59 years with many more to come

Today is our 59th wedding anniversary, but the picture was taken Sunday at the Swinyard home where Nancy hosted a very early birthday dinner for Mike and an early anniversary dinner for Emma and me. All the family attended except Daniel who is off in Monterey, California, attending, as a Utah National Guard menber, a language course concentrating in Mandarin Chinese. Third from the left is Tai Biesinger married to Kersten seated on his right, and third from the right is Dani Maughan, Eric's fiancee with an October 10 wedding approaching. Good food and a good time was had by all.

Yesterday was another hectic day with us scheduled to be at the Hospital at 6:30 AM and me to not having eaten or drunk anything for at least 6 hours. We were prompt, but the BMT clinic where I sent Emma with my 24-hour collection did not open until 7:00 and the Radiology clinic where I went for a PET scan didn't admit me until about 6:48. Our experience certainly confirms my long held belief that appointments with doctors only schedule the beginning of wait time. The PET scan required the injection of a sugary solution spiked with a short lived radioactive tracer and then a 75 minute wait for the solution to spread throughout my body. I waited in a darkened room and slept throughout the 75 minute wait. The scanner is similar to a MRT scanner except the donut has a larger diameter and I could sleep throughout much of the scanning process, which lasted more than an hour. Then came an EKG lasting only seconds but waited 45 minutes for it and then another wait for another bone marrow biopsy. Part of the wait time for the EKG was devoted to a serious blood letting, Elaine must have filled a dozen little tubes.

One of Elaine's duties is to monitor the ordering of Thalidomide and determining that the patient can pay for it. I was somewhat shocked to learn that the Humana copay for Thalidomide is $4,182.68 for a total of just 28 pills. I assured her that I could put it on my American Express card and then worry about paying when the bill comes. Actually I was more than shocked; I didn't sign up for drug coverage when it became available because I almost never get sick and do not take prescription drugs. Now I find that the recent drug purchases plus the Thalidomide has pushed me all the way through the Medicare drug donut hole, but if I can make the payment all future drug purchases for this illness will have a copay of 5% of the actual drug cost. Hooray for donut holes.

I won't know what any of this means until I see Dr. Tricot tomorrow at 10:00 AM, but we are to be there 30 minutes early, for more blood letting? or consultations with or instructions from some of the nurses about the intense chemo coming up later this week?

We waited a long time at the Pharmacy and when we finally had our turn I learned once again that Humana would not authorize a renewal of my Ambien prescription. I got quite annoyed with the Pharmacy staff over the Ambien, but they assured me that there was nothing they could do except sell me Ambien at the retail price, and I would need to call Humana for an explanation, which I did as soon as we got home. I learned that the RiteAid drugstore where Kate had called in prescriptions for me on the 23rd (one of which was for Ambien) had billed Humana for the Ambien even though they would not give the pills to Emma when she went to pick them up and had told her that Humana would not authorize it being filled so soon. The man from Humana called RiteAid and they reversed their claim and then he told me I could fill out a form I will find on their web page to get reimbursed for part of the cost of the Ambien pills the Huntsman Pharmacy sold me. I expect that I will only have to pay 5% of the actual cost when I do what he told me.

I continue to feel good even though some nights I don't get much sleep. Because of lingering pain from the biopsy and some pain in my left hip, which I fell on again yesterday as I tried to put on my trousers, I took an Oxychodone pill and an Ambien pill when I went to bed last night and the 2 pills must have fought each other because I got very little sleep.