Doctor ordered it Monday, said I should hear something Tuesday. Nothing. So I called her office and they didn't have a clue. Wednesday morning the wound vac people called me and told me they couldn't do anything for me because my health insurance was canceled on February 17.
I. Flipped. The. Fuck. Out. I tried logging into the internal website at work to look for information, and my password doesn't work anymore. I flipped out more. It took five hours and I have no idea how many phone calls to finally get to an HR person who informed me that health care is only paid for the first month of long term disability, and that I needed to sign up for COBRA. Nobody had ever mentioned this to me before.
Then he said he'd send me the stuff and it would probably take a week to get reinstated. I flipped out again. He found a branch office of the company that manages COBRA for Oracle over by SFO, so I we drove over there and handed over the paperwork and a check for $2400 and magically I have health insurance again. It's going to run us $1800 per month until I go back to work. I had been thinking about going back for six months after I do this next batch of chemo, and then taking a few months off again for reconstruction. Now I'm sure I'm going to do that, because I can flip back to short term disability and everything's covered again.
So I was reinstated yesterday and the wound vac people said they would UPS the thing and somebody had to be here from 9 to 5 today to sign for it. At 5:10 tonight I called the wound vac people to let them know it hadn't gotten here yet, only to discover they never actually shipped it. Of course not. And now there's no way they can ship it until Monday so I won't have it until Tuesday at the earliest.
I flipped out again and described in extreme detail exactly what's going on with my chest (believe me, you haven't heard all of it, it's disgusting) and asked if we could drive to Fresno to pick the thing up. And then he remembered that there's a distribution warehouse in San Leandro, and a night guy who comes in at 7. So he worked it out and Bob drove out there and came back with a giant box of crap which includes the wound vac. Yay! The machine itself is not very big, maybe five inches square and three inches tall? I can cram it in my purse when we leave the house.
This morning the home health care people called and did some initial screening and said that a nurse would call me later today to schedule a time to come over tomorrow. Of course, the nurse never called. My campaign of harassment will begin at 8am tomorrow.
I am so over this. All of this. I am so tired I don't have the words to express it. I just want to be done and not hurt anymore.
------------------------
I have to say that it says something about the state of healthcare, insurance, and the fact of medical bankruptcy in this country that I felt an exponentially greater amount of panic when I was told that I had no insurance than I did on the day I was diagnosed with cancer. Universal health care. We need it. Nobody should ever have a week like this. Even with all the bullshit I've had to deal with, I am one of the extremely lucky ones, and that is horrifying. I get to continue to be lucky for the low low price of $1800 per month.
I. Flipped. The. Fuck. Out. I tried logging into the internal website at work to look for information, and my password doesn't work anymore. I flipped out more. It took five hours and I have no idea how many phone calls to finally get to an HR person who informed me that health care is only paid for the first month of long term disability, and that I needed to sign up for COBRA. Nobody had ever mentioned this to me before.
Then he said he'd send me the stuff and it would probably take a week to get reinstated. I flipped out again. He found a branch office of the company that manages COBRA for Oracle over by SFO, so I we drove over there and handed over the paperwork and a check for $2400 and magically I have health insurance again. It's going to run us $1800 per month until I go back to work. I had been thinking about going back for six months after I do this next batch of chemo, and then taking a few months off again for reconstruction. Now I'm sure I'm going to do that, because I can flip back to short term disability and everything's covered again.
So I was reinstated yesterday and the wound vac people said they would UPS the thing and somebody had to be here from 9 to 5 today to sign for it. At 5:10 tonight I called the wound vac people to let them know it hadn't gotten here yet, only to discover they never actually shipped it. Of course not. And now there's no way they can ship it until Monday so I won't have it until Tuesday at the earliest.
I flipped out again and described in extreme detail exactly what's going on with my chest (believe me, you haven't heard all of it, it's disgusting) and asked if we could drive to Fresno to pick the thing up. And then he remembered that there's a distribution warehouse in San Leandro, and a night guy who comes in at 7. So he worked it out and Bob drove out there and came back with a giant box of crap which includes the wound vac. Yay! The machine itself is not very big, maybe five inches square and three inches tall? I can cram it in my purse when we leave the house.
This morning the home health care people called and did some initial screening and said that a nurse would call me later today to schedule a time to come over tomorrow. Of course, the nurse never called. My campaign of harassment will begin at 8am tomorrow.
I am so over this. All of this. I am so tired I don't have the words to express it. I just want to be done and not hurt anymore.
------------------------
I have to say that it says something about the state of healthcare, insurance, and the fact of medical bankruptcy in this country that I felt an exponentially greater amount of panic when I was told that I had no insurance than I did on the day I was diagnosed with cancer. Universal health care. We need it. Nobody should ever have a week like this. Even with all the bullshit I've had to deal with, I am one of the extremely lucky ones, and that is horrifying. I get to continue to be lucky for the low low price of $1800 per month.
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