Gallows Humor
Aug. 7th, 2009 09:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyburgThings that haven't changed, number one: I am still surrounded by people with diabetes.
Things that have changed: the cost of a bottle of insulin.
(The DDoS stuff yesterday made me lose a buttload of stuff - the fingers flew, but the network went OM NOM NOM NOM *finger* - alas.)
Keep in mind Cliff passed in 1998 - at the age of 36. This is not to say if you get a type I diabetes diagnosis, you will as well. When he was diagnosed in 1969 - NINETEEN SIXTY NINE - at the age of 5, there were no meters, no in-home anything other than wee little tabs you peed on (that ALWAYS indicated positive, if you left them alone long enough 'just to make sure'), no time-release style insulin, no disposable ANYTHING...and all insulin was of animal origin. You a vegetarian? Uh oh. Close your eyes and take the shot - it's all we got. And they thought one shot a day of regular was GREAT. (Oh, and no A1c monitoring. Have a nice life!)
Cliff was also from a family that had a high cholesterol issue - he never fell below the mid 300's without medication - and often was MUCH higher. Set-up? Oh very much so.)
He started showing signs of major complications in his teens.
You weren't allowed in public schools, public pools (yes, really) and people either thought you were contagious or genetically inferior. (You're still 4F for the draft.) It wouldn't be until AIDS showed up that type I would be 'discovered' as an auto-immune disease, likely of viral origin combined with a genetic tendency towards overkill - yay viral research, hooray - oh, about 1988.
I remember how much some things cost - finding the $$$ to pay for it all after he retired disabled and lost 1/3 of our income permanently will engrave such things on your memory.
A bottle of regular insulin, beef/pork origin from Eli Lilly - $8. Box of syringes, oh about another $11 or so. (I still have some tucked away - they're very useful. Don't look at me like that. I'll feed you some congnac-treated strawberries and amaretto lychees someday.)
So we would have multiple bottles working at any one time - and a kit in the car, a kit at the desk at work - no problem. Didn't even bill insurance for it. If I needed to get all the dough out of a medical savings plan, fine. But - *shrug* - eh.
The recombiant DNA insulins were *just* coming online in the nineties, and while they were recommended as soon as they came out, the stuff wasn't all that available, and was a tad bit more a bottle. We kind of looked it as an experiment and gee whiz, that's keen.
A tad being - oh, it was $12 vs. that $8 I just told you about, for the stuff Eli Lilly was culling from the slaughterhouses.
Imagine my surprise when I went to go shop plain regular insulin yesterday and discovered Eli Lilly had stopped manufacuring that $8 a bottle stuff in 2005. Now, all insulin (it looks like) is recombinant DNA origin - and the $12 a bottle stuff?
Would you believe $41 a bottle?!
*jaw drop* That's -
A lot of things I'd rather not put to paper. The fact this product is a result of my taxes going to fund research for it - not to mention voluntary donations and fund raisers to boot - ah. Yawp.
I can HEAR Cliff in the afterlife from here - the screeching is amazing. HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO PAY FOR THIS - yes, yes, yes. Okay. I got it. I got it.
When you hear in the news that diabetes is now an epidemic, you just tuck that away somewhere. Without this, people don't live. Without *enough* of it, people live very compromised lives - and complications? Don't get me started.
We have some of the best tools to treat this that has ever been. You get this diagnosis, you can expect to have a lot of work - and never see what Cliff saw before you leave this place for the next one. If you can get access to the tools and use them. Meters that retain records and only require a tiny scratch (Cliff was seen at a hospital in 1996 that was still doing all its monitoring by draw. That's a stick in the arm, for you and me. How many times a day? They recommend four times, yanno. DRAW. 1996. Yo. When he died, I donated them his meter in his memory. Dumbshits.) They routinely put kids on pumps like clockwork and the results are incredible.
$41 a bottle. I've said I am glad I don't have to do with Cliff what I did in the nineties, now. There is nothing like finding out your information is out of date to get slapped in the face - and do you think Eli Lilly has a prescription drug assistance plan for regular insulin? Gallows humor kicking in here. You might as well ask the Clean Air Board in California for financial assistance to get air to breathe.
