By The Transitive Property

People with Type 1 Diabetes require insulin. I am a person with Type 1 Diabetes. Therefore by the transitive property, I require insulin. Simple Math. Of course the equation only makes sense if all the participants are on the same page. Over the past week I’ve been struggling with making sure the entities I rely on are working for me, not against me.

Note: Because of the timing of these posts, this issue has been resolved by the time you read this, but I will do my best to keep the timetable coherent so you can understand my frustrations.

Last Tuesday I filled my prescription for Humalog. Normally it takes no more than 48 hours to turn that order around and get the insulin to my door. Overnight shipping ftw. By Friday, I hadn’t received an order update email or phone call indicating that my prescription was being sent to me. I placed a call to find out what the dilly-yo was, afraid that there was a problem with my credit card.

Much to my chagrin, they had received the order and were still processing it. For some reason there was a delay on their side. My card had already been charged so my only option was to play the waiting game.

Not. Cool.

I can’t just order insulin in super bulk and have it sit in my refrigerator for months on end. And I can’t just order more insulin whenever I please. I’ve found out, much to my wallet’s chagrin, that once my insurance approves a refill of my medication it will not immediately approve a similar refill of the same prescription from a different vendor. For example: if I miscalculated when an online shipment would arrive and had to go to my local pharmacy to reload on Humalog before I fly out to California for my job, I have to pay full price because my insurance wouldn’t cover a double shot (zing!) of Humalog. This stuff is expensive.

So my online prescription service that isn’t totally online was still processing my order. All while the units left in my last pen were dwindling. As of typing this I have 27 units left. Assuming I eat within range that gives me 2 days of insulin left before Defcon Brimley. With my Humalog still being processed, I was genuinely afraid to correct for the highs I had to deal with over the weekend of my absent-minded Lantuslessness because I didn’t want to risk running out of Humalog before my new prescription had arrived. I was living in a state of fear over the weekend because I didn’t know when I would get my insulin. How awesome is that? Checking the website Monday morning, I confirmed that they had shipped my insulin. Which is nice. But for a prescription refill requested over a week ago, this is Unacceptable. Un-fucking-acceptable.

My apologies for the language, but you don’t mess with my Diabetes. If I could refill the prescriptions earlier, I would but the site restricts the timing of all my refills. Likely to restrict potential drug abuse, but who abuses insulin?

I’m glad that I wouldn’t have to resort to drastic measures, but when I play by the rules, I expect the other players to ahere to them too.

At the end of the day, all is well. I have some shiny new insulin pens and they got their money. But this process is supposed to be easier because it’s online. If the backend still doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, what’s the point?

Note #2: The final 6 units were used for dinner Tuesday night. My insulin arrived Tuesday afternoon, sitting on the doorstep waiting for my warm embrace. I got lucky. Very lucky. However, there is a happy ending to the story. My Humalog pens are now unofficially Hokie-fied. Love it.

Hokie Branded Insulin

Note #3: Time Check. 11:51 EST Tuesday. Just received an email letting me know that my insulin has shipped. I received a phone call around 8:40 Tuesday morning. I manually checked the website Monday AM to get a UPS tracking number. For those of you keeping score, my insulin arrived after the phone call, before the email but I was tracking it before their automated system managed to wake the F up. Stay classy Internet. (sigh)