An Ode to Drug Plans

I went to the pharmacy yesterday to pick up the Humira.  I knew it was going to be expensive, it's not often I get sticker shock this far into the process.  On the plus side, I have to go through extra paper work to get this covered by my drug plan, Mr. Lina's plan covers it so at worst I'll have to pay 20%.

Yesterday, I would have thought maybe $700.

The IV drip of intralipids are $700 each (and not covered).

Drugs like Gonal-F that stimulate follicle growth (so I end up with lots of eggs for one IVF cycle) work out to about $1000 per pen and depending on your dosage that pen could last 2-4 days but it's needed for about 6-8 depending on how fast those little follicles grow.  My drug plan covers them but Mr. Lina's does not.

So I wasn't surprised when the pharmacist starts with "it's a pretty expensive drug, that's why we don't keep it on hand" and then works into "the good news is that your husband's drug plan will cover it". 

But I was still surprised when I saw her punch $1,730 into the cash register.  That's for 2 doses.  I'll be given a third with a positive pregnancy test.

I sure do appreciate a good drug plan.  That's a whole lot of after tax income.

I was into the clinic this morning for my Day 3 appointment.  A few comments on how much my hair has grown and happy to see you, etc.  They had a new blood girl being trained (quite good, no bruising) but I walked in and said hello to the girl I do know and she said to the other "this is who we were talking about earlier".  Kind of cool to get the heads up on me (total pet peeve to be treated like it's my first cycle) but odd because she didn't clarify what they talked about.  Anyhow, new girl took a LOT of blood (because of the STD screening) on a rather heavy cycle, I was having a hard time thinking after that.  All is well now but I am glad my manager suggested working from home today (we have a meeting with a client closer to my house than the office at 3pm).  First Humira injection is done, nothing to write home about except that the medication kind of tingles.  The needle is very fine, that doesn't hurt, but it feels really weird as the medication is going under my skin.

Next step isn't until May 9th when I get my second Humira injection.  I think I'm going to do it myself.  It goes into my belly fat so it's not like I can't see what I'm doing (the problem with Lupron-Depot, I can't inject my own butt) or need to hit a vein.  Driving to the clinic for them to do it seems like a waste of time.

I started tracing Alma last night.  I can't say I got all that far, tracing is not my favourite part of sewing and I'm not really sure which size to trace.  I'm not a Sewaholic pear, I should do a FBA of some sort to this, I don't want a tent but I should make the 16 if I'm measuring right...  It all had me a bit hesitant last night.  I'll tackle it again tonight.