What’s the Real Price ?

Many of my drugs over the years have been enormously expensive. Revilimd and Pomalyst are oral drugs that cost over $10,000 a month for 21 pills. Fortunately, we have very good insurance and low copay. But for many they still have high copays for what ever reason.

Now I’m on a weekly subcutaneous shot called Velcade. Again, these drugs are enormously expensive, and thankfully we have insurance through my husbands work. But, theres always the hidden costs, of gas to get there, copay prescriptions, life stuff .

So after thinking about this for about a year, I asked my tech savy daughter to put a donate button on my blog. WHY? you might ask.

Well, having cancer and doing treatments isn’t just about the drugs etc. Its the gas to get to appointments, the copays, the unexpected things. For instance, the last year in February, I had a bone marrow biopsy as part of my restaging to see what my plasma cells were. Well, let me tell you BMB are really, really painful even with the lidocaine they give you in the bone. So, I asked for conscious sedation and to have the new “drill” used. Okay, all good. We were told OOP around $400. Well the procedure ( 30 minutes, while pretty wonderful as you remember absolutely nothing), was $12,000. then we were hit with a 20% copay of $3000. So its always the unexpected.  Then as part of this whole what do I do next, we flew up to Seattle to the Seattle Cancer Alliance Center to see a myeloma specialist. Out of pocket, $2000. yes, we didn’t have to go , but somewhere here I needed to see a specialist and get his opinion. Fortunately his opinion was keep doing what were doing. Although I think recommended doing cyborg ,which is cytoxan, velcade, and dex. So we’re not doing that now.

Anyway, I know its tacky to have a donate button on here and it does feel weird, but hey a dollar here a dollar there may help pay for my weekly gas, or even lease that car when I’m driving myself in a few months. Anyway, there it is and and hopefully i’m not offending anyone.

I’ve been working with WordPress on there blogversity course and its been helpful to look at my blog in a different way.

I really do love meeting amazing people from around the world and reading their stuff and seeing their pictures. I do need to do more with picturesI think.

Anyway, just an update since you will see the donate button on the top right.