The Corner Booth

It was a usual morning, with stress and work levels being lower and more managed than they had been during recent days. I was quite productive, and was happy with how the day was moving along at that point. But looking down at my desk, two things occurred to me: 1. My coffee cup was nearly empty. 2. I needed to do a blood test, because it had been a while (and I wasn't wearing my Dexcom). At that moment, I didn't feel like standing up or even moving my arm across the length of the desk to grab my USB meter, stab my finger and check my sugar. I was just feeling lazy, or too comfy in my office chair to disrupt the flow of things. "Maybe.... I can just will it to show me a number. And maybe the coffee will refill all by itself." I waited, and neither happened. (Upon reflection: This was probably more me weighing the need for both, rather than actually hoping something Jedi-like would happen here...) Sighing, I reluctantly grabbed my meter and stuck a str...

It costs a lot to stay alive when you have type 1 diabetes, and without insulin that just won't happen. During my latest prescription refill routine, the full cost of all this truly hit me. My insulin cost $208 per vial, without any insurance coverage factored in. I ended up paying half that amount per vial -- certainly a deal, thanks to insurance. Still, it cost me $314 to get my monthly 3-vial supply of insulin . And that amount is certainly higher than it was last year, and the year before that... it's gone up more than 50% in the past few years. All because Big Pharma is in a quickly-approaching insulin war, with patents expiring and they are trying to bring in as much money as they can before those patents expire and pave the way for lower cost, more generic insulin (should someone actually be able to develop and market something like this, which isn't expected anytime soon). As a result, we're all being milked dry just to get the medication we need to ...