HMOs SUCK!

The day sucked as a whole. I went to the doctor with my father and came home alone. They sent my dad to the hospital, apparently he'd been bleeding internally for who knows how long. Since my father is a stubborn old man, we've been having fits telling him to go to the hospital or go see the doctor but, he won't do anything unless he WANTS to. So we'd been going nuts all weekend, on Saturday the stress had caused my hands and feet to go "pins and needles" on me as if I was having an exacerbation and I spent the day in bed. But I'm positive he is where he needs to be right now and will recover.

 To keep the day going bad I was prescribed some new sleep medication, yes MS has affected my sleep and Ambien makes me feel like someone slipped me a date-rape cocktail. And since MS has also affected my ability to cope with stress and the situation with my dad was getting me sick the doctor also upped my dosage of Lexapro. All sounded great until I went to the pharmacy and was told the mandatory HMO I had to enroll in won't cover ANY of my prescriptions. Meanwhile my medications for Severe Anxiety are about to run out and the labeling specifically warns against stopping abruptly, such as when a shitty HMO bureaucracy tells you that it won't allow or pay for your medication.

So I called Medicaid and explained my condition and to filed for an exemption to having to participate in the HMO due to the rarity of Multiple Sclerosis and the specialized and sometimes experimental or off label medication used to treat it. Now I know MS has seen an explosion of information and publicity, especially after Montel Williams went public with his MS, but the reality for us suffering from this autoimmune disease is that we're only 400,000 people out of the nearly 400 million people in the United States and only about 2 million people total on the planet suffer from MS. This is not the type of exclusive fraternity I had ever wished to be a part of.

But we play the hand that's dealt and we do all try to hold each other up and get awareness out there. So if I had to be part of something at least I'm surrounded by a lot of decent people. A fraternity of SURVIVORS.

Keep your fingers crossed that they approve my exemption, and pray for my dad.

BE WELL.