It is a truth universally acknowledged that a late-diagnosed (twenty-three years late, might I add) woman with ADHD and a prescription for methylphenidate (Concerta in my case) must be in want of a functioning healthcare system. But alas, that non-existent truth has further lost its charm somewhere between the fluorescent-lit aisles of high-street pharmacies and the dim, muddled labyrinth of NHS bureaucracy. As someone with the misfortune of being tethered to this dystopian public healthcare system—while, I might add, supporting it by choice— and with how the services have become more and more unreliable, I almost regret having to do so. I find myself on a quest of epic proportions for my 18 mg Concerta. Here’s a little spoiler alert: it did not end in triumph (which would’ve been my local pharmacy) but in no other part of the country than Kent—more on that later. Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?

I naively believed that having my ADHD meds filled in London, one of the most "advanced" cities in the world, would be as simple as, oh, I don’t know, getting coffee in the morning. Silly me—the NHS, bless its well-meaning soul, has long provided a wealth of entertainment in the form of disorganization and incompetence, and this time, it certainly did not disappoint on that front. You see, I have this charming little prescription for Concerta, a brand-name methylphenidate that (despite relying on the NHS and having to pay for prescriptions—the irony does not fall far on me) keeps my life from unraveling in all the delightful ways ADHD can make possible.

The problem, as I discovered after making approximately seventy-six (yes, I counted) failed phone calls to pharmacies in and around London, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridge, Oxfordshire, and Surrey (I’ll get to the Surrey-related disaster later), is that none of them had Concerta—or methylphenidate, for that matter—in stock.

The conversation went a little like this (you have to bear in mind I’m calling independent pharmacies as Boots was completely out nationwide, and some do not accept NHS prescriptions, as I learned the first time when I played “pharmacy bingo,” as I like to call it):

Me: “Hi, do you accept NHS prescriptions?”

The pharmacist: “Yes, we do. How can I help?”

Me: Wonderful. (I was hopeful when I began this.) Do you happen to have Concerta 18 mg in stock?

The pharmacist: “Let me check for you.”

Typing sounds

The pharmacist: “No, sorry. We’re experiencing shortages.”

Shortages. Again.

It varied in how I phrased the question, and after about nine calls (which totaled to ten failures in a day), I couldn’t handle this much rejection in such a short period of time. I’ve had fantasies that are less repetitive than these conversations, and I actually finish (see what I did there). After the tenth call, it felt like someone was playing a cruel Kafkaesque joke on me. Only, I wasn’t sure who the punchline was intended for. Was it for me, my practitioner, or the state of the NHS in its entirety? Quite frankly, after call number thirty-five, I was ready to start weeping. Why the hell was this such a complicated task to complete?

It turns out my practitioner (the utterly useless male prescriber who, for some inexplicable reason) had failed to do the most basic task in his professional remit: check whether there was a national shortage of Concerta. You’d think this was common practice in the field of medicine, considering, I don’t know, the entire purpose of a prescription is for the patient to be able to fill it. But no, instead, this poor excuse for a healthcare provider wrote me a script for Concerta, a brand-name medication that could apparently only be found in the depths of Mordor—pardon me, Kent—rather than the more readily available and functionally identical generic version, methylphenidate.

To add further insult to injury, I’m not exactly in a position to opt for private healthcare at the moment (which is a story for another time), which did not make this arduous journey any more pleasant. At this point, I’m left with two options: continue calling every pharmacy from Mayfair to Margate in the hopes of finding this elusive drug or take matters into my own hands and embark on a rural pilgrimage to the last place on earth that might still have it—that’s right, in Kent. The Garden of England. Or, as I now like to think of it, the ADHD Medication Wasteland.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Kent is lovely in its own right—the quaint villages, rolling hills, a general air of “Is this the 19th century, or am I just imagining it?” I could almost appreciate the irony of the situation: here I was, a woman who has lived most of her life in London and California, who now resides in a Georgian townhouse with a garden in London, having to trudge through the deep English countryside in search of her meds for ADHD. If you know anything about the condition, this scenario is even more comically tragic.

