I've Got Mail!

Today my labmate, Cristian, defended his dissertation. I've been working with him for several years, and in fact I'm a co-author on many of his papers, so I really would have loved to have been there for his defense. Instead, I was stuck at home waiting for the delivery man to deliver my Gleevec.

Here's the deal with Gleevec. It's actually really expensive at $100 per pill or so, and I, thinking I was a relatively healthy 26 year old, decided not to purchase prescription insurance. Fortunately for me, Novartis, the company that makes Gleevec, has a program for people exactly like me: less than 5 times the poverty level, less than $75,000 in savings, and no prescription insurance. I am incredibly thankful that they actually give me the pills for free! It's funny; I would be paying much more if I actually had prescription insurance.

In any case, I was approved for this program on Friday. Until today, I had been living off of medication the doctors gave to me at the hospital, and I could tell that they were running out of options for getting me deals on it. Today the delivery man delivered a month's worth of Gleevec. To my surprise, he also delivered something I ordered last week, a new pill box!

From Miscellaneous

I'm really pleased with it! I figured that since I'd be on pills for the rest of my life, I might as well have a convenient way of carrying them. I wish it were a tiny bit smaller, so that it would fit into my change pocket, but I really can't complain.

Fortunately, my deliveries arrived in time for me to catch up with the lab before they went out to lunch. On my way to the lab, I ran for a few minutes in order to catch the bus. As I was running, I suddenly felt a pain in my chest, and at first I thought it was my heart. My heart was pounding, way harder than it usually does when I'm exercising. But I eventually realized that the pain was a bit lower, and I think it was more related to the fact that I strained my muscles a bit carrying home groceries last night. For kicks, I tried running on the way home also, and felt it again. I'm definitely going to ask the doctor about it at our appointment on Thursday, and until then I'll try to manage my exercise routine carefully.

Despite being distracted by side effects, I was very productive at work today, and we all got to have fun at Cristian's celebratory lunch. Between my productivity this weekend with installing Ubuntu 9.04 and with my work today, I'm really feeling like I'm getting my life back on track, and that makes me really happy.