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I fix cars.
I want to get that out there up front because by the end of this I’m going to sound like somebody who knows a lot about biologics and I want you to understand that is not who I am. I am a person who fixes cars. I have been fixing cars for thirty-two years.
I was happy.
Pam Hoeffler started bringing me her Subaru in 2019 and she was a normal customer until approximately March of last year when something happened to her skin and consequently to my life. I don’t know exactly what Skyrizi® is. But I know more about it than I want to. I know it has something to do with a protein. I know the protein is called interleukin-23 and I know it drives the inflammatory response in moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis because I have been told this ten times, including once while I was lying under her car on a creeper with nowhere to go and she leaned down and told me anyway.
“I’m under a car,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “So you have a minute.”
I did not have a minute. I had nowhere to go.
The fourth time she came at me I tried to head her off. I said Pam I know, I know about the Skyrizi, I know it worked great, I’m happy for you. She said oh good so you know about the injection schedule. I did not know about the injection schedule. I know about the injection schedule now.
This went on and on. She had an ongoing issue with her Outback that I, uh… that I know a less scrupulous shop might have milked but I couldn’t get this one straightened out fast enough.
This last time she starts up I couldn’t help myself. I lose my shit. I says to her I says, “Look Pammy, if you don’t shut the fuck up about Skyrizi I’m going to give you another moderate-to-severe reason to consult your physician.”
At first she didn’t know what to make of that. Then she thought it was terrific. Wrote it down.
Just to make her go away I play it off like it was a joke and says to her the tenth visit for her tranny is free. She thanks me and starts backing out. And then I hear myself say this:
“Nothing is everything.”
I actually said that.
Out loud.
Anyway, that, I assumed, was the end of two things: the Outback issue, which I finally got to the bottom of, and my involvement with the biologic pharmaceutical industry. At least for awhile.
Then a woman named Linda came in about a water pump last Wednesday.
I don’t know Linda. Linda is not a regular. Linda found me on Google and drove over from Wheaton and while Tony was writing her up she stood in the waiting area with her arms crossed and I could see from the bay that she had something going on with her forearms. I’m not a doctor. I fix cars. But I have been educated, against my will, extensively, and I know what I know.
I did not say anything because it is not my place and I fix cars.
Tony brought me the keys and I pulled Linda’s car in and I did the water pump and I did not think about interleukin-23 at all, mostly.
When Linda came to pick up I went over the work with her and she was fine, normal, paid without complaining which I always appreciate, and she was almost out the door and for some reason I say, “hey, you been to a dermatologist lately?”
She turned around.
I told her I wasn’t trying to be a creep. I told her I fix cars. I told her there’s this thing called Skyrizi and I don’t know nothing about it except everything, and I gave her Pam Hoeffler’s phone number because honestly that seemed more efficient than trying to explain it myself.
Linda looked at the number. She looked at me. She said “is this your wife?”
I said no, she’s a customer, just call her, she’ll talk your ear off but she knows what she’s talking about.
Linda called. I know because Pam called me the next day to say thank you and also to remind me that risankizumab-rzaa is administered via a single annual injection after two starter doses, which I already knew.
Linda has an appointment with Dr. Kulkarni on the 19th.
I fix cars. I don’t know who I am anymore.
s’not news thanks Dave for his contribution. Skyrizi® (risankizumab-rzaa) is allegedly a registered trademark of AbbVie. Oil Be Damned is not a dermatology practice but is now offering light skincare advice as part of a complete diagnostic consultation.
