Written by Bram Sable-Smith, who covers the Midwest for Kaiser Health News. Originally published on Kaiser Health News.

The day before Thanksgiving, my pharmacist in Wisconsin got a rush voicemail letting me know that my insurance was refusing to pay for my insulin.

I have enough hormones to live to 17 days.

In the 10 years I’ve had type 1 diabetes, I’ve never really struggled with getting insulin.But in my work reporting on the people left behind by our nation’s extremely complex health care system, I’ve written about how The high cost of insulin lead to fatal rationing and approximately patient protest Lower those prices.

For the most part, though, I didn’t run into the issues I mentioned. Maybe that’s why I waited over a week to call my new pharmacy in St. Louis, where I recently moved to work at KHN.

I have been waiting for an appointment with an endocrinologist in St. Louis since September. The doctor’s office won’t let me in until December 23rd and won’t process my prescription until then. When I finally called the pharmacy to resolve the issue, a pharmacist in St. Louis said that the insurance from my new employer would not cover insulin without prior authorization.I have got wrote these, also. They essentially require a doctor to get approval from an insurance company before prescribing a treatment.

Doctors hate them.The American Medical Association a Website outlines proposed changes Practice while the insurance industry defends it to protect patient safety and save money. Confirming what we already know feels like a lot of paperwork: Without insulin, I’m going to die.

I knew right away that there would be a problem with prior authorization. Because it was Saturday when I learned that authorization was required, my best bet was to call my former endocrinologist’s practice on Monday morning and ask his staff to fill out a form for their current ex-patient.

I have enough insulin for 7 days.

But later that afternoon, I got an automated message from the pharmacy about an insurance question.

The next morning, after waiting 45 minutes, I finally got through to the pharmacist who said my insurance company was still waiting for my doctor to fill out a completed prior authorization form. I called the doctor’s office for a push.

Four days of insulin remaining.

My uninsured prescription is $339 per vial of insulin and I use about two vials per month. Usually, I pay a $25 copay.However, without prior authorization, I would be exposed to the list price for insulin, like any uninsured diabetic, even if they live in one of the states and Copay cap Designed to control costs.

I called the pharmacy again at 7:30 pm on Thursday, thinking it would be less busy. I contacted the pharmacist directly and he told me that my insurance company was still waiting for a prior authorization form. On Friday morning, the diabetes nurse at my doctor’s office said she would check and call me back.

I would run out of insulin the next day.

By this time, I Live Tweets I tried refilling my prescription and started getting the kind of messages that anyone in the so-called “diabetes online community” would be familiar with. People in Missouri gave me their excess insulin. I was advised to go to Walmart and buy $25 insulin, an older version that I don’t know how to use safely.

My new strategy is to use one of the Program launched by insulin maker Recently helped people get cheaper insulin.On the same day, Democrats on the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee released a Report Ridicule these types of aid programs as “a tool for positive public relations, increased sales and increased revenue”.

But before I tried this option, I got a response from the nurse who called the pharmacy (she had been waiting 25 minutes) and learned that my new insurance didn’t cover the brand of insulin I was using. Pharmacists are checking different brands.

Soon the pharmacist called: My insurance would cover another brand. But the pharmacy probably didn’t have enough to fill my order. She said I should call the other branch of the chain. The first location I called was also outside, but I pointed to another location that had it.

With 12 hours of insulin left, I walked out of the third store with the pill.

It took 17 days and 20 calls. But I know I am lucky. Aside from recent events, my insurance is really special. My boss insists that being alive is part of my job because I spend hours on the phone during the workday. My job is to persevere while solving puzzles in the maze of American healthcare.

The amount of time wasted by me, the pharmacist, nurses and possibly some insurance staff is appalling and could be both a cause and a symptom of the high medical bills. The problem goes far beyond that.

Insulin is the most important resource in my life, and this is what I have to do. But I know not everyone has my luck. I’ve interviewed relatives of people with type 1 diabetes who don’t have access to insulin, and it’s not hard to imagine how my story would end in an equally tragic way.

On December 23rd, I finally saw my new doctor, who gave me a new prescription. That night, I got a message that my insurance company was waiting for prior authorization.

I have 17 days of insulin left.