So my mom was prescribed a couple of inhalers

and at the doctor they said that since one of them wasn't covered by our insurance, they just popped one of theirs in the bag, no charge.

Inhalers in the US are marked up at a ridiculous rate, and even with insurance coverage you can expect to pay $40 or more, which we know from Ana.

If you have asthma in the family, especially if the patient is a child or has ADHD or is otherwise prone to losing things, you're going to consider making some painful, painful decisions.

So here are my pro tips!

1. Inhalers are super pricey at the store, but your doctor gets loads and loads as samples. So do the doctors at the hospital. It's okay to say "I don't know if I can afford that, do you have any samples?" They probably do, and are happy to give them away. At any rate, it can't hurt to ask. (This most likely applies to any non-restricted drug, actually... though they'll probably balk nowadays at giving you sample packages of painkillers!)

2. Most inhalers require spacers. Your doctor may not remember to tell you this, so check the information in the inhaler's box - they'll tell you if it's not necessary. You and your child WILL lose spacers. A spacer is a little plastic doohickey that's $50 at the pharmacy and $15 off of eBay. Stock up. (In a pinch, you can also use a cut-open water bottle to serve as a makeshift spacer.)

The other day I was reading a news story

Some kid had a weird illness but LUCKILY! some other kid had died of the same strange symptoms last year and the mom had read an article on the subject and so her kid survived. Happy ending all around, except for the dead kid.

Man, I cannot get enough of these stories. Girls who get into car accidents and this is how they find out about the brain tumor that would've killed them, happy grandmas who show a picture of their kids to the receptionist at the dentist's office and find out that some odd feature of the eyes indicates a serious, yet treatable medical condition, people who happen to mention an odd detail of their lives in passing to strangers in the park who turn out to be doctors who are experts in the one disease that strange detail reveals - I love them. I don't even care if they're true. (Well, I care a little.)

There's something about the coincidences. People love those. Some people love them so much they chalk this up to divine providence, but that's ridiculous, and not just because I don't believe in god(s) or, indeed, any other supernatural entities (though I do like to pretend that I believe in ghosts now and again). Obviously a second's thought will tell you that for every "truth is stranger than fiction!" story we hear, there must be tons more that we don't hear because there are no weird coincidences in those stories at all. People find out about their illnesses in the usual way, or they don't.

Funnily enough, though, stories about where freakishly weird chains of events conspire to cause people to miss their doomed flight or reunite with their lost love do nothing for me. It's gotta be medical miracles.

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