Pharmaceutical Purgatory

As of yesterday morning, I still hadn’t received my HCG shot from my mail order pharmacy. It seems like every time my doctor calls my them, they come up with something else that needs to be completed before giving me my medicine. It’s like they are holding my HCG shot hostage and won’t ship it to me until all their needs are met. Their latest demand was a “State Medical RX Form”, three goats and the broom of the wicked witch.

I’m seriously considering creating a board game and calling it, “TRY TO GET YOUR PRESCRIPTION FILLED!“. One space could be, “Can’t find your insurance information – Go back to start!” The other could be, “A friend gives you her left over progesterone tablets – Move ahead four!” And if you make it through the game without killing any customer service representatives, you win! Yaaaay!

What I also don’t get is the HCG injection needs to be given in a timely manner. Don’t they get that the maturation of my follicles are running the show? My future eggs don’t know what unnecessary paperwork is. I don’t know my eggs personally but I can say with great certainty that they could give a crap about a State Medical RX Form. They just want to get ovulated, fertilized and implanted.

Also slowing down the progress somewhat is whoever I happen to be speaking to at the mail order pharmacy always feels obligated to take a moment to be sad for me. They obviously know what all this is for and they usually throw in an empathetic “Good luck sweetie” or “Hope it works out” or a “Hang in there sad clown“. The best is when they either give suggestions or share their own trying to conceive story. One rep recently said to me, “We tried for years and it wasn’t until I got drunk one night on rum till I got pregnant with my Kristin. Have you tried that? Have you tried getting drunk? Do you like rum?” Look, I appreciate that they are trying to be helpful but I don’t need to hear their sexual exploits nor do I need their pity. What I need is my effen’ prescription.

And to make matters worse right now, I currently have my period. It came later in the process than my doctor expected but really, this shouldn’t have surprised either of us. My body seems to have been engaged in it’s own outside interests for the past few years. It’s entirely possible that my uterus has even broken up with me but I just didn’t get the message.

Due to Aunt Flo and her untimely visit, I don’t have as many follicles as my doctor would like. His solution is to increase my Gonal-F shots and to take it for more days that initially anticipated. This not only means more fun-filled injections of hormones in my stomach (or the bagel as I like to call it) but it also entails spending an extreme amount of additional money as I’ve already exceeded my “I-Can’t-Get-Pregnant-Like-A-Normal-Person-Deductible”. Over the years, my period has caused me cramps, the occasional stained bed sheet and at times, embarassment but this is the first time it’s ever caused me to spend several thousand dollars.

I left the doctor’s office wondering how I was going to manage to chase down TWO prescriptions when I haven’t even been able to get the ONE sent to me. I also wondered if hooking might be the answer to covering all these expenses. By the time I arrived at home, I got a voice mail from my prescription company informing me that they again spoke to my doctor’s office and that everything was good to go. Actually, their exact message was, “We are now ready to commit to filling your prescription.” Um, ok. So does that mean they can ship my medication or that they are emotionally ready to serve me as a patient? And why the word “commit”? Did I propose?

By the end of today, through some miracle, I did manage to get both the HCG shot and the additional Gonal-F injections. They are sitting on my desk now. Even though this means I won my little made up “TRY TO GET YOUR PRESCRIPTION FILLED!” game, I can’t help but feel like killing some customer service reps anyway. I’m just sayin’.