Laura’s Story
So when I received my diagnosis, it was shortly after Christmas, and at the time my twins were still very, very young and I was navigating this portion of my life where motherhood was new to me. That in and of itself was already overwhelming enough. And then to have a rare endocrine disorder like Acromegaly thrown into my life and onto my plate, it was almost too overwhelming.

I think any time someone is diagnosed with a disorder that's, you know, rare and not understood, it can almost overtake a large component of your life ...and you’re left figuring out the pieces of that.

After surgery, I was placed on medication therapy, and again, I was also trying to navigate what it meant being a mother and those various stages of toddlerhood and beyond.

And it's exhausting to try to navigate the health care system. Having to do all the legwork and support yourself and make your voice heard.

What's effective, what's not effective, what's working, what's not working.
Call the pharmacy.
Schedule my shipments.
Figure out whether the prior authorization was completed.
Touching base with my provider's office and then reaching back out to the pharmacy again.

Sometimes you get overwhelmed. Sometimes things slip through the cracks, and sometimes there were instances where I did miss a dose or I didn't receive my medicine when I should have.

There were times where I wanted to give up as a patient and throw it all away and say, what am I doing all of this for? All this effort, to take care of myself.

So living with a rare disease, you know, it's, it's a very difficult situation. And just like anybody else, we deserve to try to live our best lives. And in order to do so, we need to have medications that help treat these diseases. But we need to be compliant and take them regularly.

Whenever people ask me, “what do breakthrough symptoms feel like?” And that's what, what happens when we don't get our medication. You know, think about how you feel
whenever you're catching the flu. Everything on you kind of aches and you're extremely exhausted.

Add to that soft tissue swelling and headaches and sweating and those are all symptoms of Acromegaly. And patients need to have consistent control. And they need to be in control of the disease rather than the disease being in control of them.

We as patients, we don't have that control over choosing where our specialty medication comes from. So we're not given that choice of where we want to go.

Sometime in 2020, the specialty pharmacy that was distributing my medication became Anovo. And that has changed things tremendously. I now have an advocate on my team that's working with me to make sure that my medications are sent to me on time, to make sure that I can stay on my therapy and not miss doses.

I'm getting calls to see if I need any help or assistance. They help me navigate the financial aspect of things. Anovo really stepped in and helped me.

With Anovo, you typically get a single person of contact and you know, it makes that experience better for a patient. 

For an Acromegaly patient, there's a lot of anxiety, there's a lot of worry. There’s so many things that you're dealing with, especially when dealing with a hormonal condition. And that one point of contact makes you be more open. And if you’re having an issue, you're more apt to discuss it.

Every single instance that I have heard with patients that have dealt with Anovo, it's been positive. I wouldn't be here if I had heard negative things regarding Anovo. Point blank.

As a patient it’s already hard enough to live with a diagnosis like this. But the difference that I've seen with Anovo, when I call them, they make me feel important. They are familiar with my medication. They are familiar with me. They know the things that I'm struggling with. It's a world of difference compared to before, where I felt like I was doing all of the legwork.

To have Anovo on my side, it feels like somebody’s in my court working with me, which makes me feel more resolved that I can handle this as a patient, and that I can live with Acromegaly and manage it with the help of Anovo.

Thank you so much for supporting me throughout my journey with Acromegaly. I couldn't thank you enough. And thank you for not making me have gaps in my care so that I can have a good quality of life.

As a patient advocate. That's why I'm so passionate about the care that Anovo gives, because I think that every single patient deserves that quality of care.

Patients shouldn't have to chase specialty pharmacies to do the right thing. And Anovo is a company that always does the right thing for patients because they put patients first.