I'm A Little PO'd So I'm Gonna Rant And Rave And Try Not To Use Any Cuss Words So That I Don't Offend Anyone!

**Image borrowed with love from CartoonStock **

I'm sure I can't be the only one who is having these problems.

There have to be others of you out there, fighting back the anger, tears, curses, screams of agony.

You might be afraid to come out of the shadows and talk about it, and I understand why you would choose to hide.

I'm talking about dealing with the Bermuda Triangle of Medicine:

1. Getting past the office staff to see or speak to the doctor.

2. Getting the doctor to agree to write you a script for the medication needed and for the amount needed.

3. Getting your insurance and your mail order pharmacy or retail pharmacy (I don't judge) to actually fill the frippin script in a timely matter, without confusion, mistakes, or having to call them everyday to speak to someone different everytime, which means you have to retell your story again and again and again, only to have the person tell you that they have solved all of your problems and also fixed world hunger on top of it.

Then you wait. And you wait and you wait and you wait.

After a few days of waiting with no reward at the end, you call again, only to find out that your script is not, in fact, in the mail as the previous fourty million people had told you, but this new person is going to solve all of your problems and end the war.

I feel like I am fighting the biggest battle of my life here. It's not the MS monster, it's not bullies at my childrens schools, it's not the economy, it's none of the things that should be a battle for me.

I am fighting my insurance and my mail order pharmacy because, even though I have been diagnosed for almost a year now, they still don't see the need in some of my MS medications. And I'm starting to get to a point where I don't see the need in having to explain why I need these medications to every Tom, Dick, and Shrilankitalutaria in India.

I understand that medications, such as Provigil, are outrageously expensive and, if I were the insurance company, I probably would want verification before I dispensed them to everyone and their brother too.

But I've done all of that. I have verificated until I thought my head was going to explode.

Yet, every time I call to order my refill, the battle begins again.

Maybe it's because the insurance companies know that people with MS tire out easily, especially if you don't send them their Provigil, and they're hoping that we'll just get so tired of fighting that we'll stop.

Little do they know that, while I may be exhausted, I am also extremeley stubborn.

I also hate to lose.

And I like to to have the last word, even if it's in a language I don't understand, I'm still crafty enough to make something up.

Don't get me wrong, I know how lucky I am to actually have insurance and that they do, eventually, cover my meds. I know people who do not have insurance and are now fighting "The Man" to pay for their meds.

I'd rather fight with someone in India whom I can't understand than fight with "The Man".

My point to all of this is.........what was my point?

Oh, right! Now I remember.

My point is, why do we all have to fight?

Why is every step a battle to win or lose?

And why is Provigil so freakin expensive?????

I guess my problem is this: Everyday I have an "Ahhh-Haaa!" moment where I realize that my MS is here for the rest of my life. I don't know if those moments will wear off in a few years, when all of this isn't still new to me, but I have been diagnosed with MS for almost a year now and I'm still having those moments.

It may come after a fall or on a day when I'm in a tremendous amount of pain. Other days it might show up when I'm walking around in circles because my memory is so bad that I can't remember anything that I needed to do.

Maybe it's the moment that I have to tell my daughter that I can't go with her as a chaperone on her field trip this year, even though I've gone every year before, because I can't walk as much and I can barely keep track of myself, nevermind five children that are not mine.

The look on her face and the tone of her voice when she said "It's ok mom, I understand." is an "Ahh-Haaaa" moment that hits you like a slap to the face.

But now I find myself wondering if living with MS for the rest of my life also includes fighting with my insurance company and my mail order pharmacy for the rest of my life as well?

I'm willing to go into battle for a lot of things: my husband who didn't plan on taking care of me at 30 when he married me at 20, my kids who don't deserve to have a disease come in and take their mother away, and even for myself because I once was, still am, a person who was involved with my childrens lives, who loved to laugh, who kept having ideas for books she was going to write, who loved to read romance novels constantly. All of those are worthy reasons to go into battle.

I just don't know if I'm up for battling the Bermuda Triangle Of Medicine.

How many of you out there have the same problems?

