I was a regular at my pharmacy, or rather my mom was a regular on my behalf. When I was a senior in high school, there was a medical incident that left my right arm useless and in incredible amounts of pain. Now we know that I have a type of nerve damage, but at the start we had no idea. I went from having only the occasional prescription for antibiotics to being on everything from blood thinners and pain medication to nerve blockers and antidepressants.

When I went away to college, things got more complex. I switched doctors, but my insurance wouldn't cover any pharmacies in the northern half of my state without a huge copay, so I had to keep getting my meds from my hometown. I was changing meds and amounts so often that my refill schedule got all jacked up, and there were weeks that because of insurance interference and necessity my mom would be down at the pharmacy three or four evenings in a row.

One time, after they had quadrupled the dose of Neurontin that I was on, the pharmacist actually broke down crying because of how much of how many meds I was on. I was taking like 20ish pills a day at that point, and the pharmacist couldn't wrap her head around the fact that a "kid" who had been completely fine only 9 months before was going through that.

Mind you, I had barely met this woman, but one time (after I had somewhat recovered and finally said "fuck it" and quit taking any meds at all) she saw my mom and I in a restaurant, asked my mom if I was "the one with the arm", and then just threw her arms around me and held me. Freaked me out, but my mom and the pharmacist both started crying.

Yeah, pharmacies are sad places to be a regular, especially in a small town.