My Cardiologist Is Applying to my Insurance Company to See if I Can Have a $6,500 Injection. [View all]

[NNadir]

I apparently have a problematic aortic valve that murmurs sweetly (aortic stenosis), which if I read the literature correctly, means I can drop dead at anytime. For severe aortic stenosis - mine is described as moderate but worsening - life expectancy for someone my age is about three years. That of course is average, some people die more quickly, some last longer.

It's related to my elevated LDL levels, which my cardiologist believes is not related to my diet - I haven't eaten a mammal or bird in close to 50 years - but to my genetics, he says. (I'm not sure about this; I have to look it up.)

He told me he'll contact my insurance company to see if I can have an injection of inclisiran, which is a swell RNA drug with which I have some familiarity in a scientific sense.

Statins don't touch it, and in any case, I have developed after 30 years on statins, great muscular sensitivity to them.

This is amusing: The doctor has to ask the insurance company it's OK.

If it happens I'm not around here anymore, having disappeared suddenly, this is a potential reason for the outcome.

I'm not all that upset about any of it; I've had a long and wonderful life and a sense of mortality makes it more precious, but I will confess to doing some Kubler Ross type bargaining.

I mean, I got to fall in love and to be parent to two wonderful young men.

By the way, I don't have a problem with the cost of the drug. I understand intimately the costs that went into developing it. The economic implications of "one and done" shots is highly problematic, and I confess that I do like to get paid for what I do, and, if doses are rare, the cost has to be covered high per dose prices.

We'll see what happens; there are multiple treatment options, including valve replacement but the ethics of the expense strike me as worthy of consideration. Money spent on an old man is not quite as valuable as that spent on a younger person.