Mail bag!

My prescriptions eventually came.

Mail Order Pharmacies: Buckets of Fun
I didn't have a flare up, but I did run out before new pills arrived. Troubled, I emailed my MOP and asked them what the hell was up. Here are some excerpts from my MOP's response:

To Member, Thank you for your online inquiry. I understand your concern regarding the status of your order and I will be glad to look into that for you. The order you inquired about was mailed on XX/XX/XXXX and the UPS tracking number is Notgonnagetthereintime.

Depending on how your order was received, please allow: 7-11 calendar days for mailed new prescriptions 5-8 calendar days for faxed in prescriptions by the physician 6-9 calendar days for mailed in refill slips 3-5 calendar days for phoned in refills or online orders ** This excludes Sundays and holidays.

I like this reminder. I also think my prescription was sitting in someone's inbox, as my gastro emails their scripps.

An easy way to keep track of the status of your orders is to be notified via e-mail. If you did not select this option during registration and would like to be notified about your prescription status via e-mail, simply update your profile

Yay, form leters! I have this option selected, yes. I also think that the fact I emailed them from the online pharmacy site? Probably should tip them off that I know my way around it. Right, form letter, shh, whatever.

If you have any questions about the use of a medication or the effects of missing doses of your medication, please call Member Services at [number] and request to speak with one of our registered pharmacists.

Heh. I know what happens. It's exciting! Lots of ER or Urgent Care or gastro copay bills.

To receive medication before your order arrives, please contact your physician for a prescription for a short term 14 day supply. This prescription may be filled at your local retail pharmacy.

This also cracks me up, because normally this MOP is all about the Mail Order, because that's their big thing. You get a huge discount if you order a three-month supply of your drugs through the mail order; it's something like three months for the price of one retail-pharmacy fill. I get solicitations from these guys all the time telling me, "Fill your scripps with our MOP! It's cheaper!" No shit, guys. I already do that. Because. It's. Cheaper. So yeah, that last bit kind of cracks me up.

I'm making fun of a dead (mixed metaphor) horse here, because I got the pills, my colon is still quiet, and my MOP didn't sneak in some bogus UPS/expediting charge or anything. And I can eat chili every day if I want to! Really, my life is pretty stellar.


Annie-biotics
I forgot to take them this morning. Jack would be so disappointed in me. Apart than that, I'm pretty recovered from my cold. Go-go, shitty immune system!


Beware of those Online Quizzes purporting to love you

Seriously, beware. I took one at the end of December, and look at the consequences:

_{(Please ignore squeaky toy, it was not part of the packages.)}

Thos are all packets about the magic of Remicade. I'm expecting another glossy packet sometime this week, that's how often they come. Also, the "treatment" this group recommends seems to be heavily one-sided in favor of Remicade, something I specified on the quiz that I did NOT take and did NOT NEED to take for my UC, as according to my quiz answers, my UC is manageable right now. So I looked at the quiz creator/sponsor/hoster/whateverer, and guess who it was? Centocor Ortho Biotech, Inc. Creators o' Remicade. Smarts, I do not know them.*

Anyway. Honestly? I only took the thing because they used a picture of that guy from Dawson's Creek as a lure. Why DC, you ask? In case you haven't heard, James Van Der Beek is taking secrecy out of ulcerative colitis. NO MORE SILENCE.

_{(C'mon, you knew it was coming.)}

JVDB's mom was diagnosed with the scary bloody shit disease, so he's taking to the road to raise awareness. Yay! My favorite part of the article is, of course, this:

"She was a gymnastics teacher, so she had to find ways where she could leave class in a hurry," Van Der Beek said. "For instance, she had to hire an assistant."

Dude, I love that. It's so true. When I first got diagnosed, I got an assistant, too; it was so awesome to have someone on hand with my doctor appointment planner, my extra pants and undies and the Sani-wipes. Of course, they discovered I had no money (due to having ulcerative colitis) and quit the following week, but that's the way it goes! It's a hard knock life having U.C.!



^{* But you? :)}

Shut up, reactive mind, just shut up! It's all your faaaaaaaaaault.

Do any of you fellow UC or Crohns' folks out there indulge in the occasional self-deception? I mean, occasionally I'll forget I have ulcerative colitis for part of a day, usually due to the following factors:

1. It's oh-so-quiet on the bowel front. No pain, no flare ups, no rumbly noises while sitting in the quiet study areas.
2. Usually I run about eight-ten hours between pill-popping sessions.
3. My memory is getting reeeeally bad.

