At this time, Allen is physically unable to work, but because of his existing Grady Card co-pay assignment, we were made to go to the Unemployment Office where he (with the energy of a man deprived of an adequate oxygen supply) jumped through the hoops to prove he is, in fact, unemployed. This, by the way, is a point of emotional turmoil for his employers who truly, truly love Allen and would have kept him “on the books” forever, whether he could do the labor or not, just so he’d have some income during his recovery.

But the costs of oncology treatments and their related prescriptions are excessive – even through the community hospital, which would not cut him a break so long as he had a job. When we went to retrieve his prescriptions before leaving Grady Oncology that first day, we learned he was expected to pay a $50 co-pay for showing up and to expect a bill for 50% of said services from having seen a doctor and 100% of a sum total of almost $4,000 for five prescriptions – $3,540 of it for one anti-nausea medicine alone.

Thank the Universe and every Power That Be in it that the pharmacist was equally stunned as she called over a social worker who’d helped us once already that same day and by the time we had to actually pay for the prescriptions, the social worker had managed to negotiate the total co-pay down to $55 – this was for two, 30-day supplies of two different morphine tabs and one 7-day supply of the anti-nausea medicine (not the CRAZY expensive one, which we put on hold along with the Nexium). So with that and his services co-pay, Allen left Grady only $105 deeper in debt for the day, but with complete uncertainty about whether he’d go forward with treatments for lack of funds.

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