I'm going to again today continue talking about my first "Big Gun" drug.  Evidently this drug is made from an animal protein and since many people can be allergic to animals as I am, I would begin my infusion with a Benedry IV.   This would immediately put me to sleep in the chair, my short reprieve till it ran out and the nurses would come over to switch me to the infusion.  They would also give me tylenol.  Finally, one of the nurses suggested I take tylenol before I come in as they charged $8 a pill.  CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE THIS!  Also, to use the restroom you had to untangle the cords from the person next to you and drag your IV pole to the restroom where everyone could listen to you go to the bathroom. Now this was quite fun considering crohn's.  Often the trip to the restroom isn't short and is quite smelly.  So you open this big door for everyone to see and smell.  Nice huh?  Now, since myself and many others cannot get disability for this damm disease, lets talk about these every 4 week appointments for my infusions.  It's not easy to ask your employer to take a half a day off to go get your infusion every 4 weeks.  Employers don't like employees missing work, try adding this to days off from being sick.  So not only do crohn's patients take the chance of losing there job, paying for an expensive medication  and then you have the risks of the medication not working or causing other problems.  Then there's always co-workers who think that possibly you are being catered to because you need so much time off.  I will back up, it took an act of god to even get this drug covered.  First, my doctor tried every test in the known world and medication before finally a friend of mine who was a nurse suggested that I try this.  Then the insurance didn't want to pay, I guess I can't blame them considering the cost.  The nurse who told me I had been denied at the insurance suffered from crohn's too.  I cried, cursed and fought and finally they approved it.  But all the time I wondered if my husbands employer ever found out that I was on a maintenance drug that cost that amount would they use some excuse to get rid of him.  120K a year for one drug is a lot.  But in the end, it did little and caused more problems for me than it was worth.  Who knew.