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RedPenguins · 03-08-2008, 08:33 PM

Thanks RW, Barb, and AV8r...

I feel a validated a lot - which I didn't even know I wanted, or maybe, rather needed. If I may:

Thank you.

I thought when the woman at neuro's office told me that he had many patients, etc. that I was being unreasonable for thinking that he shouldve signed the paper requestion authorization the same day he got it. Really, though, that his office even sent over the original TOUCH paperwork without his signatures really baffles me!

I tend to be VERY aggressive - I'm a New Yorker, afterall - and I can come on strong. I guess at this point in my life (being completely humbled by the MS right now) - I was taking it easy and just going with the flow (I live in Los Angeles now - so go with the flow is the mode here).... I just figured I'd sit back and let everyone do their work....and not be my usually pain in the ***** self.... Well - that's not gonna happen again.

Yeah, TOUCH really ****** me off in the first place - not sure I explained how they sat on stuff w/o the signature....so here is more of the time line - as they received my paperwork on a Friday - I called on Tuesday to make sure they received it - they said they had but it was missing signatures....the next day, according to them, they called the Dr. to get those signed. Well - when I called back a week later - they hadn't heard from the neuro - now - okay - so we can "assign blame" on the neuro - but why the heck didnt TOUCH keep calling my doctor?? How long would they have let it go on? When I called the doc, they said they didn't hear a thing from TOUCH re: no signatures. So, one week down there. Then you know the rest.

Now, I'm VERY new to all of this - being sick, the MS, etc....but the thing is - when i was growing up, my mother struggled with cancer - she went all over the country - tried every treatment - experimental or otherwise (we were actually shocked that by the time she died she hadn't started glowing in the dark or that she never grew a tail!)....anyhow - I'm pretty aggressive about medical stuff - I push my friends when they need tx, etc. I guess I will just return to being my old NYer self and get the job done.

I know the washout is usually 2 weeks - no idea why doc wanted 30 days - which is very interesting since I was only on Copaxone for 4 weeks to start with. But I must say - I filled out the paperwork for copaxone/shared solutions - and I was at my sickest - in fact - you could barely read my information as I was seeing double, etc. After that - I didn't do a thing to get the copax....I was home, sick, receiving my IVSM....Within 5 days everything was taken care of - they got approval from blue shield, they got me the meds...all I did was supply the credit card number one day. They made it SO easy....they sent the nurse out the day I received the meds. No problems whatsoever. in fact, my biggest complaint was the SS called SO many times to check in on me...it was getting annoying. LOL - actually, they called absurdly early in the morning until I asked them to mark my file not to call before 10am CA time (they were calling at 8am).

I am going to call the infusion center near my house. I know many people travel far to get the Ty....and I know that I would travel wherever I needed to - no matter how far away - but it's just crazymaking that there is a center a few blocks from my house and I can't go to it. It may very well be full....we shall see. Maybe I can sweet-talk them into it. My thought wasn't that the center was too busy - I wondered if TOUCH or whoever put a cap on how many can be given Ty at one place....and I imagine that many people are getting Ty at this location as it is across the street from the neuro's office - and this neuro is in a group that has the largest private MS practice in southern California, outside of the teaching hospitals.

So just another day...I will be calling my neuro's office on Tuesday to check on the insurance. actually maybe monday afternoon! I have always had good luck with Blue Shield approving my stuff very quickly. This time I will not sit around and wait to hear from someone!

Meanwhile - I hate that the IVSM gave me a false sense that I was improving from the flare up....It tends to help for a week and then I'm nearly as bad as I was in the first place...altho at least right now I can drive during the day because I can see most of the time.

Still not sure how everyone manages to live with it. I know it gets easier, supposedly, as time passes. I just don't know what to do to get the time to pass while being in so much pain or what to do in the meantime while the time passes. Does that make sense?

I hate being sick. I hate MS. Right now it does have control over me...it dictates what I can and can't do at any moment...and usually it's more of the "can't do" then can.

(Well, I guess it's about time that I started to get angry.)

I'm glad this forum is here....it has helped me tremendously the last 8 weeks - not sure how I would've gotten thru a lot of this without being able to read what others have gone thru and experienced - and being able to share my story here.

Oh yeah, neuro gave me paperwork to get a baseline on all of my bloodwork, including liver panel.

~Keri