personal

I began Humira treatments yesterday.

Most people who know me online don’t know I suffer from severe psoriasis and acute psoriatic arthritis. It’s not pleasant. In fact, it is quite literally a living hell. It hurts to run, walk, exercise. It hurts to go out in the sun, to sweat, to stretch. It hurts to scratch but it itches all day. It bleeds after showers for days.

If you’re not squeamish, you can see my arms and legs here. About two years ago my wife and I were in between jobs and because we had kids and no insurance, we signed up for Medicaid. I went to the doctor for my psoriasis and long story short, he put me on Humira, lovingly paid for by the great state of Ohio.

And then I got a good job. And I made the mistake of making $500 more than the maximum income for a family of four, and that $500 a year equaled the loss of my $19,200 worth of Humira. How any bean counter ever figured that someone making $24,000 a year with a family of four can afford $19,200 for medicine is beyond me, but that’s what I was told.

My psorasis, which had almost completely cleared up came back with a vengeance. It spread to places it had never been, finally covering 70-80% of my entire body. The pain was more than I could bear, so I began looking for another way to get the medicine that would clear it up. My wife had been working in a diabetic clinic in Wichita, Kansas, and had used a website called needymeds.com to get patients the forms they needed from the various drug companies to get medicine for free or at the very least, vastly reduced costs.

I went to the website and was surprised to see Humira listed. I filled out the paperwork and took it to my doctor, who agreed I should be on it. They faxed the forms to Abbot Labs and about 10 days later, I was approved me for one year of Humira. Five days after that, yesterday, I received a cool-to-touch package through FedEx. Inside was my first three months of Humira injections. When I got home from work that night, I gave myself the first injection, and I will continue to do so every 14 days.

I’m thankful that I was approved, but I know that when my workplace offers insurance, or when I move to a job that does, I’m going to have a hard time keeping my Humira. You’re not eligible for the free stuff if you’re insured and most insurance companies won’t cover the Humira for me because its one of those “pre-existing conditions” they like to talk about so often.

So I’m not going to worry about it. Hopefully someday soon, I’ll be able to either afford $1,600 a month for it or our country will finally have some kind of health program that puts everyone on equal footing where everyone can get the meds they need to  live happy, productive lives. It shouldn’t just be the rich (not me) or the lucky (me) who can get medicine.