Let me try again to finish this, I’ve been working at it in bits and pieces. I can sit up for short times…
Dr. R’s nurse called this morning, and her voice was dancing: she told us to call Caremark at this number.
We did. Blue Cross had finally authorized the Humira. But: Caremark had not. They were running it past their risk assessment team. And they were still trying to decide what the billing would be, what the co-payment would be.
I was stunned. Were they afraid of the liability of selling me a dangerous drug? It IS dangerous, I know that–I read the experimental results and side effects re its near-cousin Remicade before I started that five years ago: it could cause MS. Lupus. (Beatcha.) But you do what you’ve got to do.
Richard assured me all pharmacies run all meds through a computerized thing so that one med won’t cause damage alongside another. Okay, but that doesn’t take hours.
Several hours later, they were still working on it.  I told the woman if there were anywhere we could drive to within 200 miles of the San Francisco Bay Area to pick it up, we would, that this was a life or death situation. We knew it wasn’t something a pharmacy would have lying around on the shelf, but if they could somehow get it to one of their Caremark-affiliated pharmacies if it was a problem getting to us, then okay?… Whatever it takes!
She sounded very sympathetic. She said they were waiting for “authorization from the doctor.” I called my nurse back, who exclaimed, “They *WHAT?*” And vowed to immediately take care of THAT problem for me!
And from there on out, all we could get through to was the voicemail of the lady at Caremark. The receptionist even tried her supervisor for me. Forget it. It is after 7:00 pm Central time, the time they close up for the day and I assume the weekend. They bailed on me. There is no Humira.
And yet… It could well be that tomorrow morning it will be there at our doorstep; I just don’t know. They wouldn’t tell me.
But in spite of all that mess, I have to add one other thing: yesterday, given how awful I was doing, I asked Richard and he called our friend Eric and in the evening, Eric came over and the two of them gave me a blessing, Mormon style. A way of saying we have done what we can; we put it entirely now in the hands of God in our moment of need.
And in that blessing with their hands on my head, Richard felt impressed to say out loud something we both already knew: that family was praying for me, friends were praying for me, people I didn’t know were praying for me. And as he said that
Okay stop a moment and collect myself here
As he said that, I got a sense of the tiniest glimpse of the love of God, at His joy that His children were looking out for one another and caring for one another, and that all those prayers and love and Thinking Good Thoughts, thinking beyond themselves to a fellow human in need, mattered. And made a difference.
I knew then that I would make it to when this Humira comes, whenever that might turn out to be.
I want you to know I do feel your prayers. I had a sense of each individual one said for me while I was being given that blessing. It was powerful. I can’t begin to describe… You do much good, every single one of you. And I am profoundly grateful.
And a little stronger today for it.