Covid-19 cases are on the rise again. I know. I—the poster child for vaccinations—have got it. Apparently last June the Center for Disease Control, when it updated its variant tracker, identified it as NB.1.8.1., which they are calling “Nimbus.”
It’s not an apt nickname. If feels neither like “a rain cloud” nor “a luminous vapor, cloud, or atmosphere about a god or goddess when on earth.”
Contagion
I have been spending a lot of time with cousins recently. D is battling anaplastic thyroid cancer; his daughter H doesn’t drive and it has been hard for her to get from the Boston area to the South Shore and Cape Cod. This past Thursday, I collected H and headed out on the Southeast Expressway. On Sunday, knowing that none of the usual suspects would be by to visit, I drove down in the morning. We had a fine visit. He’s been in a rather dark, tatty, faintly malodorous room, shared with another man.
Tuesday evening H texted to say the roommate had been diagnosed with Covid and that D has been moved to a different area. I was already feeling raspy and achy, and ordered a couple of Covid tests sent over from my local Walgreens. Despite their claims of immediate service, Walgreens sent them out Wednesday morning around 6:00 am. It’s a good thing each box had two tests. One box was expired. I screwed up the first test in the second box. The other confirmed I was good and sick. It was now the third day following probable infection. And, yes, D has tested positive as well.
Finding Treatment
supplies and medication
I called my physician immediately. It was 11:28 am on Wednesday. Had to leave a message. No response. Called back at 4:02 pm. Got a different person, had to leave a message.
Called back today, Thursday, at 7:39 am. Spoke to a woman who seemed to have trouble tracking Dr. F down in the gerontology practice at Beth Israel Lahey. But she took me seriously, said someone would call me back in fifteen minutes. That call arrived at 7:59 am. The prescription would be on its way as soon as she checked my other meds for conflicts. (Apparently the Atorvastatin was a conflict.)
At 9:22 am, Walgreens texted me that they didn’t have any Paxlovid in stock. So I called and after a not particularly helpful or sympathetic exchange, they said I could get it at the store on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. But I had to call and make the order. Which I did.
The Cost of Paxlovid
I have pretty good insurance. Even so, the prescription came to $721.61. I gagged. I checked whether they had used my insurance. Apparently Paxlovid falls into the deductible. But it wasn’t $1,800, which is apparently what they charge for that little box when there is no insurance.
pricey Paxlovid
They needed me to submit a credit card so that they could fill the order and Door-Dash it to me. I followed the link. Walgreens wanted nothing to do with my credit card. I called back. The system was down in the store so the clerk couldn’t input the card number either. Didn’t I have someone who could come pick it up for me?
I’m 73 and I live alone. I don’t have friends locally I could ask to do that. Ping, my 12-pound shapsoodle, doesn’t have a driver’s license. No, I said, I would drive my highly contagious self over to their store, shedding virus everywhere, and would they please have the prescription, two boxes of Covid tests which had not expired, and a box of N95 respirator masks together in a heap.
I wore my purple bandanna like an Old West bad guy, parked illegally, and stood in line to pay. Then I drove home.
Health Care So Bad It Isn’t a System
What do people do when they contract Covid and don’t have health insurance? If they can’t afford insurance, they surely don’t have $1,800 to shell out to save themselves, their elders, their children.
What are we supposed to do when the websites we are forced to rely on aren’t up to day, doctors are not listed in the data base, or pharmacies don’t have the functional bandwidth to accept the credit card that will purchase life-saving medications?
And In The Short Term
It seems highly unlikely that I will be attending my step-grandson’s wedding in California on September 6. My outbound flight is scheduled for September 4, and short of a miracle, I don’t expect the Paxlovid to make me virus-free in five and a half days.
It isn’t just the dress, scarf, and shoes I bought so the couple would be proud of me, the only surviving grandparent on the spear side. It certainly isn’t the loss I will sustain by cancelling the flight. It’s the fact that I love them so much and wanted to celebrate this event with them with the groom’s maternal grandfather, my late husband, in my heart.