My husband lost his job. Just like we were told, five days before his 90-day probation period would end, he was let go. After he had already accepted this job at the end of January, other workers at the restaurant told him no one had passed probation in the past three years. The restaurants unwritten (unspoken) policy is to hire on-call workers and then fire them or let them go before the 90-probation is passed, or just keep them on with one day a month work until they quit. If new hires appear to be complainers who might protest the firing, they give them the one day a month until they go away. If they are sweet and congenial like my husband, then they are just let go. Now we have zero income, a baby to care for, a COBRA insurance company that is unreachable (more later in this post on that), a COBRA insurance payment increase to $1100 a month in July, and no way to cover or pay for anything medically or otherwise including our only transportation.
Everyone knows my Marine son is visiting me. With my son's assistance, we finally made a decision about my cancer and treatment. We decided upon Chemo + Radiation for the initial and maybe only treatment of this large five-inch around tumor blocking my throat. If, and we are told it is a big IF, the treatments shrink the tumor and it does not metastasis fast, the treatments could lengthen my life to maybe a year. In anticipation of that, I have also received a Smart-Port for the chemo induction and been tattooed with radiation markers.
The Smart-Port was supposed to be very simply out-patient surgery, not much pain, and quickly healed. But, my NASTY BAD LUCK continues. They had difficulty putting it in. Something to do with my extra large carotid artery. I guess the inner tubing is run down a vein right next to the carotid artery. It took three times to get it in and a lot of digging around, and comments about how tight the fit was. So much for simple out-patient painless insertion. I was so sore when I got home, after the lidocaine wore off, and it throbbed all night, so there was no sleeping. When I went back for the bandage change today, it appears that on top of all the pain, I had an allergic reaction to the bandaid used to cover it, which caused additional swelling, more tightness, more pain. They sent me away with no further bandages so the red swollen skin could heal. It's still tremendously sore, and I cannot touch the area around it but at least it no longer throbs from the swelling. I just cannot catch a break. This means more days before the pain leaves.
Then I'm also having problems with my COBRA insurance company. It seems my providers are also having problems them. This new problem makes me wonder if the insurance company - and it's a fairly big company - is going under, or being embezzled, or essentially on the edge of collapse. I mean, why not? With my F*CKED LUCK lately, why wouldn't my insurance company quit me for some stupid mismanagement problem on their part? I (and my providers) call all day long for days on end, and we get busy signals. Over and over the phone is just busy. But if you are tenacious, after a few days, OF ALL DAY calling, and being placed on hold for up to an hour or more, you might get through. When you get through, you either (1) get transferred to another number that hangs up, (2) get told they will look up the information you request and call you back (call back never happen), or (3) tell you they will look into it (also seems to never happen). I have providers who cannot get a call back or answered phone, and they are not getting paid for my appointments, procedures, etc. I do not have the energy to be on the phone all day, dialing and dialing and hoping to connect to fix this problem. And I also need answers to some of my medical deductibles and coverage, but I cannot get them. On top of all this, my insurance company has a group for before-you-need-it or preventive health care, who are bugging me by phone about my diabetes, which is the least of my worries. They want to check in with me every three months about diabetic health care “only,” and not to discuss any other problems. I told her, "Call back in three months, and waste some more of my time if I'm still alive." Translation: "Eat crap and die, I don't need your bullsh*t." Poor customer service from my insurance provider is not something I can deal with right now, NOR CAN I STRESS OVER THEIR POSSIBLY GOING-UNDER, after I've paid my COBRA payments ahead two months to keep them from trying to drop me due to the cancer – which they attempted.
I was also sent to get a feeding tube put in my stomach incase I cannot swallow after the radiation swells the tumor before trying to shrink it. Yah – more great news. The doctor refused, due to the size of the tumor. He only inserts via mouth then puncturing outward through the stomach. He will not bypass the tumor to do it. Now I have to go back and find a surgeon who goes in through the outer stomach wall, meaning it has to be done in the hospital, which means more co-pay with only 90% coverage. If it is done as a procedure in a clinic type setting, as an out-patient, then no co-pay or deductible, but if I have to use a surgeon and be in a hospital, even as an out-patient, then it's going to cost me. I hate it. Nothing can be easy.
How much more before the universe takes one last huge crap on me and gets this over with?
No comments:
Post a Comment