Absurdity As Vice

I felt paralyzed momentarily this morning, worried that I don't express gratitude often enough, am mean-spirited and perseverate on the same things, over and over.

Anyhoo.*

I got the above letter in the mail from our new insurance company, Assurant, and what is a blog good for if not to demonstrate absurdity as I see it? The fact that I see absurdity in nearly everything and that some people might object or try to analyze that impulse as being self-protective or indicative of some kind of personality disorder weighs on me every now and then like this morning. I'm not a big drinker, drug user or even Advil-taker. I only flee from my problems in food occasionally and when I exercise, it's not fanatically. I don't have a coping vice except, perhaps, this dogged sense of absurdity in literally everything, and I'm grateful for that, alright?

According to the letter, Sophie's drug Onfi will now be rationed. What that means is that the drug is so damn expensive, the insurance company needs a really, really good reason to continue paying partially for it (and I emphasize partially because we pay a hefty premium and copayment for this drug every single month and have done so for over seven years). If you haven't been reading here for years, I can fill you in that I've paid anywhere between $150 cash for this drug when it wasn't FDA-approved, $500 when it was FDA-approved and marketed in the United States, $60 when I got it from Canada using friends as Drug Mules, $0 when a non-profit, underwritten by the company that made it "helped" me to pay for it, and now $90 with Assurant.** What this also means is that this drug is highly addictive and there might, apparently, be patients who abuse it or, rather, physicians who over-prescribe it to people who have insomnia or anxiety issues or whatever the hell else demands the power of a benzodiazepine. What this also means is that the pharmaceutical company that makes it probably aggressively marketed it and created, in effect, a need for it.  It appears that I'll be making The Rounds of Telephone Calls in July to ensure that Sophie's supply of Onfi is steady.**

There's no point, really, in complaining about this shit, is there? What I'll do instead is observe the absurdity of it.








*For those of you not in the know, the word anyhoo both bugs the hell out of me in its cheerfulness and fits my absurdist sensibility perfectly. That's why I use it.

** The Drug Mule posts are some of my favorites as far as absurdity goes. Look them up on my search bar somewhere over there to the right.

** We are currently weaning Sophie from that f*%king drug Onfi, expect to be finished with the wean at some point in the future, and if all goes well might never have to beg and grovel for it again.