This can result in me forgetting to take my pills, which can be bad. That's pretty good for self-deception, isn't it? That after living with this disease for seven years, I still occasionally forget I'm sick. I don't think this is the same as faking it; it's probably just my brain's defense mechanism against what it recognizes as my natural Why-Me Emo Tendencies.

But sometimes I do it on purpose. "Hmmm, I need some caffeine!" I announce loudly. (To no one, because the break room should be empty if you're going to do this.) "But there's no tea left. Yet I must stay awake, whatever shall I do? Too bad coffee gives me the boiling shits! Whatever shall I do - " etc., while pouring a bit of coffee into my powdered hot chocolate mix. Success! Until, of course, two hours later when my colon is woken from its drugged slumber with a bath of fresh Local City(tm) Volcanic Acid Blend and I have to hightail it to the toilet, but that's beside the point. Or maybe that is the point. I'm not sure.

I've done this with coffee, Cheetoes, and beer; sometimes it works for when I know a meal's too big but I want to finish it because it's chocolate-based or cheese-based or just wonderfully fried in wonderful deep fat. Every time, I manage to convince myself that this time, my colon might not react. I justify this by dragging out some variation of:

a. If you do the same thing over and over and expect different results, you're insane. (Not quite how the statement goes. Also serves to prove that my self-deception will NOT work and is evidence of my insanity. Hrm.)
b. Who knows when my body may spontaneously decide to accept coffee again? I gotta be ready. With some coffee on hand.
c. What ulcerative colitis? What colon? Lalalalalaalalalalalalalalaaaaaaaaaaaa


So what is this? Some sort of infinite self-delusional recursion? Convenient amnesia? (Heh. "Who am I, where am I and, Jesus, why is my ass bleeding?") Or the obvious answer: self-indulgence? I'm gonna go with that last one. While I enjoy this lovely mug of powdered hot chocolate and coffee.




To relax all painful guts everywhere, here's a funny:
Good Show Sir: only the worst scifi/fantasy book covers, which I saw today via The Daily Dish.

After all, as good old Father L. Ron would say, "Laughter is definitely the relief of painful emotion." Right on, L. Ron. Right on.

My pills, my pills, my lovely lady...hills

It would be better, overall, if forgetting to take my meds meant I would lose all higher brain control and gibber until someone forced some Colazal down my throat.

This would illustrate and reinforce the notion that if I didn't take the meds, "things" would deteriorate. But I've forgotten my meds for the last two days, and there isn't any reinforcement. On the third day is when things start to get funny. My previous doctor said something about What is the point of taking medication at all if you're not going to take it all the time? You'll feel better if you take your meds, so take your meds. It would be better if she'd describe what the lack of medication actually did: ulcers begin to form and ooze, you begin to feel blood pooling in odd corners of your intestine, the dripping sounds like a coffee percolater, you start losing your appetite...but none of those are true. Funny, and not unknown to happen, but not from three days off meds.

The point - and I do not really have one - is that with all this internal shit going on, and the fact that it takes so long to manifest externally (for me), it's hard not to pretend that I'm perfectly healthy, except for the zygote destruction and repressed quirks. For two days, that's golden. And therefore, I'd rather the meds be completely necessary and unavoidable, because it would be easier to get used to taking a handful of them. Every. God. Damn. Morning. Oh - and Afternoon. And Most Evenings.

Even worse, I should really be used to this by now. But you know how it is. You start thinking about a random trip to New Zealand, or the Apocalypse* and you realize, shit, I have to stop and raid the fracking drugstore before I barricade myself in the pub, that's gonna be really exhausting, and you maybe stop taking the meds for a day. Just because, you know, you should conserve. In case the zombies rise.

Or just because you want to pretend.

Incidentally, I have a much bigger problem with mental blockages than...well, you know, those ones. (And in my case, the analogy would be better served with a floodgate.) Like everyone else, I'd rather spend my last days flinching at unnamed adult pains, kicking my grandchildrens' collective asses at checkers and walking to the mailbox - which will be up a quarter mile driveway - then drooling in a nursing home and wondering whether the lime-green jigglish stuff is edible. Yesterday this crossword clue stumped me:

46 across: Kevin of Field of Dreams

Ha. Ha. Ha. I am not kidding. Crapping my pants in public was less embarrassing. And I would know.

The real mental blockages could be coming from my repeated attempts to create a successful library evaluation plan, or transcribe my reference librarian interview. Summer is the absolute worst time to take classes, but today is even worse, because it's THIS day, and Tea and I are going to the midnight party since we're a couple of dorks with spoiler-death wishes, so I really should get this homework done. So I can spend all weekend reading a kid's book in good conscience.

