Tag Archives: health

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day two


Perhaps if you would have told me at age nineteen:
“In a decade, you will experience anger and embarrassment like you never have before over being a prisoner to an industry… a chemical.”

“Because it will kill you” – doesn’t work on young people…. they have no real concept of mortality.

“Because it will kill you” – barely works on a 30-something of our generation… though COMPLETELY mortality-aware now,… you’re bound to get an answer back like, “So will fast moving buses.”

Physical withdrawal is funny.

Kevin’s turned into a combustible asshole.

I’ve turned into a fidget freak – incapable of sitting still. (getting a lot of cleaning done though).

Chad, suspiciously, seems fine – if not a little over-attentive.

This will pass soon… The rest is all in the brain.

If I can deny keeping a blog for a year and a half – I can do anything.

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gall


mama

Mom called the other morning… She made idle chit chat for five minutes before mentioning matter-of-fact that she was in the hospital. The woman’s always had a flair for dramatic impact.

Apparently an especially greasy muffaletta at Growlers Pub was the straw the broke the camels back and made her pass a gallstone.

She’ll be alright – but apparently the attack’s pain resembled child birth. They went in and had to unblock a bile duct and got the 411 on the stone.

It’s the size of a golf ball… They need to yank the gall bladder – which they’ll do next week.

I’ve been up visiting for the past two days. Brought her a mess of roses and smuggled her in a Hershey’s bar with almonds. (her favorite).

She should be released today. Good… I loathe hospitals, despite the cute, remotely cruisey, bearded jewish resident with the kippot.

Am I blogging?

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you’re the one for me fatty


statistically obese

Well.. I heard back from Blue Cross / Blue Shield by way of a letter and my voided deposit check in the mail.

My application for heath insurance was refused.

It took a few phone calls but I finally got ahold of someone in underwriting to find our “why”?

“Your application was refused because of your height-weight ratio.”

What could I say? Well.. I thought of a lot of things to say – like “Look lady… I can still see my dick when I look down, so I don’t think that qualifies my as grossly overweight”. – but alas – you always think of the best lines AFTER you hang up.

Kevin pulled up the “statistical charts” used for determining height / weight ratios.

Apparently a “healthy weight” for someone my height, 5’7″, is around 150lbs with a 31″ waist. At 226, I’m considered “Obese”. Not chunky… No! This chart would suggest that I should be on the Ricki Lake show.

*Note – I was wearing 34s in the seventh grade!

I’ll admit – I was getting on the heffy side around a year ago, but thanks to my surgery I dropped down from pushing 240 to 224 – which is around where I’ve been hovering with a EXTREMELY lazy exercise schedule but avoiding the crap we used to eat.

When I dropped to 224 the compliments came rushing in.. and I felt good too.

I gather I could (should) shoot for 210 with a little more exercise – but anything below that I’d start to look emaciated.

I was 180 in my mid-twenties… I also had a youthful metabolism and popping speed on a regular basis.

So.. Back to to searching for another healthcare provider. Our original plan was to sign kevin up onto Chad’s insurance – but we’re now talking about signing me up instead and finding veteran coverage for Kevin.

Sorry – apparently I’m too fat to blog.

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healthcarelessness

An extremely grumpy day.

So I run up to Walgreens to pick up my perscription, which incidentally I found out is working wonderfully – my cholesterol is down to 140 from the two-hundred-eighty-something, “blood as margarine” levels it was before.

“That’ll be $87, the little drive up speaker said….” (WHAT?!) “Your insurance doesn’t seem to be in the system sir… That’ll be $87 please…”

I flipped her a credit card – got my medicine and headed home to find out what the hell was going on.

After a good 30 minutes surfing through the automated customer service robots trying to get to an actual human being – I got my answer: United Healthcare has discontinued individual coverage for self-employed types like me.

This was news to me of course – and I asked the rep why I wasn’t notified..

“Oh – I see here that we sent you two notification letters back in May, but they were returned.”… (we moved our office to the house – but Kevin assures me ALL vendors were notified of the new address).

“Well… If you have a computer paper-trail letting you know this, then what prevented you from picking up the telephone and calling me!?”

(smugly) “We’re only required to notify you by mail sir – and it’s not our responsibility to ensure that we have the correct mailing address for you.”

“You can automatically withdraw $185 from my bank account every month, but your system can’t alert someone to call me when mail won’t go through?” – this was going nowhere… and I realized that this person had absolutely no reason to continue the conversation or be cordial at this point. I was no longer, or could ever again be – a customer of theirs.

The rest of the early morning was spent making brain-pick phone calls to friends in the healthcare industry and shopping around.

I finally settled on Blue Cross / Blue Shield who offers individual coverage at a better rate than I was paying UHC… and from what I can tell – slightly better coverage.

The rep emailed me the 10 page interrogation form and instructed me to mail it back or drop it by their downtown office. “IF” I make it through underwriting – I can be re-insured in three weeks.

In the meantime I have to hold my breath and hope I don’t get hit by a bus.

I’m not blogging – I’m attempting to not get overwhelmed with anger and paranoia.