husband is Home

[DaisyFace]

Lisa--

I've been away...and just now logging on seeing this?? Oh my goodness my heart goes out to you and your husband!

I'm so glad to learn that he is home.

The medications? Ugh! Yes, definitely ask around....there should be some more affordable options for you.

Keeping you in my prayers and ((((hugs)))) to you both.

 

[susiestar]

Lisa, I am so glad he is home. That doctor needs to be smacked. HARD. How on earth does he expect husband to react to what he said? Have another heart attack over the shock and stress of it so that the doctor can then figure out why he survived? If the doctor wants his follow up info, maybe the doctor should pay for his medications, Know what I mean??

Now you are not going to like what I say next. I know that you take great pride in supporting yourself/your family without much outside help. I know this will be tough for you to do. But you NEED to get over to the social services office and apply for food stamps and even their insurance. Given how low your income is, you actually may qualify for the state version of medicaid - and it might kick in faster than medicaid. You also should be getting assistance with food and even other things. This is NOT NOT NOT charity. YOU PAID INTO the funds for these programs, just like for social security, etc... For a family of 2 the income limit is $1500 approx per month. husband is going to need decent food, and it will also help with providing the right foods for your body with the renal diet.

Lisa, you and husband need the help. He is disabled, but with the proper care and medications, he may get better. You also need to consider starting to be checked again for the kidney issues and problems from the Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) to see if YOU qualify for disability. Given the various serious medical problems, you should qualify. I know it isn't something you WANT. But right now you have to take care of business, and thta means getting help from EVERY place you can.

 

[Hound dog]

Susie we're already looking into those options. As well as community action helping with the electric due to husband being unable to tolerate heat now at all.

And yes, I agree the doctor should be smacked upside the head.

Walmart called them. I called them and specifically explained why we needed the medication done this way, that husband had just been discharged and needed the medication immediately. I called walmart at about 7pm to find that doctor office had yet to call them back so they could fill it.

I"m calling doctor first thing in the am..........and I may not be very polite. Why in heaven's name would you script not one but 2 medications that someone with no insurance who is not working couldn't possibly afford to buy?? Idiot. (he has another medication that costs around 250.00) I hope there is someone in the office because if I have to pay the full amt for the one I've been calling all day about there will be pure hades to pay.

It's a holiday weekend dammit. If I can't get them tomorrow there won't be anyone in the office until tues. Like I said, idiot should have scripted it right in the first place. Common sense says if you can't buy the medication, you sure as heck won't be taking the medication. duh!

We will buy it, it will just hurt us in other bill areas for a short period.

husband decided to blow up at me over the medications. Not a so smart thing to do when it's been days since I've caught more than a couple hours of sleep at a shot, and last night was omg a disaster.....and I'd been on the phone all day, and having to hover near him and his needy self all day........and well yeah. Told him to hoover it up, I was working on it and unless he could figure a way I could pull the bleeping things out of mid air, then to back the hades off. He'd survive one night without the darn medications.........or I'd haul his fanny to the ER and we'd get em that way if he becomes symptomatic. ugh!

I swear sometimes he just has got to push it too far.

After that he perked up a bit. Started moving around the house. Ate something for dinner. Took a shower...........and is now sleeping on the livingroom floor. Yes, the floor. He refuses to go back upstairs because it caused him chest pain. Well, yeah. I'd warned him it would, stairs are more strenuous than flat walking. doctor had told him if he only went up once at night, it would be ok. Just not to be going up and down and up and down. Well, according to Travis, he went up and down 3 times last night, then finally just stayed downstairs. I'm guessing this was around 4am when I finally managed to drift off. Probably because he was not in the bed. In the bed he'd drift off to sleep for a few mins.......enough for me to begin to relax, then jerk awake with a huge start. Not to mention the constant moving, touching me as if I was going to magically vanish, having to have the light on.........

I can't wait until I can get him into a fam doctor to get a script for the anxiety. omg

He kept saying he was afraid to go to sleep for fear he'd never wake up. And I almost told him my mantra for that particular anxiety.........Well, at least I'll never know it if it happens. But I thought he would think I was being smart *ssed with him.

