Opining Online

I haven’t yet posted why my original 3-4 week Arizona vacation turned into a 6 week plus adventure.

There’s some backstory here that needs ‘splaining. First of all, let’s get the planned itinerary out of the way. I left on Mar 28th and arrived on Mar 29th. On Mar 25th, I got notice from my insurance (Tricare Prime) that I needed to find a new primary care doctor by April 1. The letter was dated several weeks earlier. 

This pissed me off because on March 22, I’d seen my primary care doc and got a bunch of blood tests done pertaining to a chronic problem. Had I known I was about to be “dumped” from treatment at the MTF (which I’d been coerced into 4 years before) I would not have bothered.

Anyway… with little more than five days notice, I have to find another primary care physician. First, I contact the physician my husband has used for years. That’s a no go. Then I find the largest group practicing near my home and affiliated with the hospital nearest my home. I contact them and am told that each physician decides whether to accept new patients and their insurance. After a few denials from specific physicians in that group, I’m finally informed that none of the 13 will take me on.

By this time, I’m in Arizona. So, I search again and this time find a physician who will take me. I fill out the paperwork and am informed by Tricare that if the paperwork is received before the 2oth of April, the assignment to the new PCP will be valid on May 1.

That’s wonderful and I make an appointment with the new doc for May 6. I plan to be home on April 28th… exactly a month after I left. Except for the perhaps wasteful blood tests, everything is good.

Except… on April 25th, I am running a fever and have stomach pain. Monday, April 26th, the pain is worse, the fever a bit higher. Since I don’t think I have a primary care physician to call for a referral to an urgent care clinic, I call Tricare directly. I am informed that since April 17th when I submitted my request (that I was told would be effective May 1) I do have a PCP and that I must get any referrals from her.

Unfortunately, she hasn’t seen me before and ethically can’t make any referrals. (This is another topic…) and therefore I can’t get a referral from anyone. I am advised that since this is the case I should go to the ER since that doesn’t require a referral. However, it’s been pounded into me that using the ER for routine care is a bad, bad, wasteful thing and that Tricare might not cover it. Since I don’t think my problem is an emergency, I’m not that thrilled with that advice. But I’m also worried that I won’t feel like driving 1200 miles unless I get feeling better.

So I go to the nearest ER which is less than a mile from my daughter’s house. Why I should have chosen an ER much further away may be the subject of another post. Let’s just say that the close hospital didn’t have a great reputation. But… I was only going to probably get a prescription for an antibiotic and a suggestion I follow up with my PCP when I get home, right?

Continue reading “How I Ended Up Without A Primary Care Physician And The Worst Hospital I’ve Ever Been In”

Our water/sewer bill has been lower the last two months than it’s been in the last 20 years. Since every other bill we get seems to be going up, I should be happy right?

Uh no. What worries me is that we’re going to get hit with a “makeup” bill in a few months that’s going to hurt.

That’s right folks, I’m worried because our water bill has been under $10 for the last two months.

I am.

I am horribly, terribly, irrationally frightened when confronted with a snake whether it’s in a photograph, video, or… horror of horrors, in person.

Fear of snakes is called ophidiphobia.  Intellectually I know my fear is irrational. Emotionally is a whole different ball of whacks. It’s all too real.

What I want to do is write a humorous, perhaps silly post, about this. But I can’t. Although I know some of my latest antics relating to the fear of snakes are funny, ultimately I’m not finding much to laugh at.

Last Thursday morning, I was taking trash out and and preparing to take the can to the street for pickup. Our back storm door (opening from the laundry room) doesn’t fit well and sometimes doesn’t latch on its own. When I opened it to come back inside, I saw what I first thought was a green bungee cord. I figured I’d knocked it off a shelf with the bag of trash I’d just carried out.

But, as I started to bend down to pick it up, it moved. In my panic, I tried to shut the storm door, catching 5 or 6 inches of the tail of the snake. It rattled and I panicked more. I ran to the front door and into the kitchen screaming “There’s a snake in the house” to wake my husband up.

By the time he gets to the laundry room, the snake is nowhere in sight. He moves the washer and dryer and various other junk stored there. All this time, I’m standing in the middle of the kitchen, constantly checking all around me watching out for a snake and afraid to move.

“There is no safe place now” is the thought that kept running through my mind. I’ve lived here for 20 years and have sort of learned to deal with the fact that there are snakes around. Some are poisonous, such as copperheads. A neighbor spent some time in the hospital after being bitten. But the snakes have always been outside. I could always escape to the house and be safe.

I don’t know how long it took me to run from the back of the house and into the kitchen, but I know that during that time the snake could have traveled into almost any room in the house. Not that it would have, but could have. It really is silly to say that the snake was as afraid of me as I was of it because I don’t think a snake has the ability to be irrational.

It’s been five days now. We hired a wildlife removal professional who put a snake trap in the laundry room with no result. That’s good news. The snake is probably not in the house. He probably escaped back outdoors the same way he got in via the ill-fitting storm door. The bad news is that I don’t know for sure.

The other good news is that from my description he identified the snake as most likely a king snake. Not venomous and not aggressive. I also learned that most snakes have rattlers and that green snakes are not venomous. This is knowledge that the rational part of my brain likes. The irrational part could not care less.

I haven’t yet mustered the courage to go into the laundry room, but I’m mostly OK in the rest of the house. Mostly. I put on my shoes before going to the bathroom in the middle of the night and I turn on the light to inspect the shoes first.

I am still easily startled, reacting much more severely to the slightest unexpected noise or touch than I normally would. That stress is probably not good for me. (My heart rate was still above 100 hours after I first saw the snake.) Add to that a hyper vigilance of my surroundings. Consider that the mere act of having to pay extra attention when walking down a street involves a cognitive tradeoff . Now even in my home, I’m paying attention to every step I take. Though my doc called in a prescription for klonopin, I’m still on edge.

This too shall pass, but not nearly soon enough to suit me.

Oh yes there are dumb questions. Like the one my husband asked me yesterday: Why don’t you wear high heels?

Huh? We’ve been married 20 years and I can guarantee you that he has never seen me wear a pair of high heels. Never. Unless a 1 1/2″ heel fits that definition. I think it was 2004 I last wore anything that high.

Pretty shoes and my feet just don’t get along. I envy women who can wear pretty shoes and I wish I could wear high heels. I’ve tried and the pain is unbearable. This is probably because of injuries to my feet, none of which were caused by high heels. You see, I’m a klutz. Clumsy. Awkward.

I’ve injured my left foot and ankle five times seriously enough to have to use crutches before I was 35. Now that I’m just a tad bit older and dealing with arthritis on top of old injuries, comfort and support in a pair of shoes is the primary goal. I really don’t care what they look like.

So… yes, I wear Crocs. And sometimes Skechers. And even worse, I wear them with socks!