There are many things to hate about being chronically ill, for me one of the top things is being on too many medications.
Since I started getting sick in 2005 I have gained over 250 pounds, due to direct or indirect effects of the meds I am on. Some of them (Steroids for example) cause weight gain, others zap your energy so much that walking is a task into it self. Taken together with my left leg being all but useless I barely can move around, so more weight gain.
I was just put on, a week or two back, a super strong top secret anti-biotic. The problem is, like many anti-biotics, it has huge effects on your gut. My gut is already in trouble so basically it is not a fun situation.
I know I need to be on the meds I am on, and pharma is getting rich off me. Thank G-d I am now in a nursing home as I could no longer manage to take all the pills when I needed them. Now they get delivered 4 times a day to my bedside, and they are paid for by Medicaid, so it is not as much an issue, but…
If you’ve ever dealt with Medicaid it can sometimes not be too fun. I am an insulin dependent diabetic. Normal insulin does not work for me, so I am on a concentrated insulin which is 5 times more powerful than regular insulin and I take 150 units of it 3 times a day, back before when I lived by myself. Back then my sugars ran OK for the most part. But fighting to get it in the nursing home has been a challenge. Its taken over a month for them to OK the insulin, and they do not even begin to want to give me the required dose, so my sugar levels get into the 400s often. Finally they are moving it up to the normal dose I need, but they cannot do it all at once since Medicaid will not pay for that much, the nursing home needs to document how my levels are out of control at the incorrect doses.
So even though you know you have to get a certain med, as you all know I am preaching to the choir, getting it in your hands is not certain. I never thought I’d say I am lucky to be in a nursing home and on Medicaid but medication-wise I am.
I end up getting 3 injections a day of insulin, take 20 different meds, some thankfully are generic, others...well they are not. The good thing is I’ve gotten to be a pro at swallowing a large number of pills at one time. If I had to take pills one at a time I’d gag before I was halfway done with my meds. I hate the taste of meds, and the process to get them down, so it was a lot easier for me to train myself to take a whole cup full of them all at once.
Otherwise life goes on, no major complaints beyond the above….and I realize it could be a lot worse.
So how about you WYFP?