C-diff update!

... because I know you're all waiting with bated breath to hear the latest on my gastrointestinal distress.  Ha.

Bottom line?  After suffering through two loooooong weeks of Flagyl side effects, it didn't work.  The Flagyl did not vanquish the dastardly C-diff.

So!  It was on to Vancomycin.  I knew, from my half-assed research, that Vanco was going to cost me.  A lot.  I started calling around to pharmacies.  A lot of them don't even carry Vanco, because evidently it is a speshul prechus drug.  The ones that DID carry it?  Wanted money.  A lot of it.  In the twelve-hundred dollar range.

Finally, in desperation, I called the pharmacy affiliated with my doctor's practice.  They are ALWAYS the highest price pharmacy around, but what the hey, right?  Give 'em a call. Their cost?  Seventeen-fifty.  "Seventeen ... hundred ... dollars...?" I stammered.  "Oh no, no!," the girl laughed.  "Sorry about that!  It's seventeen dollars and fifty cents!"

This had to be a mistake.  It HAD to be a mistake.  Had someone misplaced a decimal point?  Needless to say, I went screaming over there and handed them a credit cart before someone figured out the screwup.

Once the transaction had processed, I had to ask.  "So ... tell me," I said.  "How is it that this pharmacy is charging a HUNDREDTH of what other pharmacies are getting for the same drug?  How is that possible?"

"Well," the girl said.  "It's complicated.  But basically, because the network that runs this pharmacy also runs a local hospital, we're able to get a lower price.  We had to go through quite a bit of paperwork, and we're enrolled in a special program, and some of the drug pricing formularies are proprietary so I can't really explain it to you, but ... yeah.  This would cost you at least a thousand bucks anyplace else."

Jeezus please us.

So!  Ten days of Vanco.  Every six hours.  C-diff,  I will climb down in there and yank you out MYSELF if it comes to that, so you might as well surrender to the mighty Vancomycin.  Meet your new overlord, you son of a b*tch.