Needin' a Fix

On the way home from getting my calendar on Friday, April 8th, I was still holding my precious calendar when I received a call from a pharmacy, we'll call them JerkDrugs, that had received the drug order from my Dr. Larry King.  Wow!  That was quick!  After some pleasant conversation, JerkDrugs informed me that I'd have a $1,000 co-pay for my drugs.  WHAT?!  I'd just gotten word that $4,800 of injectible meds would be covered each year by insurance.  Nowhere did they mention a $1,000 co-pay.  I think the woman on the other end of the phone heard the breakdown slight panic in my voice and this is where her conversation became a bit cryptic.  She said that I needed to call "Mary" at my insurance company and that I might have to use the "other company."  I asked her what she meant and she said that's all the info she had.  Strange...

Of course this call happened at 4:55pm and by the time I managed to hang up and call Mary, it was 5pm on Friday and she was gone.  I'd call first thing on Monday morning.  Afterall, I didn't need the drugs for 2 more weeks...Here's where I should have panicked.

So, on Monday morning, I called Mary.  She was so happy that I had called and said that there had been a fight going on about me last week and I didn't even know it and she had no way of getting ahold of me.  She explained that my drug order had been submitted to JerkDrugs, and unfortunately they are not a pharmacy in my network.  JerkDrugs' owner had called Mary and demanded that she waive the $1,000 co-pay.  Mary said that she couldn't do that if there were other pharmacies in network who could fill it - which there were.  Mary was going to try to contact me about submitting the drug order to a pharmacy in network to save me some cash, but had an out-of-service number for me.  JerkDrugs had my contact info, but wouldn't give it to her.  Isn't that cute?  Mary gave me the contact info for another pharmacy, we'll call this one BackOrderScrip, who is in my network.  Are you seeing where we're going with this one?  I quickly submitted this info to my Doc.  It was now 11 days till I needed to take my 1st shot.  I still wasn't worried.  I should have been....

On Wed., April 13th, I got a phone call at 5:50pm from BackOrderScrip.  Of course this was right as I was trying to get 32 kids on the vans to be transported home.  You know, a quiet, relaxing time of day.  The man on the phone, who I could barely understand because of the loud children on my end and the accent on his, said a couple drugs were on backorder, but they'd be out to me soon.  He also said they were having trouble filling the rest of the order in the quantity listed and he'd call me within a couple of days to schedule delivery.  Again, strange...  I jotted down this info and quickly got off the phone to escort my 32 little darlings to the vans.  Later, I sat down at my desk and looked at the note I'd scribbled.  It said that Lupron, the drug that I needed first, was one of the drugs that was on backorder.  I thought I'd better call back and make sure my note was correct and find out when it'd be in.  Here's where the panic should've set in.

I called BackOrderScrip and found out Lupron was on backorder.  I asked what that meant and she stated the pharmaceutical company hadn't made enough to keep up with the demand. Thanks for that, Captain Obvious.  What does that mean for me?  I informed her that unless I had the Lupron, I didn't need the rest of the drug order.  She said she would see if any of their pharmacies had any and would call me back by the next day.   

She didn't. 

We were now 9 days away from me needing this drug. I came home and lost it.  I mean, I bawled like a small child.  We've gotten this far in the process and now there's no drug for me to take?!   You've got to be kidding me.