It's been a long day. And it's going to be a much longer weekend.

 

[InsaneCdn]

Is there anything for a bed downstairs at all? If not, can you drag one mattress down and toss that on the floor? Mattress on floor is actually not to bad for comfort, for most people.

I know that in our house - where we all have sleep issues at some point or another for different reasons... If one of us is sick, (or even just sick with anxiety so we know we won't sleep well) we don't even try to sleep in the same room. One of us moves out to the guest room - either the sick or the well, depending on how sick - its just a matter of logic. Its close enough that the other person can hear if you need help - far enough away to actually sleep. You could even get a second-hand baby monitor (cheap) so you can hear him from upstairs.

You've got your hands full - the first week or two is the worst (was for us with Mom's stroke). After that, the major kinks are worked out and life can develop a pattern.

medications... can you reach the family doctor over the weekend if you can't reach specialist? Sometimes, if the family doctor can see the original script, they will write a temporary script for the alternative - say, a week's worth - to keep you going. The family doctor knows who you are - it doesn't work going to a walk-in.

Lots of thoughts and hugs...

ps: You did the right thing telling him that if he got into trouble you'd take him back to emergency... in other words, there is a "plan b", so he can relax a bit.

 

[Hound dog]

Nothing I can set up as a bed for him, no. Our air mattress won't fit in the room.

This is why we're going to be playing ring around the room once Mom leaves. We'll be turning the now parlor / livingroom into the master bedroom, bringing the bedroom furniture downstairs and shifting the diningroom furniture into the kitchen (kitchen stuff into the family room) livingroom furniture into the now diningroom. A royal PITA I'd hoped to avoid until we had no choice. But it appears we have no choice now, so might as well do it and get it over with as soon as we can.

The house was set up this way before in order to make it 3 bedrooms while Nichole still lived at home. When she moved out we put the house the way it was meant to be.

I have a fam doctor. husband has no fam doctor. He refused to see mine when I went and got him and never found one of his own. So that's a no go. Which is why I decided if he became really symptomatic we'd just take him back to the ER who can contact the hospital he was in to get the medications. No problem.

 

[DammitJanet]

which ones are so flippin expensive..the biosomething and certainly not the nitro because that been out forever and a day. LIPITOR could be but I could solve that in a day.

I do know that if you can ever get a doctor to sign off on those forms for the pharmaceutical companies, you will get his medications for free for a year. Plus there were clinics list on there that may have been near you, didnt look because I cant remember your exact town.

 

[Hound dog]

The Pradaxa is the other really expensive one. Bidil is the one we're waiting on the doctor to change the script. But no one is in the office this morning so it's become a moot point right now. That one he can't do without, so I'll pay the full price and medicaid will have to pay me back once he's accepted. The Pradaxa is a blood thinner, but aspirin will tide him over, he's getting a full dose aspirin, not the low dose baby aspirin.

The lipitor and the nitro aren't bad at all. Nitro is only 11.99. Lipitor I know isn't bad because I used to take it, and we could afford it. I'd go ahead and fill it too but I'm trying to rearrange an already super tight budget to pay full price for the bidil. I think we'll be ok as he's due for his SS next tues. If unemployment had not given him his back pay for August though, we'd have been in major trouble. I'll price the lipitor while I'm there today and if it's as low as I think it is, I'll probably go ahead and fill it too.

 

[HaoZi]

Have you tried contacting the customer service dept of the drug makers? Not their normal patient assistance program, but someone that can call in a code to the pharmacy for a 10-14 day free trial to get you through.

 

[keista]

he's getting a full dose aspirin, not the low dose baby aspirin.

You didn't mention specific dosage. Please check with your pharmacist on this one. I had jumped in on a convo where the pharmacist was telling a patient that when they were taking aspirin for blood thinning, to make sure they had something other than aspirin for pain relief because after an X amount of aspirin, it is NO LONGER a blood thinner but an analgesic. REALLY? I've only heard it once, and it could be wrong, but worth checking out.

