It's a Health Insurance Miracle!

When my podcast partner, Jason Lehmbeck, heard about what happened last week with The Blue Shield of California first denying and then mysteriously covering Sophie's infusions of IVIG, he said, "It's an insurance miracle!" and somehow that one remark not only sent me into a gale of giggles but has sustained me ever since. That's the beauty of our community and of my partner -- he gets me, I get him and we get all of ya'll.

We recorded a catch-up podcast last week and hope that if you haven't yet checked out Who Lives Like This?! you will today. Jason and I didn't have a guest on but rather caught each other and our listeners up on what's been going down in our lives. We talked about our kids and highlighted The Siblings. We also hashed out which episodes had most affected us or that stuck out for us personally. For me it was the discussion with Josh Fyman, a father of a severely disabled young girl and his family's decision to place her in a residential setting instead of caring for her at home. This is a topic that has always made me squirm in discomfort. I have strong opinions, as you know, and I thought I felt pretty unequivocally about this subject. What happened, over the course of the podcast and then for weeks afterward, was a kind of mind and heart opening. I don't know how to explain it in any other way, but I do know that Josh and Jason and I talked about what seems like an impossible thing to talk about, and my heart and my mind were opened. That's all I'll say about that, but I encourage you to listen to the podcast.



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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.