Calgary

We didn’t leave Lake Louise until we had a coffee and toast at the local, wonderful, bakery. Here the ‘health cookies’ caught our eye. I know that ‘health cookie’ is a bit of an oxymoron, but nonetheless we decided that the batter would be the perfect gift for our next host family. The Hostel, where we stayed, in Lake Louise, is a quiet place to stay and much less expensive than the lodge across the street, where the best price point was over $260/night.

Scenery remained awesome as we wandered down to the lake and on to Banff and Calgary. Lake Louise was still frozen. I heard one poor tourist sadly cry out - but I thought it was blue!

As we headed towards Calgary, and reception was good for a change, we called and redialed the AIDS Calgary office until I thought I was bothering them. Finally, there was an answer instead of voice mail, and a delightful gentleman invited us to join them at the end of their Friday lunch program.

Sharing the photo album

Our GPS guided us to the address after ’recalculating’ as we had emptied the tank in the Rockies. That fill was over $75, and our most costly so far. Generally, we are getting about 20 km to the gallon with city driving messing us up from time to time - never mind my choice of routes. 

The clouds in Calgary are amazingly not coastal clouds!

At the office, we were greeted by a friendly crowd who wanted to understand why I had created a giant cocktail glass out of my pill bottles. It turned out that at least two people in the room had a stash of their own bottles and were thinking about art projects. I encourage everyone to create their own masterpieces using their imagination and tenacity.

We heard one story about another use for an accumulation of empty pill bottles. One HIV positive fellow was invited to make a presentation at a medical meeting. He dragged a large bag up to the podium, and, after he was introduced to those gathered in the room, he unceremoniously picked up one end of the bag. Pill bottles clattered all over the stage. “Is this a manageable chronic disease?” he asked.   

Returning the stem of the cocktail glass to the truck

This led several people around me into a discussion of the old drugs. There were DDI horse-pill stories. I listened thinking about the tooth decay that had blossomed while I was on that regime. I also heard a tale about a long prairie drive when this fellow’s alarm rang while he was driving. His pal handed him his meds and these he popped in his mouth, then mumbled “watta!” Since there was no water in the car his pal passed him a ginger ale. Well he managed to pull over before the volcano erupting from his mouth (think baking soda and vinegar) spoiled the upholstery.

We laughed and then talked about liquid ritonavir. Ugg! One doctor apparently thought that his medical colleagues should learn about this medication and chose a staff Christmas dinner party for the teaching moment. He invited everyone to try a tiny taste of ritonavir before dinner. This put everyone off their dinner - even spoiling the taste of tiramisu. Now, that team really understood.

And while I mentioned that I had never taken AZT on its own, another fellow claimed it had saved his life. Unfortunately, his reactions to the miraculous protease inhibitors were terrible. After only a single trial he developed diabetes, high cholesterol and lipo-dystrophy. Another good reminder that each of us has a different story to tell.

The stem of the sculpture, with all the HIV meds, instigated further conversations. Many people suffer from arthritis in their hands. Pill bottles with childproof lids are almost impossible to open.  One fellow was able to make arrangements, through his pharmacist, to have most of his medication delivered in bottles he could open. Someone else in the room spoke about the ridiculous packaging of medication for anxiety. This ridiculous bottle could not be opened by anyone in the room, when they were calm, let alone someone who was anxious.

There are many times when our best health requires a great relationship with our pharmacist. Another example of the need for pharmacists to assist us relates to meds for skin problems. These often come in small tubes, where the labels decrease our ability to draw out the medication - sometimes stealing as much as half of it from us.

 Adding Calgary to the 'stops along the way'

As I write this, the radio is announcing “National Prescription Drug Drop-off day”  I hope that all of you were able to safely dispose of your old meds or unused prescriptions safely, and let’s ask the pharmacists to recycle our medication bottles as well.

Sharing the story

Soon we will head to Regina where we are thrilled to be part of a march to expose the importance of addressing homelessness. In Calgary, we were happy to hear that people waiting for low cost housing  can stay at the Y - sometimes for years.  An added bonus to this arrangement, is access to exercise equipment.  We heard about one person’s discovery that a regular exercise program helped to address trauma. And the Y is amenable to helping make their equipment accessible even when a proper home is available.