Darren decided to zip around the house, including across our bed, at 90 mph at 5:30a and proceeded not to stop until my alarm finally went off at 6:00a.

As soon as I got to my office I called the home delivery pharmacy that is responsible for shipping my chemo because I never received a call back on Friday to confirm shipment. 

Unfortunately, today would turn into a frustrating day of talking to multiple reps and a manager before finally getting everything taken care of. 

At first I was told that they hadn’t heard from my doctor’s office until late on Friday to which I informed them that they had called the pharmacy by 9:30a PST (12:30p EST, where they are based). The pharmacy never called me before they closed at 5:00-5:30p. 

After they acknowledged that mistake I was told that our co-pay would be $250. I told them to bill the card on-file, confirmed the increase in dosage and thought everything was taken care of. 

I called our neuro-oncology team at USCF to let them know and to ensure that there would be no issue with delaying the start of this next round by a day. 

Luckily, I was told that delaying by a day wouldn’t be a big deal but that we had to make sure that we got it taken care of tomorrow. 

Around lunchtime I received a voicemail from the pharmacy. When I called them back they told me that there was an increase in our co-pay to around $550.  

As I began probing what happened the rep put me on hold, coming back a few minutes later to tell me that our co-pay was actually $800. 

Apparently, the reason for the multiple different co-pay amounts was that the co-pay for the 140 mg pills is $250 while the co-pay for the 100 mg pills is $550 thus bringing the total to $800. 

The money is not the issue but the 3 changes within a few hours is. 

At that point I was beyond frustrated and asked to be transferred to a manager since I had lost complete confidence in their ability after the screw ups over the last few days. 

I explained my frustration to the manager that this wasn’t a prescription for Tylenol. It is for chemo. And even though these reps, nurses and pharmacists deal with chemo drugs every day, it is very important for those who are actually on chemo regimens. 

The manager was completely understanding. I am thankful that I had actually called back in because the manager explained that had I not, the rep from this morning had only filled the 140 mg pills which is 300 mg off of the total 440 mg that my neuro-oncologist had ordered. 

The rest of my workday was a pretty good Monday, not filled with a lot of meetings thus giving me plenty of time to tackle projects and a number of other things that have been sitting on my task list. 

When I came home I quickly headed over to get in today’s Spartan WOD: 

Main Set: 
Run/Jog/Walk 15 minutes (modified: elliptical) 

Perform 1 minute of each exercise, with 10 second rest between: 

• push-ups
• crunches
• pull-ups (modified: Monster band)
• plank
• squat jumps
• jump rope (fast)
• mountain climbers

Run/Jog/Walk 15 minutes (modified: elliptical) 

I felt strong during this workout with the exception of the pull-ups. My upper body was pretty destroyed by the time I made it to the pull-ups so it made it hard to bang out many full pull-ups but I continued pushing through it for the full minute. 

I came back home to watch the NCAA Men’s Championship game (Duke vs Wisconsin) with Laura while she made dinner and we relaxed. 

We only have basic cable since it came, essentially for free, with our internet package so we don’t get ESPN. We just might have to go over to our gym tomorrow evening simply to watch UCONN play in the women’s game. 

Tomorrow I was scheduled to be in a 2-day training but due to starting the chemo tomorrow night I emailed the training team to cancel.  

I’m concerned that the ~25% increase in dosage could pose a harder round so I didn’t want to deal with that on Wednesday morning with an expectation of being in the training by 9:00a.