Cooled off

Well, I came down a little bit. Over the weekend we did freakish amounts of yard work and I tried to practice mindfulness. Some observe and describe, after doing physical labor, and I was able to bring it down a notch. I've remained motivated and have been pulling my weight around the house. Today, I've taken care of all the animal poops, watered the back lawn, washed Kris's yoga stuff, painted my nails in a blue-to-purple gradient with glitter, and will be purging the living room of trash shortly.

Yesterday, I went to Dr. Yasar. I began by immediately spewing my "omg my thoughts are so fast i can't sleep i think geodon might be causing hypomania but also it could be that the dose needs to be higher what do we do?" He laughed and thanked me for telling him. My lithium level is now at a "perfect" .8, and Geodon is doubled to 160mg/day, all taken at night. The lithium level puts me at ease, that I won't have an "emergency" manic situation occur requiring a visit to the psych ward. The Geodon might end up being okay - my brain feels like it's fully functional, and that I don't have as much impairment mentally except for the occasional lithium slip (mostly blanking out on words or replacing words without noticing during conversation). I might actually really really like Geodon. Verdict after the week at 160mg.

Now, at my last appointment with the doctor, I had a minor breakdown about Geodon, and about affording it. Everywhere I looked online my copay was $140. The medco site showed that it just paid 70 or 80%, leaving me with almost $200 a month - even with the Pfizer copay card for branded Geodon, still $75-100 or more out of pocket. I have secondary insurance from my father (THANK YOU OBAMACARE!) and it includes a prescription benefit. I've never used it, because most pharmacies don't double-bill...they will bill one insurance plan and give you receipts to submit to your secondary, but they won't bill the secondary directly. I asked Sam's and Walmart, Costco, and CVS, and they all said they couldn't do it. So I called Humana, the secondary carrier. I demanded to know how I could make this work. The girl I talked to seemed totally baffled that the pharmacies I'd talked to wouldn't bill secondary. She told me to just try a different pharmacy. As is my habit with call centers when I don't get the answer I want, I called back immediately to a different rep. This woman asked if I would hold, and she proceeded to call Walgreens (no dice) and Target. Target, she said, would bill Humana as secondary. I called Target and the guy said that yes, it can be done, but no, he can't be sure until he submits a claim. Okay, fair enough.

Now, I never asked, I just assumed that Humana would only pay the difference between my Medco copay and the Humana copay (Humana's copay for Geodon being $40), so there would still be something left at the end. I went to Target after having Yasar write me a paper prescription so I could shop pharmacies (he normally e-prescribes everything), and dropped it off after providing all of my info. I browsed the nearby aisles a little bit until they called me over.

"It came back as $0."
"$0? ZERO? You're sure?"
"Yup, positive. Both plans paid, balance is zero. Sign here for insurance."
ZERO. I walked out of there with 60 capsules of generic Geodon (which they didn't even have in stock when I called them a few days prior), with a retail value of $608.99, and I paid NOTHING!

Now, I am impressed for many reasons with the Target pharmacy. Their staff was great, very personable. They double bill. But they also have a wonderful, beautiful, miraculous invention in their prescription bottles. Not the normal orangey bottles with white labels. They have bottles that look like tubes of lotion - so the cap is on the bottom. The label goes up the front side and down the back side, with the name of the drug and dosage printed perfectly right across the top of the tube. The label being front/back gives it a little more space for the warnings and instructions. It's amazing, especially for those of us (everyone) with their scripts in a basket by the remote control or on the kitchen counter...it says it right on the top! No more fumbling for which bottle has the pill you need, or having to put little garage sale labels on the tops saying the drug, or am/pm, or whatever. It is a brilliant invention, and whoever made up these new Target prescription bottles deserves approximately one billion dollars. AMAZING.

Okay, time to trash-attack the living room. Boom.