It’s Sunday morning and I have to go to the clinic for a 9:20 AM blood draw. I guess they liked what they found because they said I am responding well to the medications and I can reduce my Follistim from 225 IUs to 200 IUs. Yahoo. It felt reassuring. I was afraid they would take one look at my blood and tell me to lay off the champagne and raw fish. Which I have, starting today.
Last night was my first night doing all three shots sans cocktail. It did hurt considerably more. But was manageable.
And my stomach is bruised so it is getting harder to find a place to stab on the battle field. I must keep drinking Floridex — my all-natural, vegetarian iron supplement. I’m convinced it helps me bruise less.
A word about the Follistim pen: Just say NO! The Follistim Pen itself is free and comes in a nifty looking zip case with a number of attachable needles. It’s a little more fun looking than the regular vial of meds. The pen is blue and yellow and you get cartridges that you load into the pen. They are not free, of course.
Here’s the rub: the cartridges that you load into the pen are only 300 IUs each. So if your does is is 225IUs as mine was, you get one full shot. The second shot you try and take runs out of Follistim halfway through the shot. So guess what? You have to reload another cartridge into the nifty pen and stab yourself again to get the remaining medication. Awesome.
So rather then taking 3 shots in the stomach, I had to do 4. And the only reason is Organon Pharmaceuticals (that makes the pen) thought girls would like a nifty pen contraption to make the shot friendlier. My stomach is a pin cushion already so I would like to tell them where to stick that fourth shot.
Tomorrow I’m going to research the cost difference between the regular vial of Follistim and these cartridges that go in the ‘free’ pen.
Also a word about IVPCARE. This is the pharmacy that my fertility clinic has decided it will be easier for me to get all my medications through. In a way it is easier. The Dr calls in the order. IVP calls me to confirm and they ship same day for free. But there are steps that are missing. Like me getting a list of what the Dr is ordering. I have to go through it w/ IVP when they call otherwise it is like a mystery grab bad of very expensive meds. Also their itemized list that comes with the shipment is not really itemized like a regular receipt. Somehow 6 boxes of Follistim 300IU Cartridges comes to QTY 2.10 at $1244.99. I’ll get on the phone with them tomorrow and see if I can make sense of this receipt. I’m also tempted to stop by my regular Pharmacy and see if A: they have these drugs available and B: what their price would be. So far I know that IVPCARE charged $23.10 for a ClearBlue 2 pack pregnancy test and I can get the same thing for around $16 bucks.
My fertility clinic compares the emotional impact of being infertile to being an amputee who can no longer work for a living. Mommies who can’t work as mommies. I don’t know how I feel about that analogy — but they wouldn’t take advantage of us amputees. Would they?
