How much does your factor cost?
From the day I entered the hemophilia world and started my company, I have always asked my audiences and readers: how much does your factor cost?
Most parents and patients have no idea.
Here is an interesting way to get you to think about it. Go to www.factor8cost.com and fill in the blanks. If you don’t know what the price per unit of your factor is, you are not on top of your game! Call your home care company, HTC or wherever you get your factor from and find out. Then fill in the blanks on this website, and you will see how different products measure up.
This site is sponsored by Talecris, which produces Koate DVI, a plasma-derived factor VIII product. You can read our August edition of PEN (available through our web site to download free) to read about the differences between plasma-derived and recombinant.
Give it a try! If you have a lifetime cap (and if you don’t know that then you are really in trouble!), you need to know how much you pay per unit, and how much factor you use per month. Know your numbers– it’s the most basic thing you must know and need to know.
Great Book I Just Read
Seize the Day by Saul Bellow
Tommy Wilhelm is badly in need of a Tony Robbins firewalk and Date With Destiny seminar. This is the story of one day in the life of a middle-age man who is lost in his own repetitive thinking, obsessing over all the wrongs done to him, unable to break free from the tyranny of his own negative thoughts. A short 117 pages, this book is a fascinating psychological study of how we let our mind overrun us and mislead us. Tommy is unemployed (by choice), separated (by choice) and broke (pretty much by choice). Yet he blames everyone for his misfortune, and begs repeatedly and sadly from his successful and emotionally unavailable father for help. Prone to gamble on the stock market, he is always looking for the next big break, instead of squarely facing his problems rationally and with a plan. Bellow leaves the ending open to interpretation, with a final scene that is moving and mysterious. Four stars.
