As today is the last day of the year, Melissa wanted to see if she could buy the prescription medicines she uses and thereby make sure they ended up in a year where we have satisfied our medical insurance deductible. Four of the six things she was after were relatively easy to find. But the other two were hormones - progesterone and estrogen. After having tried three pharmacies, Holly says that we should go to the hospital pharmacy. The local hospital here has a modern pharmacy with a robot that the pharmacist tells what drug to go get and the robot retrieves it from the inventory. They have a big screen TV in the waiting area where you can watch it.
Super cool, but alas they had none of the two hormones. Of another of the medicines they had a single box, inside which was a single pill. So while the fancy robot might be capable of retrieving anything in inventory, apparently they don't have a good inventory system that guarantees they actually have what they need in stock.
After trying several more pharmacies, we finally gave up and headed back to the hotel. There was one more pharmacy along the way. When Melissa got to the counter, the pharmacist actually got out a big book and started studying it. She puzzles. She puzzles some more. Eventually she comes back with the progesterone. But its double the dosage. No problem, I can cut the pills in half. Sadly the pharmacist shakes her head, no. She pulls the pills out and they are spherical like a ball. Now what fool makes a pill spherical like that? But Melissa spots a score mark, and points it out to the pharmacist Her eyes light up, yes, indeed they can be cut in half! Whoo hooo!. But the pharmacist says she has no estrogen. Then she pauses and thinks some more. Wait here a second. She disappears into the shelves and comes back with a box of estrogen. Its a dosage just slightly different than what Melissa had asked for. Close enough! So bottom line, probably a lot of the pharmacies we had been to earlier in the day had the medicines, but it took that one pharmacist willing to study and think to find the right medicines. This is super cool because (1) the progesterone sold down here is the natural form rather than the synthetic (which some argue is actually better), and (2) the drugs are much much cheaper down here. So being able to stock up before we come back to the states on everything is great.
The whole idea when we booked the hotel in Panama City was to get a room from which we could watch the fireworks over the bay. We figured cruiser midnight being typically at 9pm, we were unlikely to be out partying at midnight anyway. We headed off to dinner at one of the few restaurants that Melissa could get a reservation at. Turns out that most restaurants here are closed on New Year's Eve. Go figure. The restaurant was nice, the appetizer was a locally made buffalo mozzarella that was super tasty. And the risotto was perfectly cooked. But when the steak that Melissa and Dave were sharing showed up, it was still raw inside. We had ordered it medium, but it wouldn't even have qualified for rare. So we sent it back. Unfortunately, rather than wash off the sauce and finish cooking the meat, instead someone in the kitchen popped the plate in the microwave. It came back inedible it was so overcooked and tough. The waiter apologized profusely and took it off the bill. Oh well, the wine and the rest of the food was good.
We headed back to Deb's place and ended up hanging out past midnight. From the penthouse we couldn't see the "big" fireworks show over the bay, but the city just lit up with fireworks all over the streets and we had a great time drinking too much champagne and hanging out with friends. It was a great way to bring in the new year.