insurance drama

As mentioned previously, I now have to take a white blood cell booster so that I can keep getting chemo treatment every two weeks. It's called Neupogen (Filgrastim), and it's a self-administered shot I have to take every 24 hours for 10 days after each chemo session.

However, it's ridiculously expensive so the Clinic called my pharmacy to have them check that my insurance would cover it. The pharmacy said my insurance was inactive as of December 31st. The insurance company said the same thing when called. So, complete with IV tube in my arm, I walk out into the hallway to use the phone and call my employer and let them know something's wrong. They called the insurance company, and they basically didn't have any answers for the 'glitch', but said it would be fixed in 48 hours.

But I needed my first Neupogen shot in 24 hours. So I had to leave work early Thursday to drive to the Clinic and have a nurse administer the shot (since the pharmacy couldn't dispense it without proof of insurance or me paying full cost). We thought we could maybe have today's shot done closer to home at one of the Cleveland Clinic satellite branches, but the Elyria office doesn't have Neupogen and Westlake wanted me to have a physican at their office specifically. Fortunately, by today, the insurance glitch was fixed and I was able to get the prescription filled, so I didn't need to worry about any of that.

Wednesday's treatment didn't go quite as smoothly as the first one, so it still took forever (and started two hours late). As predicted, yesterday I was fine and actually quite alert and productive, whereas today I was tired and slow. Not quite as tired as last time, but I still stayed home from work to rest.