Albert Spinestein or Jon Bone Jovi

I thought I would share this story which I wrote as a comment to my friend Self-Sufficient Sam (who used to be Farmgirl Sam until gremlins took that account). She wasn't happy with the information highway from her doctor's office and I had a similar experience last December. It has been something I have been ruminating about in my mind for a while. 

When I turned the magic age and joined the Medicare club, I made a doctor's appointment to get my prescriptions renewed on my new Plan D. My supplemental since age 60 did not cover doctor appointments and Covid had allowed me to coast through renewals for quite a while. 

My medical office makes you come in for an appointment and then orders lab work. I have begged to reverse this several times over the years, since it makes more sense to me that you would want to review current lab reports with the doctor. I have not won this argument. I took a list of health concerns I had at the time to the appointment and left with orders for lab work. My doctor said he would see me in a year. 

I went to the hospital and had blood work, a mammogram and a bone scan which was a last minute after thought, I believe because the office knew my insurance would cover the cost. 

Two days later I received a call from a young woman who I believe to be the receptionist. My lab work was normal which was better than I expected, but my bone scan showed big time problems. She chattered away about some shot he wanted to order for me that I would need to administer once a month and that I should start over the counter calcium supplements. I was stunned and did not ask the right questions other than how to spell the injection drug and whether I needed to make an appointment. She sputtered a bit and said I could talk to him at my next appointment. I said, well he said he would see me in a year and she sputtered and said she guessed that was okay.  

I looked up information about the injection and found there are a lot of side effects for the drug and once you begin the shots, you must self administer the shot every month for the rest of your life. If you need to miss a shot (for example, you have to skip a month if you have a dental appointment) you must do so under medical supervision. It sounds very scary to me.  She also gave me no advice on the supplement so I went to the drug store and made up my own regime with an over the counter supplement. 

I did go back to my account at our hospital and pulled up all my test results so I could study them. While doing so, I decided to print past test results, too, so I could compare them.  I found a chest x-ray I had prior to my surgery for my broken arm two years ago and on page two it mentions degrees of disintegration of my spine the chest x-ray picked up. I am sure that neither my doctor or my orthopedist looked at this x-ray. It was done for the anesthesiologist prior to my surgery and I bet he was the only one who read it. And skipped that part. 

I guess the moral is that I need to make sure I copy and read all my medical reports from now on so I can make my own diagnosis. Of course, now that I have read the bone scan, every time I get a back ache or any ache I am pretty sure it is one of my hollow bones collapsing. 

I did reach out to friends of a certain age (my age) and ask them what they know about these shots. No one has had them. Only one person had heard of them and said she heard they were awful. And anyone who did have any irregular results on a bone scan were put on an once a month pill.  Hopefully by next fall when I return for a visit I will be finished pouting about this and will be able to come up with a page of intelligent questions. 

Since I was new to Medicare and new to Part D, and because i already had to switch the Part D I had for three months of 2021 to a new Part D in 2022 when the cost of the first one tripled, I looked up the injection on the various Part D plans in my area. It is a tier 3 drug and would be quite expensive out of pocket. The whole situation is still maddening and I am counting how many months I have fretted about this.  

I know I am extra cranky about this today since my two year old sleepover pal woke me up with a stomach flu this morning at 3 a.m.  He is still hanging out while mom has appointments and I am really looking forward to sleeping late tomorrow and waking up in a better mood.