Goldilocks and the D3

I received a phone call from the doctor’s surgery today to tell me my blood results are back and that I’m pretty damn low in Vitamin D.

Fair enough, it explains the tiredness and bruising a little but when she first introduced herself on the phone my breath stopped.

Now, just this week I started taking a general pregnancy multi-vitamin that has already made me feel a little better, especially in the heat when I didn’t want to eat anything but iceblocks.

To put things in perspective, instead of working solidly to my usual Thursday routine today I’ve had ‘the talk’ with my boss and the idea of being officially unemployed next year is making me squeamish, then I had a meeting with a community group that sucked up the rest of the day on patting backs and kissing…cheeks.
So I was very self-aware that my own patience was already at stretching point and I did not want to go to the pharmacy and I had things to do back in the office.
I was already frazzled, I admit that.

…so here’s where it starts heating up.

I front up to the pharmacy with my instruction for 1000 units of Vitamin D.
The pharmacist I’m talking to speaks English as a second language and has a habit of saying ‘yes’ when she means ‘no’ and vice versa.
She pointed out that they had a few choices for me.

There was a choice of 1000 units of Vitamin D (there was something called D3 but we won’t even go there), there was the 250 units and the 500 units but that comes with calcium built in.
I am already taking 250 units of D in my multivitamin and 59mg of calcium.
The instruction says I can take two tablets of the multivitamin daily – I’m only taking one (my argument is we eat well, I only need one, one has made enough of a difference).

…are you keeping up?

Ok – so I can’t take the 1000 unit tablets. That’s too much.
I don't want to buy the 250 units - that really isn’t enough.
But the 500 units has Calcium.
And I asked ‘are there any dangers associated with taking too much calcium’? And the pharmacist said ‘no, your kidneys’, with a worried look on her face.

…still with me?

Now in the middle of this we’ve had three visits behind the desk to consult with the other pharmacist and check the computer for information about this cocktail of minerals, vitamins & trace elements.

Ok – so I walk back to the wall of vitamins and I pull down the one I’m already taking and arrange about $220 worth of bottles in front of me on the counter and start playing that game where the fraudster shuffles cups around in front of you.
‘Ok,’ I say. ‘I can’t take this one,” slide to the right. ‘But this one and this one,’ slide to the left, ‘aren’t enough?’
Then she has her turn.
‘Ah, but this one,’ slide to the right ‘you should be taking two of, and that is too much to take this one as well,’ slide to the left.
‘But I’m only taking one of these,’ feint right, slide back ‘do I need to take two if the one I’m taking is making me feel better?’
‘But your doctor said…’

...stop. Recoup.

‘Can I take too much Vitamin D?’
‘mmmmh? Maybe you should ring your doctor to be sure.’
'But I won't see my doctor until the 30th and I'd like to sort this out now as they implied that I really need to get some more Vitamin D into me.'

And then I asked again.
‘Is there a level of calcium that is unsafe?’
‘No. But your kidneys’
What?! What is that? Is that a ‘no’ or a ‘yes’?

I tried again. From a slightly different angle.
‘Is there a problem if I take too much calcium?’
‘Oh no, calcium is very good for your teeth and bones and when the baby’s teeth and bones are forming…but you should not take too much because it is bad for your kidneys.’

…now, this is where you stop, and breathe.
Because it’s sure as hell what I had to do at that point.
I actually felt myself step back from the counter in some kind of self-censorship of my thoughts...or in preparation for leaping over the lipgloss testers and jelly beans to throttle the mild-manner chemist.

So, while the pharmacist went back to her computer (I'll just check) I stormed out of the pharmacy with two bottles in my hand (unpaid for mind you & valued at roughly the same amount as my eldest child's annual school fees) to where I’d seen the local GP taking getting her hair tinted in the hairdresser’s next door.
The poor be-foiled, be-smocked medico was confronted by a red-faced virago shaking a giant bottle in each hand like maraccas and shouting: ‘can I take this with this without my baby growing tusks or having a concertina spine?’
Her answer: ‘yup – no problem’.

…oh no. I’m not done yet.

Back through the swinging doors of the pharmacy like a gunslinger I strode, slapping down my two bottles amidst the cornucopia of supplements now littering the counter, along with the $80 of giftware I’d somehow collected by osmosis in my half hour of prolonged negotiations.

Shocked by the final amount, I split it between my card and account, already itching to be back at my desk and put as much distance as possible between me and the pharmacist’s eager but uncertain expression.
I stormed up the street like a madwoman with my arms full of rattling bottles and gift-wrapped boxes (I’m sorry, that won’t fit in our bags) only to discover as I unpacked all the bits and bobs into my bag at the office that I HAD JUST SPENT AN EXTRA $66 TO PURCHASE THE ‘EXAMPLE’ VITAMINS I HAD ALREADY BOUGHT A WEEK AGO!

…I may, just possibly, have been sobbing by this point.

So back went the virago, waving a bottle the size of a teapot in front of her.
‘I don’t want this one!’
And the lovely, sweet, mild-looking pharmacist said to me ‘but I don’t know how to refund an account purchase’.

Which is about where the retail assistant made eye contact with me from the depths of the shelves (her eyes urgent and placating, mine wide and manic), leaned over to the pharmacist and whispered ‘F2’.

…and that was juuuust right.