BCAM: October 24th

General 1 Minute

Medication–those of us with Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC), we take a LOT of medication, every day. Sometimes, we have no choice as to the modality or location the medication is taken. Some examples of the modality are: 1) pill; 2) injection; or 3) infusion. Some examples of location are: 1) home; 2) doctor’s office; 3) clinic; 4) infusion center; 5) in the hospital.

And what about co-pays? Adiba talks about that ….

Being terminally ill is complicated. The medication is complicated. The insurance issues are complicated. The result of these complicates our ability to rest and increases our stress exponentially. Add in unscrupulous vendors and the aggressiveness of collection agencies and it can be brutal.

Enter a solution: HB1730 and SB741, the Cancer Drug Parity Act. This Bill would help every single cancer patient in that it says that the patient’s co-pay is the same for the medication regardless of modality or location. I’m fully aware that the health insurance and pharmaceutical companies have strong lobbyist and they speak up, loudly. Yet, I also believe that every single person has an obligation to look at this situation as they would care for the members of their own family: would my mom/sister/grandmother/grandfather/father/brother be able to figure this out while handling a terminal illness?

Even if the answer is yes, why should a terminally ill person have to deal with this amount of stress? It’s a legitimate question that I believe should be posed to each and every person in the industry. Why are we putting stress on those least able to handle it?

Here’s another reason — after I went through chemo, I struggled with word recall, I struggled to retain information that I’d read and so I took a neuropsychological test. It demonstrated that I’d lost 20 IQ points.

20 IQ points was the demonstrable damage to my brain from chemo and that was about a year after I’d finished chemo.

Mahatma Ghandi or Hubert Humphrey (or maybe both) said — “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.”

How are we treating the dying in our society?

And now you know more about what would help vulnerable, terminal patents.

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Published by Abigail Johnston

I'm a daughter, a wife, a mother, and I've been living with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer since March, 2017. All of the words I publish are my own.

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17 thoughts on “BCAM: October 24th”

  1. Yes, the medications are difficult to handle and very expensive. I have the Faslodex injections, two a month, and those are covered completely by insurance because they are administered in the doc’s office. Same for Xgevia. But the chemo pill I take is over $12,000 a month for which I pay (right now) over $600 a month depending where I am in the pharmacy bubble that I do not understand. Nor does my financial-genius husband. And, yes, I lost IQ points and some days have word recall. Ain’t life grand?

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  3. Thank you, Abigail—and I emphatically agree.
    We absolutely need drastic changes to our health care delivery system, which drives so many Americans into bankruptcy when they need help the most. I’ll look into the bills you cite.

    I don’t suggest you take another IQ test, but from what I’ve seen, I’m quite sure you wouldn’t find the same results.

    💕

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    1. Thanks!! I did take a second test after doing a lot of brain exercises on Brain HQ and it showed that I’d regained about 15 of the 20 I’d lost. I do still have word retrieval struggles but I’m really the only one who notices. My kiddos laugh at the explanations I come up with when I’ve forgotten a word so we’re striving to make the best of it. ❤️

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  4. Reblogged this on Marsha Ingrao – Always Write and commented:
    What does cancer medication do to your IQ? Does it make a difference in what form you take your medication if you have cancer? Can you or your loved ones deal with the stresses of figuring out insurance and Medicare? Read on to see what would help.

    Also, if you like to write, don’t forget the about your Carrot Ranch “Git Along Dogies” Rodeo Contest #3. Writing keeps your brain active and give you something productive to do when you are ill or on restricted travel – like for COVID 19. https://tchistorygal.net/2020/10/20/git-along-an-start-writin/ Monday Deadline 12:00 am PDT. That gives you easterners and out of country folks a few extra hours. 🙂 By the way, I had one email that was rejected. You might want to include an extra email so you are sure I am able to confirm your entry. 🙂 Thanks and happy reading, writing, and blogging. Now on to Abigail’s fabulous post.

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  5. Hi Abigail, what a great post. I don’t know whether my loss of brain power has been from cancer treatment or just getting older, but even without testing I know it’s not what it was. Not many people would have 20 IQ points to spare. I wouldn’t want to spare that many, but it wouldn’t surprise me if I had. Thank you for including the links to those two bills. If I have time, I’ll follow up with an article about how to most effectively reach out to our representatives – if anything is effective these days. Thanks for another great post on how to be helpful.

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    1. I keep hearing from lobbyists that so many groups are not engaging with staffers as much, so it’s timely to connect. I hope that’s true since I’ve spent a lot of time the last few months engaging with health staffers.

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