Mr. McGoo

You can almost sense him coming before he's actually at the pharmacy. He carries with him an aura that you just don't feel on many people. I think it has something to do with the simple peace that you can feel emanating from simple people. Take away just the right amount of acumen from the average person and they wouldn't have a care in the world.

Mr. McGoo (that's what I call him) is about 6'2", heavyset, and not the quickest of cats at the best of times. He's usually wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt that's a size or two too small (he favors Nascar shirts). Tattoos adorn his knuckles that are almost surely the product of basement artists done in wee morning hours. One on his neck appears to be done by a more professional hand and says Sacrifice. He used to have long, stringy hair that stuck out of his baseball hat that he opted to shave just as the air turned cold (an odd choice I thought). Mr. McGoo makes many odd choices, though, so I guess it's really not that odd at all.

On his last visit to the pharmacy, he presented a handful of prescriptions from his most recent visit to his psychiatric physician. It's always prudent to check his medication history before filling everything he brings as most of the time only a portion of the prescriptions are due to be filled. While waiting for his medication, Mr. McGoo sat himself at the blood pressure machine. He lives nearby the pharmacy, but every time he arrives he's short of breath and needs to sit down. After getting a reading, he gave me a number that was classified as Stage I hypertension (aka too high). I punched up his profile.

Me: Mr. McGoo, you haven't filled your blood pressure medication in months.
Mr. McGoo: Oh, yeah, I haven't been taking that. I ran out.

Mr. McGoo is almost always accompanied by his mother. She sat in a chair next to the blood pressure machine chuckling. I say chuckling because that's exactly what it sounds like. It's actually a tic. Mother McGoo doesn't get her medication filled at my pharmacy, but I'd hazard a guess that she takes some of the same psychotropic medications as her son. I can only assume that they live together and have the mutual responsibility of taking care of each other.

Concerning 'normal' people, nonadherence to their therapy does not bother me. I would be content to let most of my patient's blood pressures run high until their kidneys fail and aneurysms bloom in their brains. It wouldn't bother me because most people know better. Mr. McGoo does not, so I offered a helpful suggestion:

Me: Mr. McGoo, you blood pressure is too high because you haven't been taking your blood pressure medication. Don't you think we should get that filled?
Mr. McGoo: Oh, you're probably right Spiffy! Thanks!

When Mr. McGoo signs the pickup log, it takes him a good minute and a half, sometimes two depending on how many he's picking up. I'm not exaggerating. I'm willing to bet the people in line behind him wonder what the hell he's doing. I'm fine with that. I'd rather watch Mr. McGoo pen a thousand signatures than deal with most of the 'normal' people.