In a vain attempt to pay down bills, retirement funds were dissolved and everything not nailed down was sold. Every stick of furniture, all the farm equipment, you name it...
But, I hung on to my 5 of my boys: 2 dogs, 2 oxen and my horse, Axel.
Eventually, I was able to buy back Angus and Bella, but even they had to be sacrificed initially.
I'm grateful to have been forced to learn a lesson in what matters most in life. Take a wild guess... it ain't possessions. It's health, friends and family (furry and the not so furry).
My grudge is against the health insurance company, not the doctors.
Last year, I had a chance revisit that grudge.
Let me begin by explaining that in Alabama, as a working adult, you can get insurance at a discounted rate if you qualify for ObamaCare, or you may get it through your company or, as in my case, as an individual, I can only purchase health insurance through the one provider who has the monopoly: Blue Cross.
For you Canadians who quiz me about the American health care system, let me give you a slice in the life.
In 2016, I paid $5000 of health insurance premiums. My plan had a $7000 deductible which I came close to meeting thanks to that lovely exposure to Brucellosis via an old hog.
Therefore, I fast tracked my $7000 knee surgery in December 2016, thinking I'd be on the hook for only $4000 of it after meeting my $7000 deductible. Au contraire. The surgery ended up costing $9000 and the insurance paid $0. In spite of the calls I made to confirm the procedure had been approved, Blue Cross denied all claims based on their position that I had traveled out of state without consent for treatment. The surgery was performed in Alabama, but the office visits were in Georgia. The orthopedic clinic told me this was standard MO for Blue Cross, that I could get a lawyer and 'probably' win. Lawyers aren't cheap and suing in America counts against your credit score... 'probably' wasn't strong enough impetus.
This year, I'm hiring a lawyer before a surgery to contact Blue Cross for confirmation. This year, my premiums are over $6000 and my deductible went up to $8000. With the close to $4500 in medical bills I've already paid out of my pocket this year, I should have only $3500 to go before my insurance starts picking up the tab. You'd think. And then, to add insult to injury, they only cover 80% of any surgery anyway, which is a lot, until you calculate a $30000 surgery will still leave you owing $6000, after the $6000 premiums and $8000 deductible.
So almost 10 years later, I feel like I'm back to Square One, back to draining my retirement account because the insurance is already sending me cheery little notes claiming that my CT Scan wasn't performed a one of their approved diagnostic labs, even though it was 'supposed' to be pre-approved... so they're not putting its cost towards my deductible. I'm lawyering up because this is just the beginning.
This is what I haven't been telling many people: I've felt like crud for the past year. I've had increasingly more problems with my heart and the most depressing fatigue has plagued me. I had blamed Cole's cancer for draining me. The last few months he was alive, it became clear that the emotional toll of caring for my best friend wasn't the main culprit. Abdominal pain that had been easy to dismiss is now keeping me up at night. My chest pain became frequent, daily nausea, dizzy to the point of keeling over, my legs swell like fence posts by the middle of the day and the fatigue worsened.
Long story short, after months of being tossed around from doctor to doctor and test to test, I was probably, as my dear brother put it, clinically depressed. So when Cole passed, I was seriously hoping to follow him the next day or so, whether by God's will or my own, I was sick of this crap and I was plotting a way outta here. So, now you know why a puppy ended up in my life so soon.
Let's call him a last minute attempt at self preservation.
Fate did intervene because two days after the puppy made me feel it was necessary to hang around for his sake, the bad news started rolling in and it hasn't really stopped.
Currently, two specialists can't agree if their organs of study are the most to blame for the host of problems. Two weeks ago, the chief concern was the renal vein that was found to be compressed, causing kidney failure, lots of pain and circulation issues. The surgery suggested costs $30000, plus two months out of work because they have to cut a major vein and reroute and stent it.
Now, the gynecologist who was only given my permission to take out the cancerous bits when she went in 10 years ago is screaming at that I should've listened to her and had a complete hysterectomy back then. A uterus is the size of a peach, mine looks like it swallowed 6 ping pong balls and has grown from one ultrasound to the next. Causing her to worry the pesky ping pongs aren't benign fibroids. Theory is the ballooning uterus is what's squished the kidney and pinched off the vein. Likable hypothesis because her surgery is $18000 cheaper and has less down time.
Caveat: the old ticker. I'm going in for a full battery of cardiac tests next week before they can schedule the ASAP hysterectomy. In spite of the prolapsed mitral valve and the hole in my heart, I had been able to run and maintain a (comatose) low blood pressure. Had. Now my blood pressure has sky rocketed, possibly due to combination of chronic pain and bad circulation on my left side. They won't prick me with a scalpel until they get the green light from the cardiologist.
I'm not scared so much as I'm profoundly tired. But, I'm resilient, Cole taught me that. I took my first out of town journey alone a couple weeks ago. It's been almost 10 years that I have never left my 1 hour home base area without Cole. An hour into the drive to UAB's vascular clinic, I started frantically texting Flynn back at the farm, trying to find an excuse for me to make a U-turn and come home. He didn't let me off the hook. I did make it to downtown Birmingham, found a parking deck,
got slightly lost there and back, got poked and prodded, returned to the farm 12 hours later shell shocked.
For my surgery consultation this past Tuesday, problems started by 7 AM when my navigation app kept chirping that I would be late, then very late for my appointment due to accidents and construction. Stuck in a mob of standstill traffic in Birmingham, I screamed for Cole and was answered. I got in behind a semi that seemed to be cutting past lanes of creeping cars. Then with only 5 minutes to spare, but yet still 2 blocks from the parking deck, a car pulled out from a street parking directly next to the clinic. I looked over at the passenger seat and told Cole he couldn't stay in the car, he had to come in with me.
I have seen two therapy dogs there already, ya know.
And when my appointment was over, but I couldn't leave the city just yet, I found a park less than a 10 minute walk away.
I sat there for half an hour working myself out of a tizzy and I asked him if he minded staying with me a little longer. I know he was supposed to be finally free from work, over the Rainbow Bridge romping around... Then I remembered his You Gotta Be Kidding Me stare. Well, I'm sorry--I didn't get the memo that you never left, you'll always be in my heart. So sue me.
Hey, is that what's wrong with my heart? Your hairballs are clogging it? Doesn't matter, totally worth it.
