Thursday, November 13, 2008

Too Many Doctor's Visits

This blog has become more of a family blog than a blog about Brandon and Katelyn. We are considering starting a separate family blog. However, the way we work, it will take a long time for us to get around to it so in the mean time we will keep sticking everything here.

I miss our old camera. These photos just aren’t as good.

It’s been a busy week. Amy and the kids made several trips to the doctor. Everyone has been sick. Brandon and Katelyn have been sick and we are treating them as if they had C-diff (although we didn’t have them tested again). Derek had a really bad fever and Blake had a bad ear infection. We are still working hard to avoid getting sick but we can’t seem to avoid it completely. It makes me nervous about what might happen this winter.

To try and keep babies from getting RSV and having to be hospitalized a medication called Synagist can be administered. However, they only give it to babies or kids that are at high risk and qualify for it. We found out that both Brandon and Katelyn qualify. It wasn’t surprising that Brandon qualified because he’s only been off of oxygen for a short time but it was good news that Katelyn qualified. The bad news is how much these shots cost. The bigger the dose the more it costs. As they grow the dose needs to be increased and the shots get more expensive. They will need a shot every month during RSV season. Most likely 4-5 months. The dose that they will need this month will cost.....

…$3K a piece for a total of 6K. That’s right, $6K this month. It gets even trickier because there are a bunch of ways to get these shots. They will even come to our house. However, each method has different insurance coverage so Amy’s spent a lot of time on the phone trying to figure out the best method.

The other day the insurance guy came in to give everyone the lecture about signing up for next year. The topic of the lifetime family maximum came up. He said that it’s $2million but assured us that no one ever reaches that max. The insurance company can't easily give us our total -when we ask they just tell us to add up everything on the paperwork they’ve sent us. They must not understand that this is literally several reams of paper. We keep thinking we have to be misunderstanding the total, because our best guess is that we have crossed the $2 million mark. Health care costs are just so amazing and it is funny how confident the insurance guy was that no one ever reaches the max.
These where taken in our backyard the other day:









Here are some photos from Halloween that I should get up before Christmas:







3 comments:

Whitney said...

I'm sorry you guys have been sick. We've all been sick too and it's no fun.

You are good to be careful about RSV. We were so careful the first winter when our kids were on oxygen. The second winter when they were just a year old, they seemed so healthy we weren't as careful and they were hospitalized for RSV. They never got the Synagist though. I can't believe how expensive those shots are (are they shots?).

littlefox said...

Yes they are shots - one each month or about every 28 days.

Jeannie said...

I can't believe the cost of those shots! They must be made with gold. I don't suppose just keeping them isolated for a few months would help because the big brothers would be bringing home all their school germs anyway.