Friday:
There is an odd thing about brain fog from covid. You think you're getting better as it eases slightly, but don't realize you're not well yet. I called the doc back this morning because I forgot yesterday, when talking to them to cancel an upcoming appointment because it falls within my period of contagion.
Duh!
If that wasn't enough, feeling slightly better this morning, when I did finally cancel that appointment, I forgot to add, until the "Anything else we can help you with?" that I couldn't get my Paxlovid yesterday at the pharmacy, explained it's price and not being covered, and did anybody in the office know of some help for that?
They'll check and call me back.
I've been increasingly annoyed with my medication insurance, aka Part D of Medicare, get-your-own-and-good-luck. Last year they increased my deductible to the point where I still got no coverage by year end. I guess the good news is that I didn't need medications which brought me out of the deductible. But they also raised their prices to the point where my increase in SS, which my premiums comes out of, was barely anything. It might cover a Whopper Junior should I choose to get one, now that I have switched to the juniors those rare times I feel like a burger because who really needs the big one? I think I bought two last year. They are tasty.
But my insurance won't pay a penny towards Paxlovid. And unlike other Medicare charges, they do not draw a line above which the provider may not charge. Big Pharma is an unlimited gaping hole of greed. Ask people who have been charged $800 for an epi-pen, or who, until recently regulated, Thank You Joe, had to pay outrageous prices for insulin. Those things do not simply improve lives, they save them. You literally die without them. You must have them.
But now that we "no longer have a state of emergency" with covid (never mind that 1500 people - as announced this week, up from 300 - are dying in this country from it every week !!!!) the government is not picking up the cost of Paxlovid. The price for the five day treatment is over $1,100. Both Rich's insurance and Steve's paid for theirs. I happen to make a bit more money, and don't quite qualify. Don't equate that with rich enough to pay for that dose. Funny thing is, last time I had covid, it was free. It was effective. 2nd time around with covid, or third, gives it a chance to do more damage, risking long covid among other things.
The science has been done, and the government paid for it. So it is easy to assume that nearly all of that cost is profit, for whom better to gouge than vulnerable people afraid of dying in a horrible fashion, struggling for every breath, locked away from family, and too sick to either think clearly or raise the effort to fight to do so? Since most of the most vulnerable of us, being elderly (a comorbidity in itself) and have accumulated a lot of various illnesses along our way, are often on limited incomes, likely have gone through any savings they've had dealing with all those comorbidities which make them vulnerable, their vulnerabilities often mean covid is a fast track to the cemetery. Paxlovid does a great job of putting the brakes on the virus, enough so the body can adequately finish the job. It needs to be used early, preferably as soon as the positive test after the first symptoms.
Ironically, those comorbidities requiring the medicine are keeping Big Pharma afloat. Healthy people don't need cardiac meds, blood pressure meds, insulin, oxygen tanks, strong allergy treatments, chemotherapy, cures for diseases few of us have ever heard of. So making their prices unreachable means they're likely killing off their customer base. One has to ask why.
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Another note on comorbidities: for the first time there is a disease out there which is picking off people more by one political persuasion. Being a Republican is becoming a comorbidity! People living in so-called red states, who identify as Republicans, are dying in greater numbers than others. They are the extreme ones who tend to avoid vaccines, believing after the injection they can be followed due to mysterious imaginary contents in them while never realizing their cell phones and even their cars already give their location away and there is no need for such impossible technology. They tend to avoid known working medicines, and eschew much science. They are the ones dying in hospitals, unvaccinated, never masked, demanding the parasitic worm killer Ivermectin for treating a virus, which is absolutely NOT a worm, or taking a treatment for a totally different disease but not for covid and incidentally harming people needing that medicine by creating a sudden scarcity, and other nonsense. They are the people who with their dying breaths demand to know what they really have because it can't be covid. Why? Because the disease has been made political. It shouldn't be. Germs don't care what we believe, just what is a good host to multiply in. I love my Republican relatives as much as my Democratic ones. I'd love to know they get their shots and give them to their kids as recommended. I'd love to know they have even the most rudimentary knowledge of science, especially about health. I'd love them to live longer and continue voting, no matter for whom.
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Saturday
They did call back that afternoon, asked a bunch of questions about how I was doing now after my first doses of the meds I did get. The fever was down and I was feeling less ill, deluding me into thinking the brain fog wasn't an issue. That is, until writing this and doing other things that required a brain. Editing reveals a lot about true function! I will ask kindness in excusing whatever I may have missed. It also means proofing to the point where I would publish it without shame carried over into Saturday. Who needs sleep? Getting this finished and as right as possible is keeping me awake. It's as bad as mentally creating the next new piece of glass or jewelry. Write something down so you can sleep!
Steve has his Paxlovid now, even though he can't pronounce it. It's OK, he only needs to take it, and I developed a system that fits in exactly with how he takes his other pills now. It's not the pronunciation, it's the math, as in the right numbers of extra pills in the right places, and that's been done now... with corrections. But done. His insurance covered his, which is good, since he was still feeling sicker after getting his than I still have felt without it.
Oh yeah, I was interrupting myself talking about my docs helpfulness. The verdict is I can get along without the Paxlovid. Don't have to spend all the money. Unless... I get worse. I should call them, even though it will be a weekend. A holiday one. If it's really, really worse, go to the ER, but the regular docs assure me that they can call back quickly (enough) and assess unless it's very sudden, like sudden breathing issues. Then Steve or Rich can call an ambo, one hopes. Three little numbers. Keep the phones charged. The real question if things devolve is who can drive? Rich can't. Steve could before he got sick, but then? We'd have to see. He certainly couldn't go to his pharmacy last night to get his own meds. So I went.
Yep, "responsible" me, infectious with covid, went to his pharmacy. Masked of course, And with a soothing cough drop to avoid coughing in hopes of limiting spreading. Somebody had to. He needed chicken noodle soup too. And his own cough drops, as I'm getting low on the sugarless ones, which I can order delivered in two days. But I need them myself during those days. His pharmacy doesn't stock the sugarless ones. He doesn't need to worry about sugar rotting his teeth like I do with a cough drop tucked in my cheek as I fall asleep. There's usually a tiny bit left in the morning, a long time if for sugar contact. No, they don't move in the night and try to choke me. I think the cheek/drop contact kinda dries it out and the drop sticks.
So it's a waiting game. I'm thinking about packing, but that's work right now, so I'm thinking I should stick to my faulty thinking. Does less damage if I only think about it than act on it. Or is that some faulty thinking too? Maybe let's stop thinking too. At all. Magic wand time.......
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