Vanderlinden "did the right thing" by calling the pharmacy back to question the dosage, says Crouch. Those are the same words used by the manager of the Bountiful Walgreen's that filled Lily's prescription and by a spokeswoman for Walgreen's corporate office in Chicago.

"You should always question anything you're concerned about" when it comes to a prescription, says Lani Palauni, manager of the Bountiful Walgreen's pharmacy, who added that she can't comment on Vanderlinden's specific case because of patient privacy laws.

"We regret we didn't catch the error at the time," said Walgreen's corporate spokeswoman Carol Hively. "We have apologized, refunded her co-pay and provided additional treatment" (a cream for Lily's yeast infection). She said Walgreen's is investigating how the error happened.

The chain has a "multi-step filling and verification process the pharmacist should follow to ensure that the medicine is correct for the patient," she said. "We investigate every error to try to prevent it from happening again. We also have staff at our corporate office dedicated to preventing prescription errors."

As for Vanderlinden, she says the episode has made her nervous about future prescriptions. "I'm going to be a more informed consumer," she says. "In the past, when a doctor has handed me a prescription, I just put it in my purse and dropped it off at the pharmacy." From now on, she says, "I'm going to make sure it's legible and make sure when I pick up the prescription it's the same."

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E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com