Friday, January 24, 2014

TGIF!

The week is done- sort of. I have to go in to work and do a lot of paperwork tomorrow. I am on vacation next week so everything needs to be in order and notes on all the patients for the per diem therapist who will be covering for me. I really need this vacation, I have been feeling really exhausted this week.

Sunday I am flying to Florida, where my dad and step mother have rented a condo for the winter. I will finally get some sunshine! I should have been gone this week, and missed the snow, but it will still be welcome. I will have a week to go to the pool, the beach, and walk in the sun. I just have a hundred things to get done between now and Sunday morning when my plane leaves.

I'm trying to decide right now whether or not to go to this hand therapy conference that I go to every year. It won't be paid for this year by my employer. I would normally have gone anyway- I have learned so much from this conference, I like going, and it inspires me with my work. But with the prospect of paying for my Provigil come April, I am hesitating. I have enough debt. But then a part of me says, the conference is in March- it will by my last hurrah for a while. Time enough to start being more frugal in April!

So I haven't decided what I am going to do.

I have to remind myself that the price of Provigil will fall, it is just a matter of time. It already has fallen since it went generic- it just started so high, and has fallen a lot less then I though it would in this time. I won't be spending all of my money on Provigil forever- I have to remind myself this or I start to get too angry and frustrated and want to do crazy things like stop taking it so that I get so depressed I have to be hospitalized and then my insurance company will really be out money.

But I don't want that. That is just stupid.

I am really obsessed with this Provigil I guess. I keep coming back to it. But I've looked at my insurance company's medical criteria, and they specifically exclude depression as an indication. I don't think I have a chance- and I don't think my psychiatrist uses the drug enough to know what to tell them (or works with insurance companies enough to know what to tell them).

My insurance company has a nurse hotline. I wonder if they can provide any information.

"They say" that when you are drowning the hardest part is the struggle, and that once you give up it can be peaceful. Maybe it is my struggle, thinking that there is a way out of paying for my Provigil that is driving me crazy. Maybe this calls for radical acceptance. Maybe that will give me at least a little bit of peace. Of course, the peace doesn't mean that you aren't still drowning!


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How about excessive daytime sleepiness? All it took to be diagnosed with that by a sleep lab was a paper diagnostic quiz. And Nuvigil was approved through patient assistance on that basis. They didn't even need to see my sleep study; my psychiatrist just wrote those magic words and they approved it. I have not used it like we thought I would but I have enough to try it if we reach a point I'm stable enough. I also don't know how willing your psychiatrist is to fight for you but some companies (don't know about cephalon) can be convinced to make exceptions to patient assistance.

Also, Nuvigil at least used to and I am 99% sure still does gives you one free bottle per year. That would give you another month, let you try it out, and you could go to your conference and consider it a "gift" from Cephalon. (How bizarre to make pots and pans and medications). That is a coupon on the website I believe. Or my pharmacist used to just give it to me but that was when I was going to a little family owned pharmacy where I actually got to know my pharmacist and he knew who he was handing those odd assortments of meds to.