Okay, now I'm all excited again.

Science in Libraries: respected relationship or calamitous collision? Discuss.

I'm taking a few days off because the science is beating the library out of me.

Shouldn't take too long for me to gather up the shreds of my intelligence and really kick some ass, though. Of course, that will require some extreme crap candy.

"Right next to the dog face boy!"

I had my doctor's appointment. The leg verdict: tendinitis. Hurrah!

In other news:
Medco plays carnival tricks with my prescription prices, and I realize I must be wealthier than I thought.

Yesterday I went to pick up a refill of Colazal, the most immense and (unfortunately) necessary of my medications. I popped in at a busy time and joined the line behind the woman at the counter who possessed a giant red curly bouffant hairstyle. She was staring, dumbfounded, at the checkout clerk.

"But I saw the doctor last week."

The clerk murmured something, her eyes anxious and darting from the woman's face to the red bouffant, as though it might loll off the head and suffocate her.

"Well, I don't know his office hours."

The clerk murmured some more, and this time I caught the word "tomorrow:" that dreaded demoralizer of all scripp hopefuls.

"I can't wait till tomorrow. I CAN'T!" The bouffant wobbled. "What bullshit." She turned to those of us in line and glared Well? Don't stand for this! Join me! Take your business elsewhere, where they will call your doctor at home! She hoisted her purse and stalked off past the analgesics.

The clerk eyed me. "Can I help you?"

"Sure. I need to pick up a prescription for Axxx Xxxxxx, please." I spelled my name.

For some reason, this pharmacy can never find my prescription. It turns up behind the pharmacist's computer, or under the counter, or in a secret dusty bin hidden under the rubber car seat doughnuts. And yet, during the searches, they always ask me the same thing: "Can you spell your name again, please?" Because the spelling, like a talisman, will lure the pills out, or cause them to glow gold, or something.

The clerk put back the dozen bins, wiped the cobwebs off her sleeve and scanned my scripp.

"That's 82.93, please."

"Um. Okay." I did not want to cause an uncomfortable scene like the Bouffant Lady. Also, the line had grown from three to back by the milk and beer coolers. "Is that for a three month supply?"

The clerk checked the labels. "Nope. One month."

Of course it was, I should've known - the bag was smaller than a watermelon. "Ah. Did my insurance cover it?"

The clerk checked the labels again. "Yup. Medco? That's what we have."

"That's it." I paid, confused. If I purchased my pills at the pharmacy instead of their mail-order system, Medco was supposed to pay for about 80%, and my cost per month should've been under ten bucks. I stopped by the front of the store and bought a giant bag of spearmint slices - with real spearmint oil, only ninety-nine cents - to help me mull things over. Then I drove home and hopped on the company's website.

It did not take long to figure out where I had gone wrong.

Medco offers a "price a medication" feature, where you can find your drugs and compare pharmacy prices to mail-order. When you enter in a drug name, the system automatically defaults to the dosage of one pill, once a day. Sure, Colazal would cost me under ten bucks a month, if I just quit taking so damn much of it. I checked all my drugs, and found that, hey, to save cash, all of them will have to come through the mail from now on.

What can I say? I love the cotton candy, the funnel cakes, the house of mirrors. (Or, if you're from where I'm from, a glass of milk - white or chocolate.)

This is clearly a case of the willing sucker. Also, I seem to have an overwhelming fear of being the Entitled Bitch in the store, though the unappetizing display of the Bouffant Lady was clearly only one way to handle a situation. It's hard, though, when you're out of pills and just want to get the fuck out of there, to spend the time asking for a week's or more worth of medication, calling the doctor to get a prescription transfer to Medco, and then waiting, pill-rationing, for the mail-order to come. But it is doable. I wasted money.

At least I had crappy candy to help me deal.

Hey, Sheryl Crow!

From my cold, dead hands!

You should seriously rethink your stupid-ass statement.

Perhaps all that highlighting shit seeped through your skull and curdled up your brain. If you get your wish that all people should use one square of toilet paper (two or three in those emergency situations doesn't fucking cut it, not when an average UC emergency is a bucket load more than you may be used to), you better tack on a damn good alternative for those of us who don't poop like environmentalists aresupposedto.

I think that global warming is REALLY caused by the excessive brightness reflecting off your lovely golden tresses; the ice caps will continue to melt unless you put a hat on.


Pic attributed to Patapat - Link