Wednesday, March 12, 2025

I've had ho****er recirculators for 20 years and they are the best. The ones on this house don't have timers and I miss that from my last house. No sense having ho****er at the faucets at 2am. But the downside is the timers break so you eventually end up having ho****er all the time anyway.

Liz, I hope the ER visit gives your daughter some relief from her symptoms and some ANSWERS! To me, my Mom was clearly in heart failure, but none of her doctors seemed concerned about how much water she was retaining. Finally she went to the ER where they diagnosed it immediately and she was hospitalized until she was stable. My Dad had diarrhea for about a month, and again no real action. He fell and cut his head, requiring a visit to the ER. While they attended to his head, they also diagnosed what was going on in his gastrointestinal tract and treated it. I hope your DD sees a doctor who is eager to solve problems.

So we are self insured in my district. I think we have really good insurance and I've never had to fight to get anything covered my doctors ordered. But perhaps no longer. We got a notice there is to be a union meeting Monday to discuss changing what medications will be covered. In order to remove something, there will be a vote. I'm guessing this is for weight loss drugs. What else could it be? So many people at work are using these medications, it probably is costing a fortune.

Anyhow, I was going to stop Wegovy in July 2026 because I would move to Medicare. I currently have a 4 and a half months supply, and maybe I can get 3 more before July 1, when our plan renews. I currently take a dose every 10 days, but I looked at the medication insert and you can safely extend to every 14 days. If you go longer than that, the protocol is to drop down to a lower dose and work back up. I can't take smaller doses more frequently because the pens are one use. But if I start dosing every 14 days, I can stretch my current supplies out for 8 months, and even longer if I can get more before the party ends. I double checked, if refrigerated, they are good for a year. I just wrote the expiration dates on all my boxes to help me keep my supply straight.

Awesome time for the compounding to be shut down. Hopefully I am worrying about something that won't come to pass, but I'm prepared if it is. I'm still hopeful there will be an oral medication coming that will be cheaper, or that there will be generic Ozempic when the patent expires in 2026.

My weight has never been this steady. For 10 months I've stayed in the same 3 pound range with little angst or monitoring, just following the general plan I set for myself. Okay, some angst because I do worry about protein.

More nonsensical changes in protocol for paperwork today, but I think won't be implemented until I'm out of there. What a delicious feeling! I was working on an education plan, and also delicious freedom, I wrote what I know for sure is a legal document, but I didn't follow the new style. Most importantly, I wrote an education plan that will serve the student's needs. Interestingly, it is possible to write something that ticks all the legal boxes, but doesn't serve the student well at all.

This weekend we are driving to Madison, former home of Liz's Mom :) , to visit our son and his lovely girlfriend, who I have begun referring to as the girl of my dreams. The weather is so variable it makes difficult to know what to pack. 70 on Friday, rainy and 50s on Saturday, 34 on Sunday! Midwest springs are ever so temperamental.

Eli Lilly is now offering Zepbound in vials (not pens) at decent prices for people who are self-pay (like Medicare) - see below. I am guessing that Novo Nordisk will do the same for Wegovy. When I run out of my bulk supply, that's how I will get it. But some of the compounding companies think they will be able to keep offering it at doses differing from the manufacturer or with something special added. We shall see.

Good memory about where my mother was from!