Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Sleepless Night = Two Unrelated Rants

I think I slept, off and on,  a total of 2 hours last night. Of course, this can't be a weekend but rather I have 2 doctor's appointments today (one for a blood draw for an RA study and one with a new Primary Care) and then work until late.  Rather than being cranky at work, I am going to get my cranky out now with two things that are making me nuts.

Rant One:  let's talk pharmacy policy.  I cannot express HOW BEYOND irritated I am with my pharmacy at the moment. I am not even going to discuss the price of medications, though anyone using a biologic for one of the chronic illnesses can tell you how ridiculous that is!  Here is my gripe.

I was on infusion Orencia for what, about a year?  The way it worked was that my doc wrote the RX for a year, every three months my specialty pharmacy would send, by overnight service, 3 vials of the drug directly to my doctor's office.  When I went for my appointment and was mid-saline drip, they would mix it up in the office.  I never saw the drug until it was hooked up to my IV.  I didn't see it, I didn't touch it, I didn't so much as breathe in its general direction.  In November, they sent my three month supply to the office and my life went to hell in a handbasket schedule-wise and I was not able to have my infusion in November, December or January.

Last month, I saw my rheumy and we made the decision to switch me to the injectable form of Orencia.  The order was called in and I got my three months worth of injections over-nighted and began my injections.  During all of the switch-over, on one of my many discussions with the pharmacy, I asked them about the unused infusion meds.  They told me, in no uncertain terms, that they could not, would not, take that medication back from the doctor's office.  On one hand- I get it.  They can't take the chance that it has been tampered with.  On the other hand- it just infuriates me to no end.  When would it have been tampered with and by whom?  Do they think someone at my doctor's office would try and intentionally kill me?  Perhaps it's the delivery driver who is suspect- in which case- am I safe now?  Do they not have tamper-proof protections in place?  Do they not have the ability to test medications coming in?

Though it would have been *nice* to have a credit for my co-pay in place, it is not that.  It is the blatant WASTE of THOUSANDS of dollars of medication going into the trash.  Do you wonder why our meds are so expensive?  Here's a piece of the puzzle.  Okay- if they could not resell it, couldn't they donate it to someone who desperately needs biologics and cannot afford them?  Couldn't they return it to Bristol Meyers to be tested and repackaged?  I don't know about you but in my personal life I don't have a couple of thousand dollars to flush down the toilet, and goodness knows that it's the same in my professional life.  It just makes me ill to think about it.
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Rant Two:  Spam.  I hate Spam.  Spam Email, Spam Comments, Spam Posts.  It's easy enough to deal with in most cases, I know.

In one of my different "groups" I had a fairly tense "discussion" this past week about someone who was posting spam for their "real estate academy" in a Military Brats page.  Their "MO" was to post "testimonials" from a supposed retired military member.  Someone was defending them because of (what I feel was) that ruse.  My point- it was a page for "brats" (ie- military kids) to get together, share memories and talk about how growing up in the service made us unique among our peers.  Just because the testimonial was allegedly written by a retired military member- that does not make the poster a "brat" who was "sharing their business" (as my counterpoint in the debate called it as opposed to selling a real estate scam: which I call it), and does not make that testimonial true just because he slapped rank on the end of it.  Heck- I don't know that it would even be appropriate if it IS true since our little corner of the web is for military kids- not our parents.

In our RA/Fibro groups the barrage is fairly constant.  Every one of them claims that she or he has a cure.  I ignore it when I am of the mind, I report it when I am really annoyed, but it really bothers me that anyone would try to use our illness to sell us snake oil.   If only ONE person, who is already dealing with so much, falls for this and loses their money and peace of mind, it's too many.    

 I have pretty high filters on all of my email accounts and on this blog but I truly resent having to take the time to delete advertisement after advertisement from both my personal spam folders and the emails that come through that are meant as comments here.

 Worse- this morning I deleted 23 spam comments for porn and/or sex chats meant for here.  What in the world have I posted that makes these morons think that this crap; be it ads for fake Gucci purses, for ways to increase my web presence, or for "f*^k buddies" for myself or my readers would be appropriate or welcome?

So here's my note to the spammers.  We don't want you.  We don't want your products, your "opportunities" or whatever else you are selling.  You waste our time, you try our patience.  You are NOT WELCOME.  If- by chance- you make it through my filters, you will be deleted post haste.


Rants over.  

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