The Cost of CF

Hello all!  It's been a while posting- sorry about that! So busy with the job and long commute etc.  I was looking through all of Charlie's prescriptions the other day and thought to myself "I wonder how much this is all tallied up" so I decided I'd make a post about it.

Charlie has been taken off some meds that I've talked about before (namely Erythromycin) but put on some different ones so here's the current list of meds Charlie was on in the last month and their associated costs

Creon 6000: $609.49 (copay: $30.00)
Albuterol Inhaler: $54.99 (copay: $15.00)
Prilosec compounded to 8mg/mL: $269.09 (copay: $40.00)
Azithromycin: $44.99 (copay: $15.00)
Pulmicort: $419.99 (copay: $30.00)
Source CF Vitamin Drops: $22.45 (Free c/o Creon 6000 program)

So in terms of prescriptions his monthly total is $1421.00.  With insurance copays per month are $130, which doesn't seem like a lot compared to the overall cost but for us it is!

Other monthly CF related bills that we have:

Visit to Hartford Children's Medical Center: Specialty Visit Copay $45
New Nebulizer Cup: $30 copay
Pediasure: $50/week, $200 total (about half is given to us free c/o Creon 6000 program)

So that brings our monthly total after insurance to about $300, but without insurance and the Creon 6000 program (which provides free vitamins and pediasure! they rock!) we'd be looking at WAY more!  And I'm not including some other stuff like the cost of a nanny, etc, etc.  So I suppose the bottom line is: If you don't have a lot of money, don't have a kid with CF :P hehe 

Anyways Charlie is doing pretty well, still having some trouble with the weight gain (he's supposed to eat 2000 calories per day...which is about what I'm supposed to eat per day haha).  He's had two colds in the past month thanks to a plane ride and a playgroup.  Here's some photo's Robb took at Harkness Park, isn't he a cutie?