A Milestone in my Cancer Care

Hello all! Today was the first time that my husband, Danny, administered my monthly Zolodex injection. He did a GREAT job! Instead of the two of us trekking down to MD Anderson, waiting often times for hours, receiving the injection from a sometimes-competent nurse, then being charged an exorbitant amount of money for this process ... he gave me the injection in the comfortable surroundings of home, on our sofa, using perfect technique and causing no pain or bleeding!

He was nervous, and so was I! After all, I'm the former-nurse -- not always the best patient, I admit. He has no medical background except that he's witnessed this injection being given to me every month for the past 3 years. If you're not familiar with a Zolodex injection, let me tell you it's no walk in the park. I have experience self-administering with Neupogen (subcutaneously) while I was receiving chemo in 2000. The medicine burned going in, but the needle was tiny, so it wasn't that bad. With Zolodex, it's a pellet, about the size of a grain of rice, that gets injected. A pretty large-bore needle! I'm usually not squeamish ... though I've always really really hated needles ... but it's too big for me to even watch, and I always watch my needlesticks.

Anyway, after three years of watching the good, the bad, and the just plain incompetent administer this big-daddy-of-a-needle, we both knew that Danny could do a better job. And he did!

It took a little work on my part to get the medication from the pharmacy. Evidently this is not something that is self-administered very often. It's actually not yet a done & regular deal: insurance told me that I would pay just my regular Rx copay, $25.00; CVS charged me $100 and told me that next time it would be almost $400. I totally don't understand this, and I wonder why you can't get a straight answer from insurance companies.

But all in all, a good day and a small step towards some kind of little freedom and a savings of probably thousands of dollars for staying home today with my own personal "nurse."

Thanks for reading ...