Meantime, on our side of the continent…

New year, new policy.

The young man at the counter at the pharmacy this afternoon was staggered. Spluttering. “Do you want to see if the doctor can prescribe something else?!”

No, this is what there is that works and I guess this is just what it costs.

“But…!”

Yeah, I sure didn’t like it either, but what can you do? “We’ll pay it off.” (As I wondered how fast.)  He repeated again the number of thousands and hundreds in disbelief, then laughed wryly/bitterly as he added, “And thirteen dollars. And seventy-two cents.”

He shook his head a moment. “But what about the next month?!” I could see the wheels spinning, the medical bankruptcy right before his inner eyes.

“Well, by then it should be okay,” I tried to reassure him. We went back and forth, with him trying to figure out some way not to have to charge us what he had to charge us.

And then I told him the retail price on my ileostomy supplies is well over $900 a month (for those bits of plastic and sterilized pectin for an utterly captive consumer group, I didn’t say) and we have absolutely no choice on that, either. Except that, having hit our large deductible for the year right there today, our insurance should help out at least some from here on out.

He was trying hard to champion my cause from a position of zero power.

I think someone deserves a handknit hat, don’t you? Let’s see, color, color, hmm, he likes things bright and cheerful. He’s a good one.

(p.s. And as I walked in the door at home, the phone rang. It was the pharmacist, apologizing. She’d forgotten to fill the other prescription.)