{"id":1164,"date":"2009-05-27T09:47:34","date_gmt":"2009-05-27T14:47:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.finkshrink.com\/blog\/?p=319"},"modified":"2009-05-27T09:47:34","modified_gmt":"2009-05-27T14:47:34","slug":"tragedy-of-errors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finkshrink.com\/relationships\/tragedy-of-errors\/","title":{"rendered":"Tragedy of Errors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last spring, my wife ended up in the hospital with a rip roaring manic episode, so this year, we were on high alert. A couple weeks ago, she noticed herself having trouble sleeping, one of our first early warning signs, so she did the right thing and called her doctor. She requested a prescription for temazepam (Restoril), but he said he didn\u2019t like to prescribe it because patients tended to develop a dependency. Instead, he called in a prescription for Ambien CR \u2013 an extended release form of Ambien.<\/p>\n<p>Anthem, my wife\u2019s insurance company, refused to cover the cost of Ambien CR. Apparently, this stuff\u2019s like gold; $150 for a month\u2019s prescription. That\u2019s five bucks a night to sleep. She could file an appeal, fill the prescription out of pocket, and hope that insurance would cover it… yeah, right.<\/p>\n<p>For several days, the doctor did battle with the insurance company, while my wife self-medicated to get some sleep. Melatonin was her remedy of choice, complemented with a few Benadryl every so often, which would help with her seasonal allergies as well. She continued to get more manic \u2013 talking more, louder, and faster; gesturing more; racing thoughts and difficulty concentrating while continuing to work; becoming more and more irritable and argumentative.<\/p>\n<p>Unable to convince the insurance company (which was playing the role of God Almighty with my wife’s life), the doctor prescribed Lunesta as a second choice. My wife took it for a few days and reported that it had the same effect on her as Ambien (non CR) did when she had taken it in the past \u2013 she would sleep fine for four to five hours and then wake up WIRED! It was not helping. It was making things worse.<\/p>\n<p>She needed something that worked and she needed it soon. Her friend from Japan was scheduled to arrive for a week-long visit, and my wife needed to be able to gain control over the mania. Sleep was key. Sleep is always key.<\/p>\n<p>This brings us to yesterday. My wife called her doctor\u2019s office, and the receptionist agreed to fit her in for a 3:30 appointment. My wife\u2019s friend from Japan was flying into Indianapolis the same day. Her flight was due to arrive at 9:45 pm. We live about an hour from Indianapolis, and since my wife\u2019s doctor\u2019s office is just south of Indy, we figured we could do the doctor and the airport in one trip.<\/p>\n<p>After some discussion, the doctor agreed to provide my wife with a month\u2019s prescription of temazepam. Instead of taking the written prescription and having it filled, she asked the doctor to call it into her pharmacy back home. We would have our son pick up the prescription before the pharmacy closed, and it would be waiting for us when we returned from the airport.<\/p>\n<p>After the doctor\u2019s appointment, we headed to downtown Indianapolis, where my wife did some light shopping and we went to a movie to kill some time. After the movie (about 7:30), my wife checked her cell phone. She had one message from her sister in Phoenix explaining that my wife\u2019s friend\u2019s flight was cancelled. She would now be arriving in Indianapolis at 1:30 am.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of waiting around another six hours\u00a0we decided to head home. My wife could take a temazepam and start getting some much needed sleep, and I could return later to pick up our guest at the airport.<\/p>\n<p>We arrived home at about 8:40 pm. On the counter were two prescriptions. When my wife opened them, she was in utter disbelief;\u00a0neither of the medications were the one\u00a0she desperately needed.\u00a0She called the pharmacy as I put on my shoes to fly out the door before the pharmacy closed at 9 pm. She signaled me to wait. The pharmacy had no record of\u00a0a prescription for temazepam and was closing in 8 minutes! UN-bleeping-believable!<\/p>\n<p>With insufficient time to resolve the snafu, we decided to give up and try again tomorrow. My wife took one of my Buspars to help with anxiety and a Lunesta to sleep and we headed to bed. I got a couple hours sleep and headed to the airport.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Next day…<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>My wife calls the doctor\u2019s office and asks about the prescription. The doctor\u2019s assistant assures her that they did, in fact, call in the prescription. My wife calls the pharmacy and learns that the prescription had been on their answering machine. It\u2019s been filled and is now ready to be picked up. UN-bleeping-believable!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last spring, my wife ended up in the hospital with a rip roaring manic episode, so this year, we were on high alert. A couple weeks ago, she noticed herself having trouble sleeping, one of our first early warning signs, so she did the right thing and called her doctor. She requested a prescription for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[55,58,61],"tags":[72],"class_list":["post-1164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-relationships","category-sleep","category-stories","tag-bipolar-snafu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/finkshrink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/finkshrink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/finkshrink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finkshrink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finkshrink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/finkshrink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/finkshrink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finkshrink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finkshrink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}