The numbing weather in the Midwest this past week can be life threatening...especially if you get stranded somewhere without your necessary medical supplies. For my son, that means all the gear that goes with diabetes. And for an overnight trip out of town, that means having more than enough supplies on hand....which of course I noticed were not in my cupboard Friday night as I prepared to leave town the next morning.
The Walgreens location I regularly visit is not open 24/7. Between the time the store was scheduled to open (8:00 a.m.) and the time we hoped to leave town (2 hours later), I still had to order the prescription, give the pharmacy an hour to fill it, return some rented video games, pick up my son from a sleepover, grab him a quick breakfast, get back home and give him his morning insulin.
Everything needed to run like clockwork. My destination was a 3 hour drive into the frozen tundra of northern Iowa. I wanted to have time to visit with my mother for a few hours before heading back on roads covered with sheets of ice to my husband's hometown where we were spending the night. I at least wanted my return drive to start before the sun went down.
So, you can imagine my panic when I pulled up in the drive thru lane at Walgreens and the store was dark at 9:15 a.m. I had even made sure to speak to a "live" person when I ordered the prescription to make sure they would have it ready. The friendly woman on the other end said, "We'll try our best."
As I had turned off the Interstate onto the street where both the video store and Walgreens are located, I noticed that the street lights weren't working. I didn't think too much of it. But when I got to the pharmacy and saw the darkened store, I figured the two were connected.
I waited outside the pharmacy window for a few minutes thinking about all the scenarios that could play out if I didn't get my new supply. Then, the pharmacist walked up to the window. She asked, "Can I help you?" I gave her my son's name and the information on the prescription I was picking up.
I also asked, "Don't you have power?" Her response was that they did not and that they didn't even have heat. She then went to get my prescription, verified my address and opened up the window to slide out my son's month's supply of syringes.
It's Monday now, and I still don't know if the lack of electricity was from snow and ice taking down a power line or something else. And, I don't need to. The pharmacy made sure I had what I needed. I now wonder how they printed off the prescription labels, etc., but I guess I won't know until the next time I go inside to ask.
In a September 2009 Brandweek article, Walgreen's Chief Marketing Officer talked about the company's efforts to truly understand their customers in an effort to make sure their services and messaging are relevant. They found that patrons such as myself enjoy that they are "truly accessible healthcare. If their baby has an earache or headache in the middle of the night, we are there for them...."
She went on to say that we count on them to be a trusted resource, including complicated things like "assisting a newly diagnosed diabetic. This all lead to the development of our new communication program, which is truly a...new slogan for the Walgreens brand: Walgreens: There's a Way."
In Iowa Saturday, that meant a "Winter Wonderland Way"...electricity or not.
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