Wow. If you ain't rich, what right do you have to live. They used to just keep you out of the public pools.
Things that have changed: the cost of a bottle of insulin.
(The DDoS stuff yesterday made me lose a buttload of stuff - the fingers flew, but the network went OM NOM NOM NOM *finger* - alas.)
Keep in mind Cliff passed in 1998 - at the age of 36. This is not to say if you get a type I diabetes diagnosis, you will as well. When he was diagnosed in 1969 - NINETEEN SIXTY NINE - at the age of 5, there were no meters, no in-home anything other than wee little tabs you peed on (that ALWAYS indicated positive, if you left them alone long enough 'just to make sure'), no time-release style insulin, no disposable ANYTHING...and all insulin was of animal origin. You a vegetarian? Uh oh. Close your eyes and take the shot - it's all we got. And they thought one shot a day of regular was GREAT. (Oh, and no A1c monitoring. Have a nice life!)
Cliff was also from a family that had a high cholesterol issue - he never fell below the mid 300's without medication - and often was MUCH higher. Set-up? Oh very much so.)
He started showing signs of major complications in his teens.
You weren't allowed in public schools, public pools (yes, really) and people either thought you were contagious or genetically inferior. (You're still 4F for the draft.) It wouldn't be until AIDS showed up that type I would be 'discovered' as an auto-immune disease, likely of viral origin combined with a genetic tendency towards overkill - yay viral research, hooray - oh, about 1988.
I remember how much some things cost - finding the $$$ to pay for it all after he retired disabled and lost 1/3 of our income permanently will engrave such things on your memory.
A bottle of regular insulin, beef/pork origin from Eli Lilly - $8. Box of syringes, oh about another $11 or so. (I still have some tucked away - they're very useful. Don't look at me like that. I'll feed you some congnac-treated strawberries and amaretto lychees someday.)
So we would have multiple bottles working at any one time - and a kit in the car, a kit at the desk at work - no problem. Didn't even bill insurance for it. If I needed to get all the dough out of a medical savings plan, fine. But - *shrug* - eh.
The recombiant DNA insulins were *just* coming online in the nineties, and while they were recommended as soon as they came out, the stuff wasn't all that available, and was a tad bit more a bottle. We kind of looked it as an experiment and gee whiz, that's keen.
A tad being - oh, it was $12 vs. that $8 I just told you about, for the stuff Eli Lilly was culling from the slaughterhouses.
Imagine my surprise when I went to go shop plain regular insulin yesterday and discovered Eli Lilly had stopped manufacuring that $8 a bottle stuff in 2005. Now, all insulin (it looks like) is recombinant DNA origin - and the $12 a bottle stuff?
Would you believe $41 a bottle?!
*jaw drop* That's -
A lot of things I'd rather not put to paper. The fact this product is a result of my taxes going to fund research for it - not to mention voluntary donations and fund raisers to boot - ah. Yawp.
I can HEAR Cliff in the afterlife from here - the screeching is amazing. HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO PAY FOR THIS - yes, yes, yes. Okay. I got it. I got it.
When you hear in the news that diabetes is now an epidemic, you just tuck that away somewhere. Without this, people don't live. Without *enough* of it, people live very compromised lives - and complications? Don't get me started.
We have some of the best tools to treat this that has ever been. You get this diagnosis, you can expect to have a lot of work - and never see what Cliff saw before you leave this place for the next one. If you can get access to the tools and use them. Meters that retain records and only require a tiny scratch (Cliff was seen at a hospital in 1996 that was still doing all its monitoring by draw. That's a stick in the arm, for you and me. How many times a day? They recommend four times, yanno. DRAW. 1996. Yo. When he died, I donated them his meter in his memory. Dumbshits.) They routinely put kids on pumps like clockwork and the results are incredible.
$41 a bottle. I've said I am glad I don't have to do with Cliff what I did in the nineties, now. There is nothing like finding out your information is out of date to get slapped in the face - and do you think Eli Lilly has a prescription drug assistance plan for regular insulin? Gallows humor kicking in here. You might as well ask the Clean Air Board in California for financial assistance to get air to breathe.
Wow. If you ain't rich, what right do you have to live. They used to just keep you out of the public pools.
