I am switching things up again.

I am so excited, I ordered a treadmill. It is going to have speakers where I can hook up my Iphone and Madonna will be blaring through it. This is MY early Christmas present.

I want to primarily use it for walking, walking fast on a slight incline and be mindful not to run.

I came to this conclusion, although quite hesitant to buy it – is that when I am the healthiest (specifically my lungs), historically, is when I do straight cardio 3 times a week. All through my 20s I have done that.

I love P90X, but it is hard, takes an hour, and it isn’t straight cardio. I will continue to do it, of course – but I need to get in more cardio.

It doesn’t make sense to join a gym, especially when Sheila has the car more. There is no way I am going to walk to the T, take the T, and then go to a gym to walk on a treadmill. I might as well walk around, right? That’s not going to happen during the winter, thus approaching it is.

I finally put those credit card numbers in when I said to Sheila that the over-arching goal is to stay out of the hospital. My health connects everything else in my/our life; work, income, well-being, stress – everything, so I decided this was the best investment I could make. And if I really wanted to, since I haven’t ever dipped into my health savings, I could pull the money from that. My emergency health savings which was the absolute first thing I did when I got out of x-ray school.

Second, I want my own spirometry. It would be my own home PFT machine! How cool is that?! It is quite small, is digital, has an USB port, and can email my doctor my PFT scores. This video shows how cool it is:

www.medrise.com

This way I can track my lungs on a more scientific basis: morning, night, and right before exercise, treatments, post, on and on. At first I would be obsessed with it, but I am sure that would dissipate over time.

The biggest thing – it would eliminate or almost completely reduce the anxiety I feel going into the doctor’s office. I never had anxiety in the past, at least not consciously, but since hitting 30 (getting older), lung infections, hospitalization . . . there is anxiety attached to this. I start to see myself in cancer patients. Not to that degree – but in a different way, sort of.

I found out about this device through the CF foundation. Manufactures are trying to get insurance to add this to the durable medical equipment list. Fat-chance for a while I am quite sure.

I have to get a doctor’s prescription and at this point I would pay for it myself – around $1,100 for the one without the oxymeter. It’s kind of a lot. I was hoping for $500-750. No luck.

This would decrease my stress immensely! Think of it, having going to the doctors specifically for this test, so often. I go every 3-months, but so much can change in that time. I would figure out the plus/minus fudge factor between theirs and mine. Same time, same place – it would be so much accurate. I am hoping I can budget for it over the next 6-months. We will see. It would be so great!

I can see the look on my doc’s face now, like I am a crazy-nut job. I am already the crazy patient that does over and beyond what is expected. They love it, but here I go again. They may laugh, chuckle.

So, I started my new insurance; painful, but they always are. I got my shoes from Zappos in a hurricane in 2 days, and my drugs got lost in the shuffle, they couldn’t find it. My shoes literally came on hurricane Monday.

But, Christmas came at 10:00am from Fed Ex the other morning – I am so happy when I get my medications, cause I never know: will they come, how much will they be, how many phone calls will this one take, will I get the whole prescription, do I need to count my enzymes – I have in the past because the number didn’t seem quite right. They actually have changed the amount in the past (taking the lowest number 4-6/snack vs. the highest) – bastards. I know their games.

A pharmaceutical scenario goes like this:
I call the number on my card; it says to fax all scripts to etc number. I email my information to my nurse. She emails me back a couple hours later stating some other pharmacy name.

I call back and speak to a person. This very nice gentlemen, gay and southern sounding, or one or the other, said “Don’t send it to that fax; it goes into a large pile. Send it to this fax. This one goes right to the pharmacist.”

Good to know – now.

I repeat it back to him, we are good. For now, as always.

I email my nurse, she sends it along, e-faxes it to keep a more accurate digital record.

I have to wait 2-3 business days. This was Thursday, so I wait until Tuesday. No sign of it online.

I call the number again, and the representative says “This is a specialty pharmacy medication. The medication was beginning to be processed, but cannot be filled here.”

I figured this was a specialty pharmacy item (if this pharmacy had a specialty pharmacy) – but the website did not have a number listed for a specialty pharmacy.

I said, “Do you know the number and fax of the specialty pharmacy?” I thought maybe, just maybe they would take it upon themselves not just to cancel the order, but to forward it along to the specialty pharmacy. How stupid am I?!!

The representative said, “I have the number, but I don’t know why the fax isn’t listed.”

Eyeball popping out of head.

I said, “No worries. I will call and ask.”

I send another email to my nurse, etc… I have to wait 2-3 days.

I wait until the latest the following Tuesday.

I call. . . “Did your nurse e-fax it?”

“Yes,” maybe a good thing?

“Oh our system isn’t always set up for e-faxes. Can you hold?”

My life is flashing before my eyes; more gray hairs are appearing, and someone needs to drug me now.

“I had the pharmacist to manually input it into our Specialty pharmacy. You should be hearing from a representative to set up delivery in a couple days.”

What or who do you believe??

They did call and we set up for delivery the following Tuesday. Mind you – I have to get this medication at the most another 2 weeks as I started a one-month course of antibiotic at home – but I only have 3 weeks’ worth of it; I need the last week to finish the full month dose.

I cannot miss a dose.

Hurricane Sandy comes – It was supposed to be delivered on October 29, 30, 31st… No sign. I call on November 1st and they aren’t sure where it is. If Fed-ex doesn’t have it they will start a new shipment. Lovely.

It is a hurricane – but Zappos came because “they care about service” like it says on their box.

“I am sorry ma’am, we have dedicated person working on this and they will call you back in 1 or 2 hours.”

Five-hours later I call.

As my friend said, “I guess they couldn’t find a dedicated person.”

“I am sorry ma’am, we are going to send a new shipment and it SHOULD be arriving tomorrow. If it doesn’t arrive by the latest in 1-2 days please give us a call.”

I barely have a pulse. “Ok.”

It comes like Christmas the very next day!!

Did you die listening to this?

I did five times over.

I sent my first email about this medication on October 18th.

I received the medication on November 2nd.

Nothing more needs to be said.

When I am rich – I will have a personal assistant and I won’t ever have to call a pharmacy again. I will pay a nice sum, shower them with gifts, honest. This is my wish – never to talk to them again. Ever. It is going to happen.

But if these are my major complaints – I’m doing alright, now that I have my antibiotic safely in my refrigerator.