 

[InsaneCdn]

Lisa - on that really expensive one, maybe you could get a partial fill... they can't give you MORE than the script says, but at least up here they can give you a half-fill, for example - especially if you're waiting to hear back from the doctor about an adjustment to the script... The drug is so expensive that the dispensing fee becomes a very small part of the bill...
Just a thought.

 

[TerryJ2]

Lisa,
I'm so sorry about the lack of medications and scrips but you are in better hands here on this board than at the hospital!
I think that keeping your husband downstairs for now is a good idea.
Interesting comment by the dr ... and bad timing, I agree. Reminds me of when my husband was in chiro college, and my mom had carpal tunnel surgery. Instead of telling her how sorry he was and he hoped she felt better asap, he looked at her wrist and said, "Oh, cool!"
He sank waaaaay down on her fave b-i-l list that day ...

 

[Steely]

Wow - wow - wow.....our healthcare crisis in action. You should call 20/20 for a "reality show of how it is to live without insurance." Makes me so bleeping mad.

Anyhoo......I agree with what has been said. I would also call the Dr and tell him that you do not have the money for these scripts - and that you are going to need his help until medicare kicks in - or he really will die!!!! The Dr can give you samples, he can pull all sorts of strings - believe me - you just need to throw a warrior mom fit! Because you need these now! And while you are on the phone with him tell him his anxiety is so high that you are now worried about his blood pressure (have you taken it) and he needs to also give him Xanax.

Good grief - I am so mad for you!!! But I am glad husband is home ( ) of course. hugs,

 

[DammitJanet]

Oh hell...pradaxa is what they are pushing because it is new and is just a newer form of warfarin. He doesnt need to be on it, its just friggin new. Dang I wish I hadnt thrown away all my warfarin. Take his butt back to the er and get them to rewrite those scripts. He doesnt need the latest and the greatest. Hell we dont know that pradaxa is actually gonna work any better than good ole warfarin or heparin anyway. Its just brand spanking new.

Thats all well and good if insurance will pay but many wont unless you have gone through the others first.

 

[Hound dog]

He's got his medications. Got the female caring pharmacist and she changed it up without waiting on doctor who obviously couldn't be bothered to call them back. If the pradaxa is just like wararin, I may consult pharmacist about switching to a generic alternative so he can go ahead and have it too. That i know they do all the time.

Pharmacist also wrote the instructions clearly and numbered the bottles so I know exactly how to give it too, which I thought was quite nice of her and I really appreciated.

 

[HaoZi]

We should send your pharmacist a big ol' thank you card.

 

[Mamaof5]

What about Astrazeneca? You see them on medication commercials all the time about helping people who can't afford their medications? I'm sorry the hospital dumped all that **** on all of you. Typical in my opinion. Have you considered talking to the patient ombudsman about this? I did it for my mom 600 km away from the hospital she was in. She wanted them to (legitimately) Ultrasound her neck after her second stroke because she has a c6\c7 spinal fusion. She fell during her stroke and it was sensitive. They kept giving her the run around and I called the patient ombudsman and that ultrasound got done the very same day I called. Luckily, nothing was wrong but still, they weren't listening to the patient at all.

 

[flutterby]

I know it's a drive, but if you can manage it, I'd get him into Mid-Ohio Cardiology in Columbus. They are one of the best in the state, have patients from all over the state, and they take medicaid - so when he gets it, he's still ok.

http://www.mocvc.com/

 

[flutterby]

Also, I don't know if there are differences in the nitro, but my nitro is on the $4 drug list.

 

[Hound dog]

Flutter I don't know if there is a difference or not (maybe dosage??) but they charged us 11.99 for the nitro.......hmm maybe amt has to do with it too, didn't think about that........and I thought it was on the 4.00 list too.

I'll check into them, thanks. I'm trying to find one fairly close that I can manage to get to him when he needs to be hospitalized. Driving cincy is OUT. I won't do it period. Nope. Nada. Not happening. East Gate is about as close to cincy as I chose to get. Dayton is just so darn far......I can't see doing it for routine visits. Depending on where this one is located, Columbus may be a good option. Thanks.

 

[flutterby]

You might contact them about other locations, too. The site only lists the one on Olentangy River Road, which is north side of Columbus, but I know they have satellite offices.