Work continues to be extremely busy and very stressful. The deadlines for financial reports due at the end of the month are looming over me, while I am bogged down on transactional work that I can’t delegate to anyone because staff positions on my team remain vacant. Scholarships must be approved in order for students to be paid, and budget reviews must be completed in order for new researcher to be hired. The temporary staffer we brought on to help with more of this day-to-day work has not been performing very well and needs a lot of oversight to get things right. Most of my time is spent responding to emails, apologising to faculty for not getting back to them for weeks after they make enquiries, and triaging other urgent requests such as transferring research funding to other partner universities. I barely have any time leftover to do actual financial analysis and reporting work.
I’ve been getting out for walks in the early evenings, although the daylight is fading earlier and earlier. My weekly average is above 5,000 steps per day over this past week, although my walks have been getting shorter as the week has progressed. Christmas decorations up are already appearing above the streets of Dublin, although they are not being lighted up quite yet.
On Thursday, I woke up with a mild case of conjunctivitis (pinkeye) in my left eye. I called my GP’s office and scheduled a phone consultation with him later in the day. When I spoke to him, he didn’t think it was worth coming into the office to have him check my eye out, as there’s really not much one can do other than let it run its course. The phone call, however, did give me an opportunity to have a follow up discussion with him about my prescription medications. By coincidence, the night before I had just forwarded some medical records from my doctors in San Francisco to him as background on two ongoing prescription medications I am taking. Surprisingly, my GP had already had a chance to glance over the records I sent him and agreed for the time being to prescribe the same medications I’ve been taking off-label, since they aren’t licensed in Ireland to treat the issues I have. One caveat is that he would put in a referral to an endocrinologist regarding the medication I take for low testosterone to see if they would agree on keeping me on it long term based on long-term risk factors, etc.
After work, I headed to the Boots pharmacy on Grafton Street to pick up the prescriptions. Only one of them was ready, which wasn’t that surprising to me, although they said the other one would be ready the next day. The pharmacist called me over for a brief consultation, noting that the medications were not licensed in Ireland and that they probably weren’t the same brand names as I take “back home.” Obviously, she could tell I was not native to Ireland, but I found the comment rather condescending. I responded by telling her that I moved to Ireland and live here now, in a tone that must have conveyed my feelings, because then she apologised for her comment. At any rate, the prescriptions cost around €100 conbined for a one-month supply, much more than the co-pays I would pay in the U.S. under my old insurance. I still need to apply for Ireland’s “Drug Payment Scheme” card that would set a monthly cap of €114 on my out-of-pocket expenses for prescription medications (although the cap is being lowered to €100 according to the new budget for fiscal year 2022). It might not help that much, but I’ll take whatever I can get. I also need to double-check to see what coverage my private health insurance has, if any, to reimburse me for the cost of prescription medications. It’s still cheaper than the $800+ per month I would have to pay in monthly premiums to continue my health insurance in the U.S., not to mention the co-pays and costs of shipping medication over to Ireland.
On that topic, my sister had shipped one more 3-month supply of prescription medication to me a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, UPS was the only shipping option available other than regular mail, and despite the terrible experience I had previously with UPS in July, I told her to go ahead and use them again. The parcel arrived swiftly to Ireland last Tuesday 5 October, but it has yet to be delivered to me. As was the case with the July parcel, the status updates have been made-up excuses… first that they attempted delivery but didn’t have security access to my building (they couldn’t ring my apartment buzzer like everyone else?!), then that they hadn’t received payment for the import taxes (so I had to call their customer service number and make a payment over the phone), next that the address was incomplete (which it’s not and makes no sense whatsoever based on the claim that they had attempted delivery before), and today that they hadn’t received payment for the import tax (even though I had made the payment on Monday). Clearly, they are not only incompetent but also downright dishonest. I’ve phoned the UPS Ireland customer support line multiple times, and even exchanged emails with two managers who say they have followed up with the UPS Dublin depot, but none of that seems to be helping. It’s getting to the point that I’m suspecting the more I complain, the longer the UPS Ireland depot will take to deliver the parcel to me out of spite… if it ever gets delivered at all. NEVER AGAIN! Thank goodness I have been able to have my prescriptions filled locally,
I’m so glad it’s Friday. I snuck out for a haircut earlier in the afternoon at a father-and-son barber shop just one street over in Temple Bar from Spranger’s Yard. I’ve established a good rapport with the son who’s been the one to cut my hair the few times I’ve gone there. He’s in his 20s, speaks with a thick Dublin accent, and has tattoos over most of his body… nothing on his face, but his back is completely covered (I know this because he lifted up his shirt to show me once). The times I’ve been there the father is usually just sitting in one of the barber chairs without a customer, joining in with the banter I’ve having with his son. Later in the evening, I head back to Boots to pick up my second prescription. The streets are bustling with people out to celebrate the end of the week, with restaurants and bars filling up for happy hour. I don’t have any plans, as the friends I have here are out of town or otherwise engaged, so it will be another quiet night in for me.
A brief COVID update: Despite the vaccination rollout being hugely successful in Ireland, the number of new COVID cases has been trending upwards over the past week, which is causing some doubt and debate about the government’s plan of lifting all remaining restrictions in one week from today on 22 October. I would not be surprised if COVID certificates will still be required for indoor dining and bars, and that indoor mask mandates will be extended. There is certainly no political appetite for re-imposing restrictions once they are lifted.
Until next time….
