Standing in my doorway

Yesterday I did a day of work experience at Boots, the chemist’s. I do a full week at the beginning of July, but I did an extra day this weekend since I need the Friday off – long story, will get to it someday. I stuck labels on things, filed prescriptions, printed off lists and instructions for nursing homes, sorted returned medicine for being thrown out, and so on.

The woman I was working with said she felt sorry for me. I asked why. “Because you’re not learning anything, are you? It’s meant to be work experience, but all you’re doing is mind-numbing jobs that you could do anywhere.” I nodded and said that’s how it is, but honestly? I do think I was learning yesterday. I think I was learning a hell of a lot.

Perhaps not while dealing with the SUN-SAT stickers on the empty nursing home pill packs, but certainly everything else that involved shiny patient details. They were quite interesting to glance over (and also probably quite confidential – but if I was 105 years old I don’t think I’d mind a curious kid on work experience seeing my date of birth or allergies). Most were female and born 1910-1930. I couldn’t help working out how old they were during each World War, imagining what their lives were like. And then I thought of them in their care homes. And I couldn’t fathom that they were still alive. Relics of a generation so distant from my own, in time but more importantly in culture…

One patient had seven pages of medication and dressings, and she was either in her eighties or nineties. She was epileptic, and although I can’t remember the rest of her ailments, I can say she had the works. I exclaimed, “Seven pages!”, and this other lady was even surprised. I asked her if she thought it was all really worth it. This woman was only living in body, not in mind. She sighed and said that if these patients were pets, they’d have been put down long ago.

On top of this, another job I had to take care of was dealing with returns. These were unfinished or unopened packs of drugs that patients had refused either in part or wholly. The thought of these sick, old people not wanting to be medicated seemed so sad to me. I’m not sure I’ll ever want to get to that stage in my life. What was perhaps even more shocking was the amount of wastage pharmacies deal with. I almost felt like saying I couldn’t do this task, because it sickened me. Whole, unused sheets of pills, bottles of syrups, boxes of inhalers, syringes, dressings – all to be thrown away. I remarked how ridiculous it all was, and I was told that it was the only way, since no-one can know how the care homes have stored them.

All to keep dead people alive. Or not, as it is, since these guys don’t even want to be treated.

I’m not going to get started on the methadone prescriptions. You know, I think Medicine is a field too real for me. Although it was never really an option I’d considered, at least this work experience will have shown me that going into Arts & Humanities was the right choice; you don’t often have to deal with gritty reality, and when you do, it’s from such a distance that you can view it all as a sort-of study. Long live escapism!