Medication

When Maggie Heim had a recurrence of ovarian cancer about a year after her initial treatment, her oncologist suggested that she take what he believed could be a lifesaving drug. There was just one problem: Her insurer wouldn't pay for it. The 59-year-old Hermosa Beach resident inquired about the cost of the treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she received care. To her alarm, she was told that the cancer-fighting drug, Avastin, would set her back as much as $50,000 a month.

Ted Kamp wanted to make sure his daughter received the medical treatment she needed. That was his first priority. His second was making sure his insurance would cover things and that he'd pay a fair price for any procedures. The fact that this proved so difficult highlights one of the crazier aspects of the U.S. healthcare system: the inability of patients to know how much their treatment really costs. "It's infuriating and it's exhausting," Kamp, 50, told me. "It's clear that the entire system is designed to bully you into submission.

Anyone with pets knows animals are just like us. They enjoy sleeping on our beds, detest going out in the rain and have a hard time losing weight. Now comes a scientific report that shows animals in the wild often do something we think of as distinctly human: They self-medicate. However unlike the destructive form that self-medication takes in the human world (too much drinking, drugs, smoking), for an array of animals it takes on the constructive form of ingesting or using plants and chemical substances to treat themselves therapeutically as well as prophylactically.

A man who tried to saw his arms off in a West Covina Home Depot bled all over the store and was on the brink of death before he was rescued, a first-responder said. Art Hurtado, an off-duty Pasadena paramedic who was at the store, was the first medic on scene to help police. “Found him face down, blood all over the store, multiple aisles,” Hurtado told NBC4. “Barely had a pulse and he was just barely breathing.” West Covina police say the man calmly, quietly walked into Home Depot before 1 p.m. Wednesday and headed to the hardware section where the saws are. “He walked into the saw area and began cutting both of his arms,” said Cpl. Rudy Lopez.

In an unusual display of concern, lawmakers overseeing the Medical Board of California have threatened to dissolve the agency unless it "shows significant progress" in protecting patients from dangerous doctors. In a letter, state Sen. Curren Price (D-Los Angeles) and Assemblyman Richard Gordon (D-Menlo Park) called on the board to be more aggressive in monitoring the state's 100,000-plus physicians. Price said Thursday that the letter reflected the consensus of the 11 lawmakers who sit on the committee charged with evaluating whether the board should be reauthorized or allowed to expire, or "sunset.

A Glendale firefighter was punched in the jaw this week after he and his crew tried to help the mother of a 28-year-old man with psychiatric issues, police said. The man, Keristo Andresian, was arrested Sunday on suspicion of battery and released to staff at Glendale Adventist Medical Center for treatment, according to police. Andresian's mother called about 12:06 p.m. for an ambulance, but canceled it while firefighters were en route, police said. When firefighters arrived, Andresian was reportedly seated inside a vehicle and honking the horn.

The pilot of a medical helicopter that crashed in Missouri in 2011 had been texting, and that was a contributing factor to the disaster that killed four people, federal investigators said. The case is the first fatal commercial aircraft accident involving texting. But the texts, some from the pilot to a female friend, were just one problem. The five-member National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday unanimously agreed on Tuesday that the crash was caused by a tired pilot who skipped preflight safety checks that would have revealed the helicopter was low on fuel.

Days after her dramatic rescue from a brush-covered ledge, the 18-year-old hiker who was missing for four days said she has only fleeting memories of her time lost in the south Orange County hills recalling only hallucinations, fending off animals and crying when she and her parents reunited. "I honestly didn't even know I was missing," Kyndall Jack told reporters Monday outside UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange. "I didn't know I was gone. I didn't know anything was going on. I just thought I was in a big dream.

SAN DIEGO - Kenley Jansen should be able to attend his newborn daughter's graduation and wedding ceremonies. No longer does the Dodgers' hard-throwing setup man have to worry that playing baseball could cost him his life. His heart now functions normally. Nearly six months ago, Jansen underwent a cardiac operation that scared him out of his usual laid-back persona. "It's finally fixed," Jansen, 25, said with a smile. Heading into the Dodgers' series opener against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park on Tuesday, Jansen has pitched three times.

When Susan had breast cancer, we heard a lot of lame remarks, but our favorite came from one of Susan's colleagues. She wanted, she needed, to visit Susan after the surgery, but Susan didn't feel like having visitors, and she said so. Her colleague's response? "This isn't just about you. " "It's not?" Susan wondered. "My breast cancer is not about me? It's about you?" The same theme came up again when our friend Katie had a brain aneurysm. She was in intensive care for a long time and finally got out and into a step-down unit.