GRATITUDES:
1. No traffic on the road in to San Antonio this morning
2. My neighbors
3. My resumed morning walkies
4. NO MORE BACK PAIN!!!
Thought I’d drag my iPad along to my appointment this morning to pass the time while waiting for Dr. Santiago. There have been some recent issues with our health insurance carrier that I also hope to iron out before I’m re-incarcerated next week. (Yipe. One more week.) Apparently, United Healthcare is under the mistaken impression that we have other insurance, which is completely bogus. I just spoke to one of the financial advisers here at the office and she told me that our old insurance, Blue Cross Blue Shield, is still listed in their system, so that may be part of the problem. I’ve already spoken to someone at UHC about this and still, they keep sending me paperwork showing denial of coverage. Most of the charges are relatively minor – $50 here, $300 there – but they do add up and there’s one whopper of a charge from Option Health, the company that supplied my bags of Blincyto medicine as well as the portable pumps. That one amounts to nearly $60k. This is absurd. I was told back in late May or early June that I had met my deductible and all subsequent charges would be 100% covered. I don’t know why BCBS still shows as my primary insurance, unless some pencil pusher entered the wrong information into their database, which is likely. UGH. I hate having to deal with insurance companies. I do NOT need this level of stress in addition to the obvious anxiety I’m already dealing with.
There hasn’t been any more fallout from the lockdown at the high school last week, although we now know the cause. Apparently there was an alert from a student who claimed that they either saw another kid with a gun or had heard that someone had brought a firearm into the school. So, basically, it was a false alarm, but our local authorities had to take it seriously, which they did in spades. Rory and I were wondering a few nights ago just how much the New Braunfels Police and Fire Departments had spent in that one response. We guessed that it had to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 million, possibly more. *Sigh* I’m not begrudging our local police by any means, they did the right thing by responding the way they did, but this shows the heightened awareness of gun violence in our community, especially since Uvalde. Thoughts and prayers alone are NOT going to fix this problem. What do we do, though? Do we go after social media? Do we tighten gun laws? (Yeah, right. Like that’s ever going to happen in this country.) Do we focus more on the upbringing of our children? Regarding the latter, I’m sure that all parents intend to do the best they can, but kids still fall through the cracks and it breaks my heart. I’m no expert, I have my own parental issues that I’m dealing with, everyone who has children does. Still, this is the stuff that keeps me awake at night.
Oh, right, about that back pain. I mentioned in an earlier post that my back had gone all wonky from carrying around the portable pump. Well, I’m very happy to report that my pain is very nearly gone and I’m only experiencing some residual stiffness. I’ll have to be very, VERY careful over the next few weeks so that I don’t throw it out again. That happened last year at about this time and I do NOT want to experience that level of pain anytime soon!
I said goodbye to Dr. Santiago today. I may be seeing him again in a year or so, but for now he’s surrendering his charge to his colleague Dr. Bachier, who will be taking the reins from here on out. I’m not sure how to feel about this. He’s been my doctor from the start of all this madness and I’m going to miss his (mostly) calm, level demeanor very much. I had to give him a big hug before leaving the office and I actually got just a bit teary. It’s hard letting go of someone who has looked after you with such diligence. Okay, sure, I WON’T miss his occasional temper flares, but those were the exception!😄