Love For Ashley

Most people complain about health insurance in the United States, sure it needs improvement but today I am thanking God for our health insurance. It is our health insurance that is keeping us from being homeless. Think about it, where would you be without your health insurance? We have received most of Ashley's latest hospital bills and since January we have had a little over $10,000 in medical expenses but with our insurance coverage we are only responsible for just a little over $1000. The good news is our out of pocket expenses will now be less because Ashley has met her deductible. We are also now saving money on prescription drugs by going through our health insurance's mail order pharmacy. We will save approximately $200 a month on prescription drugs. Today, I thank God for Federal Employees Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Yesterday, I picked up Ashley's new prescription drug, Prevacid. Prevacid should help Ashley with her reflux, Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease. With the cost of this medication it better cure her of this disease. The medication with insurance will cost us $70 a month; that's $840 a year. People that don't have insurance, Prevacid would cost them about $380 a month. The cost of prescription drugs is ridiculous. Prevacid is now just one of 5 medications that Ashley is taking everyday. She is also on a nebulizer (for her lungs), Atrovent (for her sinuses), Actigall (for her liver) and an antibiotic (because of her low white blood cell count and platelet count). One of these days I will sit down and add up our monthly prescription drug expenses. Of course, that monthly expense will not only include Ashley's 5 medicines but it will include my 3 prescriptions; two for high blood pressure and one for severe allergies and it will include Brad's prescription for his allergies...

It's a new year with the same old medical issues. With the new cocktail of medicines that Ashley has been on for the last month, we expected to see some change. However, there really hasn't been any significant change; she isn't worse but she isn't better either. Her cough is still there and she is still coughing just as frequently. While we were in Mobile for Christmas, we were able to watch Ashley more and really see her symptoms. She is coughing at night but it's a different type of cough, mostly she wakes herself up takes a deep breath and goes back to sleep. Sometimes she wakes up and takes a walk; we found her sleeping in various places in my mom's house. Maybe she has sleep apnea, maybe she is sleep walking, maybe it is something else that we will never know about. Anyway, we talked to Ashley's pulmonologist over the Christmas break. He agreed with us regarding the ENT assessment of Ashley's cough. He agrees that it is not a sinus infection but s...