Chronic Health Conditions Discussion and Support

Even with insurance. This is the first time I've had insurance in 10 years! And the deductible is so high, nothing is getting done on a "testing" basis unless there's a crisis. I've never had a colonoscopy -- my rich sister who's 2 years older than I am has had 3! Since I've met the deductible this year, I tried to schedule one. Nope -- the only practice I could find is out of network (small-ish city here....sometimes the choices are limited) and insurance would only cover half the cost. Forget it -- can't afford it.

Even with the insurance I'm sticking with community health for my primary care. I have a nurse practitioner there who I really like and we work well together, so I don't want to give that up -- that's worth it's weight in gold! Moreover, it has a 340B pharmacy -- it's federally supported and regulated. My meds there cost less than half what they'd cost in a regular pharmacy. Since the deductible is so high, until it's met I won't be able to afford my meds. I now usually pay $85/month for 10 regular prescriptions. In a regular drugstore, I'd pay over $300! So I'm still paying cash at community health for my meds.

Believe me, I did the ignorance is bliss thing for MANY years!

I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep up the insurance. I'd eschewed it before due to cost and the only reason I got it was for what we all thought was ovarian cancer (turned out to be "low-malignant" with no spread....yippee!). It covered the surgery and the tests, etc. I live off of my savings & IRA. I was screwed out of Medicare, etc by a preposterous fucking loophole, so I don't get any of that. I live VERY frugally as a result -- I barely have enough to last me through the years into old age. BARELY. When we thought I had OvCa, it obviously made sense to start using more of the money since my lifespan would clearly be shortened. That's not the case now. I'm keeping it for now -- my lifespan is definitely shorter than what we'd originally planned for. But I'll have to see -- I have an excellent financial planner who helped me with all of this and she's on the cuff about it. We'll see!