My newest update: Voices are fragile

Medical Journey

Cyn Bagley 2023

February 19th will live in infamy because anything that could go wrong did, and even my telehealth appointment with my kidney doctor was over an hour late.

Even worse, I could barely talk. Between Cetuximab and the radiation, my mouth and throat hurt so much that I can barely swallows. I’m only a 1/3 of the way through the radiation.

The chemo targets a DNA string in the tongue cancer, except the weakness of this particular type of bio-drug is that the first layer of skin in the mouth also had that DNA string. I tried to fatten myself up for this adventure and still could only maintain 160. In the last few days I’ve dropped to 152 pounds. This is not supposed to be a weight loss regimen. If I lose too much weight, I will end up with a feeding tube.

So there is a mouthwash that can calm the mouth and throat, but my Walgreen’s Pharmacy told me it was denied. I spent the afternoon talking to Tricare for Life, and they sent me to Express Scripts, who sent me to my final destination. The lady was so calm and boring that she calmed me down because I was ready to burn villages by that time.

In between I kept calling Walgreens, who NEVER answered the pharmacy phone.

My last destination on the road to Hell, actually gave me a boost to humanity. She looked up the drug and told me that they had done 3 tries and the third try the prescription was accepted. I wasn’t told if it was a pharmacy or a TFL problem.

By this time, at 6 o’clock at night, I knew that I would have to walk into the pharmacy to even get any service. I drove the 15 minutes in the dark with ravening cars and tourists and made it. I don’t like to drive at night.

I waited 30 minutes for my turn. Every person in line had a problem with Walgreens. Every person there complained that Walgreen didn’t answer the phone and left everybody in the black hole of elevator music.

But my doctor, I told him about it at the telehealth, told me to “give them hell.”

Of course I said, “I will.”

So three times, just like a spell, I told the lady at the counter that my prescription had been accepted. She’d say “no it isn’t” and I say “yes, it is.” I also told her that I talked to a representative with TFL and IT WAS ACCEPTED.

Finally I told her that the lady gave me a number for the pharmacy to call and I wouldn’t leave until I got my prescription. She called, it was accepted, my copay went from 45 to 37, and I waited for it.

So what was so important about this prescription? The doctors call it “miracle mouthwash” because after you rinse and swallow, you can eat for a couple of hours. It was either that or a feeding tube.

Thank God, I’m a stubborn bitch. She just didn’t want me to sleep on her pretty pharmacy floor all night.