Please tell me that I'm not alone in this!

Is There A Time Frame On How Long I Have To Wait To Strangle Them?? Cause I'm Ready NOW!

You all warned me, but did I listen?

Oh no, I chose to give them a chance. I had hopes.

I was wrong. I WAS HORRIBLY WRONG!

Who am I speaking of, you ask?

I'm talking about the office staff at my new local neurologists office.

You all told me to watch out for them but I didn't listen and now I want to strangle every one of them!

As I may (or may not have, I can't remember) told you, I am in the process of switching MS Therapies from Rebif to Tysabri. I stopped taking the Rebif when the nurse from the doctors office told me to and was waiting for the call that would tell me when my first injection would be.

When the call didn't come, I started to get nervous. The month off from Rebif was hell for me. I've had two major flare ups, my fatigue is at an all time high, I'm forgetting stuff all over the place, and my body hurts like I've played a game of football by myself against the Steelers (I love Big Ben!).

Finally, I called their office and was told that they were having trouble getting the insurance to approve the medication. "That's funny" I thought, our insurance usually doesn't require approvals.

When I explained it to The Doc, aka the hubs, he thought it sounded funny too so he called the insurance people and was told that, not only did we NOT need an approval, but that there was no request for the Tysabri on record. THEY HADN'T EVEN CALLED ABOUT IT YET!

So, the hubs called my neuros office and worked his magic (and by that I mean he scared the crap out of everyone there) and an hour later I got a call saying that the insurance had "approved" my Tysabri and that my first injection would be Jan. 10th, which was last Friday.

Thursday, I got a call from a mail order pharmacy called Caremark, not the one we use, who informed me that my medication was ready to be shipped out but they had to tell me of my co-pay first. Wanna know how much they wanted???

$698.00! A MONTH!!!!!

When I called the nurse again to ask her why she didn't use our mail-order pharmacy, who would only charge us a co-pay of $50 for three months, she told me that I told her that Caremark was our pharmacy. Oh, so now it's my fault?? I guess when all else fails, you blame the patient.

Then I thought back to when I had to fill out this book of forms that they mailed me before my first visit and I distinctly remembered (well, not remembered so much as found the copy that I made of it) that I had filled out a paper telling them the information on my mail order pharmacy. I told the nurse that I had not given her the wrong information and she said, very snottily (is that a word? snottily? snidely?) that she was holding the original in her hand at that very moment and said that I had written down this other pharmacy. "Oh, really?" I asked her, trying to be as snotty to her as she was to me, "because I made copies of all of those forms and I'm holding the copy and mine has the correct information on it.

After all was said and done, it turns out that the office staff was the ones who had made the mistake.

I KNOW! I was just as shocked as you are now!

It has now been six weeks since I have been on an MS Therapy and it has been six weeks of pure hell with a couple of good days mixed in here and there. When the nurse called me the last time, I tried to explain this to her. I told her that I understood that I wasn't their only patient and I know I'm not the Jiminy Cricket on her shoulder at night, not letting her sleep. Then I tried to explain to her what the past six weeks have been like for me. I've had three flare ups, two that effected my speech and balance, and all three gave me fatigue to the point that my husband had to stay home from work a couple of days because I could not keep myself awake for more than 15 minutes at a time.

Would you like to know what her response was? Ok good, cause you're getting it!

She said "Well, through it all, it sounds like you've been getting by just fine."

Oh yeah, I'm getting by just fine and dandy thanks.

Before I go, I have to tell you something that I did. It's one of those "Everyone is already laughing at you so you might as well laugh too" kind of things.

I have an email account that I use just for an online MS support group that I'm a member of. But every time I went to sign in, I would always end up mispelling my password once or twice and it was starting to drive me crazy.

So, two days ago, I changed my password and I remember thinking "This is something I will never be able to forget".

Well, I forgot it.

And I have no clue as to what it might be or what it pertained to. Yesterday, I tried so many passwords and zipcodes that my account was locked for 24 hours and I think I'm getting pretty close to that again today!

Do any of you have any ideas what I could have changed it to? You all probably know better than I do right now!