Finally.
FINALLY.
5 years since my last operation, and 2 years since we expected coverage, our health insurance kicked in. I just got back from my first visit with my new Gyno. And I’m BAWLING MY FOOL HEAD OFF and sitting in my jammies and canceling all my plans for the day because I plan on laying on the couch in the fetal position with one or both cats and watching cheesy cheesy guilty pleasure movies like “Don’t Tell Her It’s Me” while I sob into their fur.
It’s really not anywhere near as bad as I’m making it. But my feelings were hurt in one area, and instead of being so excited about the progress I’m making and all the nice people I met who were so good at their jobs and so willing to help me, I’m licking my wounds and panicking about the pain I see coming my way.
First of all, our provider is Kaiser which brings it’s own little set of trials and blessings. I had them when we lived in the O.C. and they were responsible for my last lap. Their best quality is that they are so stinking cheap for copays and deductibles. My $48,000 surgery cost me 15 bucks. Their staff is awesome and capable and so sweet, they cover everything I’ve ever needed including 3 tries at IUI (which they advised me not to bother with since I am a Hopeless Case), and they believe in well-patient treatments so they’re awesome with pediatrics and they offer all kinds of free clinics and education and alternative treatments.
But, if you are unique in any way, you are on your own. To be in the Kaiser system you will take the treatment they give you and you will be grateful and you will NOT DEVIATE FROM THE REGIMINE! No, they will not treat your endo with surgery until after you have taken every single freaking infertility class they offer. No matter how bad your pain is or how obvious your symptoms are they will not treat your endo with surgery until after your partners sperm count is measured on three seperate occasions and until after you have had an HSG (regardless of the fact that they’ll just do another HSG during the lap) and there are four separate appointments to accomplish each measly step and you will take the appointment they give you and be grateful, even if that means you have to wait a month to see some nurse practioner who will only prescribe you an antibiotic so you can take that before your HSG appointment which can’t be scheduled for another month. In short, RED TAPE HELL.
So I was a little hesitant to go back to them. But once Bear did the math, which is just about his favorite thing, we realized that with as often as we planned on using our coverage, the smart money was on beautiful no-deductible Kaiser.
Last week I took a deep breath and dove back into the Red Tape Fest. In Kaiser land they won’t even look at you without a medical record number. They can’t do anything without it. Not book an appointment, not a visit, not a hello. It took me about four hours lost in phone menus and web pages, but I finally found a delightful woman (I tell you, their staff is legendarily awesome) who couldn’t have been better and got me an appointment the day after my insurance kicked in. Hooray! I thought to myself.
Of course, even four hours of searching is way too smooth. I should’ve known there would be a snag. I show up to my appointment today and they type my number into the computer, and there’s nothing there. So I go to the Member Services office where the best lady ever tried to help me for 30 minutes and we got no where. So on the sly she handed me a temp card and send that if I couldn’t get it straightened out right away I’d have to pay for the appointment myself. I could’ve kissed her. I’d still have to deal with corporate offices and more dreaded red tape, but at least I got to keep my precious appointment.
So once that’s all fixed I met with the doc. We’ll call him Dr. I’mnotlooking since he wouldn’t look at my breasts during the examination, for my comfort I’m sure, and then he had a weird habit of talking with his eyes closed for extended periods of time. In poker they’d call it hooding – like an extended blink with the eyebrows raised like the eyelids were going to flip up at any moment like windowshades in an old Tom and Jerry cartoon.
He was very sweet, made sure I was comfortable at all times, switched to a smaller speculum when I was in too much pain, and agreed to put me on his surgery schedule (Hallelujah!!) but he also did something that REALLY horked me off.
I’m getting ahead of myself. First of all you have to understand, I live in Modesto. If you’ve heard of Modesto it can only be one of two things: notable criminal cases, or the raging meth problem. In fact, we very proudly hold the title of largest Meth producer. Salt Lake City tries to keep up, but we’ve got them beat cold. If you were a doctor in Modesto, I can only imagine that you’d see A LOT of addicts. And if Oprah’s programming schedule is any indication, a lot of those addicts aren’t so scary street person looking anymore. They look like any other suburban anybody. Maybe even like me.
So in walks this well-dressed, educated woman, who he’s never spoken to or seen before, complaining of constant excruciating pain, claiming to have a history of endo but with no real proof and it was probably the case that the last three patients he saw were asking for heavy narcotics. My chart lists that I occasionally take Vicodin (extremely occasionally – that crap is EXPENSIVE) but usually Ultram/Tramadol, which HE’S NEVER EVEN HEARD OF, and then I ask for a prescription for the pain.
He didn’t exactly call me a pill-seeker, but he didn’t exactly not either, it’s more like he just expressed a distaste for prescribing narcotics especially since we haven’t had time to get into the “social, chemical, or psychological factors that cause chronic pelvic pain” or in other words since he didn’t have the time to talk to me and make SURE I wasn’t a pill-seeker. He actually had the balls, after I cried and hyperventilated my way through the pelvic exam because it hurt too much when he inserted THE SWAB!! to ask if I could get by on 800mg of motrin. Which is FOUR FREAKING ADVIL! Of course not! 5 years ago I had Stage III endo and it’s been growing largely unchecked since then. I’ve been disabled for two years with pain. If FOUR FREAKING ADVIL would ease the pain then would you call that disabled? So he writes a prescription for Naproxyn and I say OK because I’ve never had that before and if I had just said that Motrin wouldn’t cover it, then he wouldn’t really try and push another OTC on me, would he?
So guess what Naproxyn turns out to be.
FREAKING ALEVE!!!!!! AAALLLLEEEEEEEEVVVVVEEEEE. Oh thank you wise doctor. You know in all the years I’ve been clutching my guts and praying for death, In all the times I’ve been in the pharmacy reading the back of every freaking bottle hoping that something would at least let me sleep through the pain that night, never once have I looked slightly to my left to find my salvation waiting there for me right on the shelf. Why didn’t anyone tell me these things were READILY AVAILIABLE. It’s a good thing you went to med school and got all that training so you can tell me EXACTLY THE SAME THING THE COMMERCIALS TELL ME!
You’d think that an OBGYN, who does nothing but deal with women’s health day in and day out would be a little more compassionate to the pain management needs of a patient. Granted I just walked off the street, but what in the hell does a girl need to do, suffer in agonizing pain for two months so he can get to know me before he gives me the drugs that will help me survive?
The thing that really pisses me off is that I never asked for Vicodin. I hate taking Vicodin. When I’m on that stuff, I can’t do anything. I can’t talk, I can’t read, I can’t knit. I can lay on the couch or sleep. That’s it. Who would really want that for their entire life? Besides an addict, obviously. I was asking for Ultram, which is a few steps down from Vicodin, but HE’D NEVER HEARD OF IT. I asked for anything between OTC and Narcotic and he couldn’t come up with a thing.
Bear suggested having my prescribing doctor, my father-in-law, email the doc and explain my past treatment and act as character witness, and possibly introduce him to Ultram. I was also thinking of emailing him myself and telling him that if he’d told me he was giving me a prescription for ALEVE I could have saved him the trouble and explained that I’ve already tried it and it does nothing for me, can I please have a real drug since you are the DOCTOR and are supposed TO HELP ME.
I might have to try revising it a few times to get the bitterness out.