Thursday evening I was feeling kind of bummed out after work. I'd been to the pharmacy to pick up my meds and was told that the insurance company had "updated" their formulary and decreed my medicine "out of formulary," thereby jacking the price up from $30 to $60. This forces me to take the generic version, which is only $10, but works about half as well. That would be bad enough if we were talking about an allergy medication, but this is an anti-depressant, so I knew I was looking at near future of increased bouts of sadness and despair.
Enough to bring anyone down, I think. And it's doubly frustrating because there's nothing you can do. There's not even anyone to yell at. It's not the pharmacist's fault. It's not the fault of the guy on the phone from the insurance company (though I did give him a healthy dose of the rough side of my tongue, I assure you). It's not my doctor's fault. The people who made this decision did it in some shadowy, no doubt richly appointed board room somewhere, based solely on the output of their stock portfolio. It's just maddening. You can get to anyone to tell them what their decision has done you. I can't afford $60 a month for these pills. But can I afford to be depressed and crazy more? I have a kid to raise, a life to lead!
I have decided to just ask my doctor to increase my dosage. I don't necessarily need the increase, at least of the brand name medication I don't. But I know I'm not at my maximum dosage, so there's room for an increase, which should make up for the 20% drop in active ingredient allowed in the generic.
I know generics are supposed to be "Just as effective." And I always used to believe that, until I made the switch one time and was longing for death two weeks later.
Anyway, I told you all that to explain why I was feeling a bit low after work on Thursday. I went out to sit on the patio and enjoy the late afternoon sunshine and read a book. I was sipping my wine and reading peacefully when I heard a ruckus in the limbs of the crepe myrtle bush at my back. The ruckus became a scrambling and then the dogs came to attention and leapt at the bush.
A squirrel had apparently missed its footing and fallen through the branches. The dogs were after it in a flash and the poor thing panicked and took off across the patio, practically under my feet! It actually stopped under a chair in front of me and then was off again like a shot, but it ran the wrong way and got itself cornered between a planter and the porch steps.
At this point I realilzed the poor squirrel was truly in mortal danger, and I jumped up from my chair to try to call off the dogs, but just then the squirrel made a desperate run for the yard, right between Roxy's feet, and she had it.
She snatched it up and made for the yard with it, with Flower right alongside her and me in hot pursuit. I snatched up one of the dozens of fallen sycamore branches that are currenty littering my yard and started wailing away at her, trying to get her to let the poor thing go. Twice she dropped it, but snatched it up again before the squirrel could right itself. And then she dropped the poor thing again and Flower caught it. I switched my attack to FLower.
At last Flower let the squirrel drop and I stood over it, swinging my sycamore branch to keep them at bay. I thought the squirrel would run off, but it seemed frozen, its little sides heaving, just standing in the grass at my feet.
I didn't know what to do. I couldn't leave it to go get a towel or box to put it in, because the dogs would grab it immediately. I didn't dare try to pick it up bare-handed. Fortunately about that time Grayson came out to see what all the shouting was about and he helped me out by corralling the dogs into the house and then watching the squirrel while I went into the garage for a box.
The little thing didn't move a whisker all this time. It just stood there, as if it had frozen stiff in the act of running: with one leg out behind it. Grayson said he was afraid the leg was broken, and it may have been, I don't know. When I tried to pick it upwith a towel, it did sort of hobble away and bury itself in a pile of leaves next to the shed, but then it didn't try to escape again when I scooped it up the next time.
It's a young squirrel, which probably explains its poor choices in the melee. I put it in the box with some old baby blankets of Grayson's, and didn't see any blood. Amazingly enough, I don't think the dogs punctured it anywhere, but I do think it was hurt in all the dropping and snatching, but not seriously. Mostly just scared half to death. It held very very still, with its face buried in the blankets, and didn't try to escape or make any move to defend itself, even when I gave in to temptation and petted its soft little sides. I let Grayson pet it once, too, and then I closed it up and we left it alone. We kept it in the box overnight, with a heating pad underneath to help keep it warm and ward off shock, and some tiny little peanut butter sandwiches and a bit of water. Before I went to bed, I checked on it and saw that it had nibbled on some of the peanutbutter, and was curled up tight and sleeping. On Friday morning I drove the little guy out to Wildcare to be taken care of. The woman who checked him in reached in and picked him up to check him out and again I saw no blood on him. He squeeked and struggled, so I think he'll make a fine recovery.
I'm a hero!
This morning, however, I was out on the patio and heard a scrambling as yet another juvenile squirrel made a miscalculation in the crepe myrtle. He slipped, scrambled, saved himself, and then made an awkward leap to the porch roof, an equally graceless scramble across the cable to the tree and a fairly lumbering climb out of sight. Must be a litter-mate of our rescued squirrel. Lord help him.
