The costs of cancer

I often think how we would have been long bankrupt by now, had we been living in the United States. The costs of our medical bills surely must have gone so over-the-top that we would not have survived leukemia, and by that I mean all four of us.

To my dismay I was handed a huge bill when I picked up Kenji's bags with medications at the hospital pharmacy. The fact that Kenji's doctor ordered the prescriptions and each medicine is part of the transplantation protocol was totally irrelevant: that specific type of medical drink simply wasn't covered by health insurance. One bottle would have been fine, paying
€ 6,70 isn't bad. Except Kenji uses two-thirds of a bottle a day, which means € 87,- for a monthly supply.

We're facing six months to a year of this crazy amount of medications. Add to that the taxi costs and the recently raised health insurance premium and own risk. The yearly energy bill that will be much higher than last year's due to the numerous extra laundry cycles on high temperature. My travel costs from commuting to the hospital plus the essential meals and cups of coffee. And the list doesn't end here, not by a long shot.

Summing up these costs not only makes me sad, it also worries me. The chapter 'Unforeseen' won't be closed for a long time. No financial alarm bells started ringing when the diagnosis turned our life upside down, but I wish we were warned in advance - even in the Netherlands where the social system is supposed to be so sufficient. The unforeseen medical part is already quite enough to deal with...