Wishlist (Drug Money)

I was supposed to have a therapist appointment today, but it was cancelled due to a death in her family. My heart goes out to her, but part of me is still relieved that it has been postponed until later in the week. I could have seen someone else in the office since the meeting was ostensibly just to get some more prescriptions and not even a real session. Once I found out how much medication my doctors wanted to put me on, I was taken aback and filled with anxiety and conflicting feelings.

The laundry list of drugs (6 that they say I should definitely take in addition to my shot every two weeks, 2 that are in case of emergency, 2 that are interchangeable depending on the length and severity of any manic episodes I might have and 1 that isn’t even really a prescription since I can buy it for eight dollars over the counter at any pharmacy or health food store) is extensive, but the doctors did an excellent job explaining how they fit together and what each of them does. My problem isn’t with the vastness of the treatment prescribed since much of it has to do with the fact that there is so little choice in what I can take because of my depakote shots.

My problem is that it will ultimately cost me $447.25 to have all the prescriptions filled... each month and eliminating the 2 emergency drugs and the one drug I can get an infinite amount of sample refills for will still only save me about $120. That’s just Canadian pricing, too. In the states, I can expect that to increase to five times as much in the case of some drugs and I won’t be covered by any sort of prescription assistance programmes. I have never even had to pay that much money in rent in a given month let alone on medications I am told I need to stay sane and happy.

The price of such medications and treatment could be a huge part of why a majority of people with bipolar disorder do not receive proper treatment. These people, like me, are simply priced out of the market completely. Mental problems aren’t seen as a life or death situation even though depression can lead to a litany of heath problems from diabetes to cancer to heart disease to unhealthy weight gain and so on and so on. No one really pays attention to mental disorders unless it leads to some sort of an addiction or a suicide attempt. Even then it seems like help only seems to go as far as getting someone stabilised in an emergency situation and then letting them figure shit out on their own. Therapy can help, but it can only go so far. Once drugs are prescribed it is up to the individual to put themselves through even more stress in trying to figure out how the hell they are going to get everything covered.

My agent said originally that she would help me out with money for prescriptions if I needed it, and I do since I am now totally broke after not having any steady work in the past month (not for lack of trying every single day) and having to pay $45 every time I get my shot. I was even $4 short last week for my shot when I forgot the price was going up and neglected to include the hospital fee itself into my budgeting. I still got the shot since my doctor said she would cover the extra money. My agent, however, politely told me that there was no way she was going to shell out close to $450 for drugs, especially since she is already giving me a place to stay this summer and because nothing I have sent out over the past two weeks has sold yet and probably won’t for a few months at least. Even then, all the money I make would just go back to paying back everyone I already owe money to and then I would have to buy more drugs. In a severely fucked up way, it almost makes perfect business sense for me to become a drug dealer by selling my first supply of pills so I could afford two more sets just for myself. I would never do that because that is the dumbest idea in the history of dumb ideas, but it is still frustrating.

So now I have a decision to make before next Thursday as to what I can afford to take and what I don’t need. My agent said she really can’t afford to spot me more than $250 without having any steady work, and it seems like a pretty achievable goal. I’m just not a huge fan of having to make such decisions, especially when I am deadly serious about making this treatment work any way that I can.

Despite the lack of heavy medication, I do feel better these days. I just find myself slightly distracted and wondering where all the hours in the day are going. I took Thursday night through Sunday off to visit Jenna and partake in Toronto’s Doors Open festivities (reviews and thoughts on Doors Open can be found over at my other blog). Monday was kind of a blur and other than some heavy bathroom cleaning I can’t think of a single progressive thing I did other than reading books due back at the library the end of this week and making a to-do list that I did nothing with. Tuesday I attempted to write but was thwarted by both internal and external distractions. The new kitten at the house is pregnant and her constant whining for food during the day was bugging the crap out of me. I took off to the library where there was a brigade of small children running rampant through the stacks so I ended up just reading the newspaper and leaving. I attempted to write by the gazebo outside the library (oddly enough funded and sponsored by the Optimists Club) but other than writing outlines for this and my Doors Open entries I was distracted by watching about ten skateboarders enjoying the nice weather and one man chugging Listerine as he emerged from the pharmacy next door before hopping into his brand new pick up truck.

Doors Open was well worth the trip, and has been both times I have attended. I kind of needed the break, but lately more and more I keep feeling like I almost need more of a break; not out of laziness but out of need for some sort of cathartic release. Our first stop on Sunday morning, which we were slightly late for due to Sunday morning bus schedules, was a tour of a wall surrounding Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. I find it both sad and amusing that I identify with these people and that I understand the subtle nuances of how these people act after having been hospitalised along side many of the same types of people. A woman carried her two packs of cigarettes in a plastic bag with her name on it while waiting for the streetcar; the name to show the doctors and nurses behind the desk whose cigarettes they are since you can’t smoke anywhere in the building. Several people shuffled their way around the hospital grounds staring into space and trying desperately to go unnoticed. Some slept on the lawns of the grounds because they either don’t have any place to go or just because they don’t have the wont to do anything. A man who had suffered a head injury waited for a bus while wearing one of those things that looks like a cross between a bike helmet and a rugby helmet. I don’t know what they are called exactly.

The wall itself is the earliest example of patient/inmate labour in Ontario, built by patients to help keep them confined and away from the public eye. Portions of the wall were bricked up where windows clearly used to be because patrons of the CNE behind the asylum used to stop and gawk at the patients with disdain and morbid curiosity. The wall has interesting symbols and writing in places, including “born to be murdered” carved into the side of a maintenance shed incorporated into the design of the wall. We were told that the poorer and crazier patients were relegated to the back of the building where they were pretty much forced to look at the wall and the more well-to-do patients were located at the front of the building and sometimes had their families buy their way out of the hard labour required to build and maintain the wall.

Needless to say, the wall is now more symbolic than anything, but it is still a stunning piece of work when you consider how well put together it is. The wall has stood since the mid-1800s and with only minor damage to the western section of the wall because of adjacent buildings. It didn’t hit me until after we had left that had I lived in that time, I would have been in such an institution. I wouldn’t have had any freedom at all whatsoever except for maybe parole of the grounds since I was white and male, but that would only even come when I was old, feeble, and no longer a flight risk. It helped put things into perspective. Things could always be worse.

It didn’t depress me at the time thinking about it, but now as I struggle to create some semblance of a normal life for myself, one free of the dependence of others merely for survival, it all feels bigger than me. I can tell myself to keep fighting on no matter what happens, but at times it is hard for me to see them on anything more than just words in my head or on a piece of loose-leaf. I have come too far and fallen too hard before to give up now. There are so many things in this life that I want to be before I die. I just hope that one day, life will let me.