The disorder that keeps you from focusing, organizing, or being on time is now keeping you from getting the drug that helps you focus, organize, and be on time. Is this what one would call full circle? I wouldn’t know. My mind is far too scattered to follow the logic. But I persevered, even though I did almost cry twice. By the time I called a pharmacy in the depths of Oxfordshire (call number seventy-five), I was shit out of luck at 5 pm on a Friday evening, standing outside Victoria station after having come back from Surrey because they couldn’t sell me the medication—it was out of date by one year. I really wish I was making this up.

I had called this specific pharmacy the second I got out of my appointment after the first 10 calls failed. They told me it was available, so I ran with my two good 34” inseam legs as far as they would take me to my nearest train station and then hopped on a bus full of hope, only to have to play “pharmacy bingo” on the way home. Then, randomly, I called one pharmacy in a tiny village in Kent, and the gods finally decided to take pity upon me. I managed to secure the whole box for a Saturday afternoon pickup.

The next day, my trip to Kent, though inconvenient, was not without its moments of charm. It was, after all, rather beautiful out there—fields of green, thatched roofs, a general aura of pastoral simplicity. If I hadn’t been so irritated, I might have even enjoyed it more. Here’s the thing: I was not only extremely irritated and tired. All of this had happened because calling seventy-six pharmacies and then having to take the train across the country (fourteen hours out of London there and back) in search of medication isn’t exactly what I’d planned for my day, or week, or even life.

Back to my incompetent practitioner—let’s just pause for a second and marvel at the breathtaking inadequacy of this man. When I finally spoke to him after my rural escapade, I was expecting, I don’t know, maybe an apology. A hint of self-awareness? But no, he seemed genuinely surprised that his prescription had caused me such grief, as if I was somehow at fault for his inability to perform the most basic part of his job. Honestly, at this point, I should just enroll in medical school myself, because I clearly have a better understanding of the situation than he does.

The kicker, of course, is that this entire ordeal would’ve been completely avoided if my provider had simply prescribed me the generic version of Concerta. Apparently, that’s much easier to come by, but he didn’t think to check or care. Or, let’s be honest, bother himself with the nuances of what the patient actually needs. One can only wonder why healthcare is in crisis.

It’s at times like these that I question whether the NHS is really a blessing or just a curse in disguise. Sure, it’s free in the sense that I’m not handing over fistfuls of cash every time I need medical attention. But when I have to still pay for medication, then my healthcare is not, in fact, free. I have to spend hours on the phone, take trains to the middle of nowhere, and suffer the indignities of a system that barely functions. One does start to wonder: what exactly is the cost of all this “free” healthcare? My sanity, apparently.

To add grittier salt to the wound, after my epic trek, I finally managed to get my hands on the medication—though not without a smug sense of defeat. Kent, with all its rustic charm, had become the setting for the most absurd errand of my life. If there’s a silver lining here (and I’m stretching, believe me), it’s that I did get to experience a part of the country I don’t normally have the chance to visit. The pharmacist, a woman a little younger than my mother with the air of someone who had the type of kindness one can only find outside of London, handed me the Concerta as if it were a rare gem, which, in this country, it might as well be.

And here I am, finally back in London with my precious meds and a lingering sense of exhaustion that only the combination of ADHD, inept healthcare, and an ill-timed family financial freeze can produce. Am I better off for having gone through this experience? Not in the slightest. Am I wiser? Absolutely not. But I did learn one thing: if you want something done, you’d better be prepared to do it yourself—even if it means navigating the Kafkaesque maze that is the NHS.

In conclusion, let this serve as a cautionary tale for anyone considering relying on public healthcare systems in the hope that they’ll function with the precision and efficiency of, say, a Swiss watch. The truth is, they’re more like those old grandfather clocks: charming but prone to breaking down when you need them most. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to sit back, take my Concerta, and maybe—just maybe—find a private healthcare provider who can handle a prescription without sending me on a countryside odyssey and back. But first, I need a drink—preferably something strong—or a lobotomy, whichever is the easier task.