Hobbes is only 7 months old, and at the time we got the prescription, he had been eating solid foods for exactly one day. Getting him to swallow enough of it to be effective has been challenging, if not absolutely futile.

It hasn't been working, or doing anything at all, from our perspective. My carpet is still consistently being doused by little wet orange blobs of vomit.

Spiff mentioned that the medication could be formulated into a liquid format for easier administration, so I called the doctor's office to see if we could get that done. Piece of cake, said the nurse. She'd call it in to the pharmacy of my choice.

I chose the Costco pharmacy close to my house, and because a series of unfortunate events, I was unable to go pick it up for about 6 days. At the end of my shopping trip, I checked at the pharmacy. They said they hadn't filled it because they didn't have Hobbes's name/info in the system. I gave it to them and left, to pick it up another day, feeling guilty that Hobbes still didn't have his medicine.

The Costco pharmacy called me back later that day to say that they couldn't fill the prescription because it had to be "compounded" and needed to go to a compound pharmacy that could do it.

Slightly frustrated and quite confused as to what that means (although Spiff said, "Yeah, I thought that might be a problem.), I called the recommended pharmacy. They were super helpful, and all they needed was the number of the Costco pharmacy so they could get the script transfered.

New Compounding Pharmacy called back a few minutes later to tell me that Costco didn't have the script. I was confused because I had talked to them two days earlier, and they said they had it, but hadn't filled it yet. New Compounding Pharmacy then called the doctor's office to get a new script.

The Doctor's Office called a few minutes later to say that they needed to call New Compounding Pharmacy, but they didn't have the correct phone number.

New Compounding Pharmacy called several hours later to say that the new prescription was ready. The pharmacist said that Costco had lost the script, and she was confused as to why Costco couldn't fill it because it wasn't something that needed to be compounded.

It was, in fact, a pill.

Seriously?!

I wonder how or if this pill is any different than the one we already have. I also wonder where the confusion was in the first place. Yikes!

She said that it was something I can dissolve in a liquid and give to him in some water (which he doesn't drink) or his bottle (which he doesn't use because he is breastfed). Eventually, she understood that I would need a container and a syringe in order to dissolve the pill in a small amount of water and give it to him via syringe.

This sure is a lot of work for some reflux that doesn't seem to bother him. I'll pick up the prescription tomorrow, and then we'll finally be able to give this new medicine a try. I also sure do hope that it's the end of the story.