My infusion of monoclonal antibodies

Getting my infusion

If you are 65 or older and have any serious health risk, and you come down with Covid-19, consider getting an infusion of monoclonal antibodies, which nips the infection in the bud.  

My case of Covid-19 was relatively mild, so I didn't think I needed the top-of-the-line medical care that our former president got.  I was pretty sure I wouldn't take a turn for the worse.

But Dr. Bill, my brother, told me I should ask my doctor to give me a referral for the infusion. 

An infection with this virus can start out mild and then attack some organ that is vulnerable.  Or you can have an overreaction of your immune system, called a cytokine storm.  In any case, you have to be in the first several days of your symptoms and not hospitalized to qualify for this treatment.

With a referral, a Medicare panel will review a person's health situation and decide whether to pay for you to have this safeguard.

Anyone over 65 qualifies for the infusion if they have one other factor like diabetes or heart disease.  

But you have to ask for this treatment--the average primary care doctor may not know the latest on Covid care.  Or she may not regard your case of Covid as any serious threat to your health.

My brother told me this on a Tuesday night, and by Wednesday afternoon I had a virtual appointment with one of my doctor's partners.  She was skeptical about my need for the infusion, but she made the referral.  

Soon after, I received a call that Medicare had approved the infusion, that I would get a call from a local infusion center called IV League, Inc. the next morning.

On Thursday morning at 8:30 am, a clerk at the infusion center called and gave me a choice between an 11 am or 12 noon appointment.  

I chose 11 am, but the first step was to bathe myself and wash my hair.  I'd been sick for five days, but I wanted to look good for this big occasion.  I didn't realize how tired I was and slow.

At 10:45 am, I ran out the front door and typed "6706 Bristol Parkway, Culver City CA" into the Google maps app on my cell phone, but the address was actually 6076.  Instead of taking 20 minutes to get there, I got mixed up and took 30 minutes to find a small building tucked into a business park next to the San Diego freeway.

Drip, drip, drip

I arrived 15 minutes late, but the infusion techs were kind and patient.  

Apparently the right combination of monoclonal antibodies has to be mixed up just before being dripped into a patient's arm, so I had to wait while the mixing was being done in a lab.

Soon, however, the saline solution hung above my head and the antibodies were being pushed into a vein on the inside of my right elbow.

The lady in the next room told the tech that she had just been to an emergency room where she was diagnosed with Covid pneumonia.  She and her son had been sent here to be treated.  She was very tired and listless, but she too had dressed up nicely for this occasion.

I felt guilty for being there.  I wasn't sick enough, I told myself.  I was wasting the government's money.  

"Relax!  You're not relaxing!" one of the techs kept telling her son.  She couldn't find enough of a vein in his arm to insert the infusion needle.

I relaxed and prayed for this woman and her son and all the people who needed Covid vaccines or infusions and couldn't get them.  I gave thanks for the infusion techs, risking their health to treat all of us.

Afterward, I sat in a small room with others waiting twenty minutes to be observed for a possible adverse reaction to the infusion.  

One white man about 30 years old wore a red cap backwards on his scruffy hair; he had a beer belly.  I wondered whether he was an anti-vaxxer.

Another was clearly a retired person like me, privileged, white, getting the infusion just in case.

I drove home feeling relieved that both tasks were over: my panic to get this appointment and my frantic search to find the clinic.

Finally I could go back to bed and just rest.