I'm feeling really down about this and just want to vent to some strangers. I've been in really poor health since going back before covid lockdown, unfortunately. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease in 2020, but unfortunately the medicine I need is prohibitively expensive even with insurance, and the payment assistance programs they offer are no help. I've been fighting to try and get my medicine down to an actual affordable level -- they told me even with insurance it'd be like $900 a dose, and I'd need like 6 doses in the first two weeks followed by a single dose every two weeks for the rest of my life. This has been going on since last october, everything is still being fought. However, in the meantime, the disease is started to affect my liver, so my doctor said I need to begin treatment for it immediately, and the old school low cost solution is chemotherapy. Apparently this is what they used to do with autoimmune diseases in the 70's?
Due to the nature of my illness, I'll be on chemo indefinitely, until the payment dispute over the medicine I need is resolved. Could take months, could take years, might never be resolved. Unfortunately despite not being cancer, chemo will still fuck me up according to my doctor. I'll lose all my hair and I should experience the nausea cancer patients experience.
All my life I've tried to avoid these kinds of problems, I've always been deathly afraid of needles and things of that sort. For example, I gave up sugar and sodas in my 20's because I thought I'd have to be stupid to willingly contract diabetes when it could be prevented, all so I could avoid injections. Don't smoke, don't drink, I'm basically a teetotaler. I've always been afraid of cancer and chemo, I've lost several friends to cancer and saw the chemo eat up their bodies and watched them wither away. I'm so worried this is going to happen to me now.
My doses are starting low, then after a month they're going to start increasing the dosage. I'm going to have to go in for blood work like every 3 weeks to check my vitals while on chemo for this stuff. I'm still a little in shock that my doctor is putting me on a chemotherapy treatment. This fucking sucks.