(Note: Lest the post title confuse anyone, this post is not about babies taking Xyrem and Ambien. The first part of the post is about babies. The second part is about Ambien and Xyrem.)

I took my car to the local dealership this afternoon to get an oil change and have them look at an intermittent problem I’ve been having with the radio display. I checked Facebook on my phone about an hour into the wait and saw a post from WOOD TV-8 that linked to an article with a headline of “Dead newborn in trash; mom charged”. This instantly got me sad, mad, and perplexed. I still struggle with the “Why?” questions and reading that story got me started asking them again. Why was our son born brain-dead and thus could not live, while this other infant was very probably born relatively healthy and would have lived had his mother loved him and cared for him properly. (Yes, I’m making some assumptions about this mother and her baby – assumptions that might not be correct.) It just doesn’t seem fair. We loved our son sooooo much and had a nice warm home for him with loving siblings…and we couldn’t keep him. And all across the country – the world, even – mothers give birth to babies that are unwanted, unloved, unimportant to any human beings that should care about them….and so many of them die as a result.

A few minutes after reading that article, a young woman entered the dealership waiting room carrying a baby in a car seat. She struck up a conversation about babies with another woman in the waiting room and at one point she said, “I like babies as long as they’re somebody elses, as long as I can give them back at the end of the day and not have to deal with the crying and fussing.” I’ve heard other people say that in the past, and thought I understood their point of view. My view has definitely changed. I would gladly “deal” with my son’s crying and fussing if I could just have him back. So many people seemingly take their children for granted, and don’t realize how easily and quickly they could lose them. Love your children, be grateful for them, thank the Lord for them, hug them, and tell them that you love them.

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I spoke with my sleep doctor recently about my narcolepsy medication. I’ve been taking Xyrem for almost a year now. It works remarkably well for me, but it’s also extremely expensive – even with insurance. My copay for a one month supply is almost $400. Thankfully I can take the Xyrem only half as often as prescribed and it still works very well. That brings the monthly cost down to just under $200 – much better, but still very expensive. The way Xyrem works is that it affects how I sleep at night. It helps me get a better quality sleep than I do when I sleep un-medicated. I started wondering if a different type of sleeping medication might give me similar benefits for a much lower cost. I asked my sleep doctor about replacing Xyrem with Ambien to see if that would help me any. She was very sympathetic to my concerns with the Xyrem cost and said she was willing to prescribe Ambien for me to try. I tried it for about a week, and was disappointed that it did not help. Not only did it not help my daytime sleepiness, it also didn’t even seem to help me sleep at night. I’d sleep okay for about 3-4 hours after taking the Ambien, but then the rest of the night I’d wake up every 30-45 minutes. I sleep better than that when I don’t take any sleeping medication at all!!! I was really disappointed that it didn’t work, because a one-month supply only cost me around $15. I’d much prefer paying $15 a month than $200!! Xyrem is just ridiculously priced. The full retail price of a typical one-month prescription for me is over $1,900. Thankfully my insurance covers a good chunk of it, but there’s still a hefty co-pay for me to take care of. Sometimes I wonder if it's really worth as much as I pay for it.

2 comments | Posted by Jesse
Tags: Ambien, baby, feelings, grief, narcolepsy, Xyrem