Me And My Girl Problems Part Deux

Where was I? Oh. Yes - *taps microphone* *clears throat*



Thank you all for coming tonight - I want you to know that some of the things you may hear and see (as I am feeling inclined to post pictures) this evening may be way more than you would ever want to know about me and so now would be the time to get up out of your seat and seek your refund at customer service.



All righty then? Where was I? Let me check my notes.....Ah yes, my gynecological oncologist shutting down any hopes of a lovely tummy or a natural hormone-free existence. Some people are so selfish. I would like to apologize for leaving you all hanging during the intermission. It didn't occur to me until people started protesting that I had done such a thing.

We will do the surgery sometime in June. It will take some amount of hours to do the surgery as it is very delicate, I have to be extremely careful, and this thing is MAD INVASIVE (okay...maybe he didn't say MAD), when we get it out we will send it to pathology to see if it is benign or malignant. You will need to be in the hospital for 5 days and will require 8 weeks off of work. Eh hem... can I sing? 8 weeks off of work. Once again, notice my priorities here...do I ask who is going to take care of my family? No. Do I ask him if he is sure that I could die from this surgery? No. I ask him, can I sing? Yep. Special.

And then I say - so, 8 weeks off of work. Does that also mean that other activities have to wait 8 weeks as well? Yes. I will clear you for other activities at your checkup. Super! Can you take pictures of the thing? Yes. There is a camera in the surgical suite and I will take pictures of it. *why is he tilting his head that way? do people not ask this? why is my husband looking green?*

I'm sure I asked him a thousand more questions but I can't remember them at this moment. We tentatively scheduled the surgery for June 23rd, 2005. HisGirl and I discuss when would be the best time for her to come because we have to wait for Tricare approval before we can even go in for the pre-op stuff and it is possible that the approval may not come in in time for that date. Och. Where is my journal???

*I need to point out here that my Mom asked me if I wanted her to come, but she and my Dad were scheduled to come out at Thanksgiving ~ which was going to be after hubby left for Korea for a year ~ so I said, I would rather have them for Thanksgiving. *

Um, okay - we decide that the bulk of her time should be spent being here for the surgery and after. I remember asking the Chaplain who was in charge of the Praise Team that I served with at the time if he would please pray for us, most specifically for my husband because I was worried about his well-being should he lose me. And that he pray for God's timing and that I would be able to accept it however it went down. Little did I know how spot on the prayer request would be. Cousin Amber left her family behind and came to us. When she got on the plane, my approval had not yet come through. Here's the thing about me, when I know what the problem is, what has to be done to fix it, and when...I can totally deal. Jack up one of those features and I have been known to crack. The afternoon before I was scheduled to go up to Shreveport with my husband and my BFF (aka HisGirl, aka CousinAmber) to begin the overnight pre-op process, I called the doctor's office to confirm that they had received the approval and we were good to go. No. We have not received it.

*I need to point out here, that we are now in the 6th month of this process and countless people have gotten involved on my behalf to include very high ranking Air Force people in my husband's chain of command. They have confirmed that this doctor is the BEST doctor for this job and he is hard to get into and have done whatever was in their power to help expedite the process*
Och. I have to go make dinner now. Looks like there will be a part three.

[I have asked HisGirl to help me finish telling this story because she's so good at remembering stuff and because I am nowhere near as good at remembering timelines as Jenster. (or maybe she keeps a journal)]

I Have Faxed

Are there things in your life that you have avoided thus far for one reason or another - rational or not? Such as getting a cell phone because you are afraid that you will accidentally call Tokyo. Or getting a pedicure because you have an irrational fear that the lady across the room getting her hair done will notice your toenails and judge you? I have some of these. One of them being the battery charger. I simply cannot bring myself to use it. Although the poor suburban lies barely grasping at life and refuses to start and my husband assures me that it's as simple as cutting a slice of banana cream pie (Okay he said nothing about the pie) I cannot bring myself to even try to find the appropriate cables or whatever and follow the instructions on the charger(and also the 3 sets that my husband has attempted to give me). I feel as though at this time, I just do not have it in me to even fail at it one single time and still be sane, so I have not tried at all.
What? Did you think that was my only 'ism? Have you READ my blog before? So, one of the other things that I have been sorely avoiding - even to the point of paying for the service elsewhere, or avoiding it all-together causing a near financial disaster (to my shame and consternation) is using our Dell machine of wonderment to fax something. I have conquered most other features of this machine to include printing, scanning and copying ~wirelessly~ but the fax has been the bane of my all-in-one existence. Well.
I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow to a specialist which requires me to have a referral from my primary care manager (you HMO havers know what I am talking about) and it occurred to me because I have been seeing this doctor (and others) for some time that I should check to make sure that I still have a visit left on my current referral. I seriously do not want to even go to this visit, I really just want people to leave me alone, and here I am working overtime to ensure that I can attend. dumb. Anyway - the receptionist says that the only referral they have access to expired in November of 2007 which I know is wrong wrong wrong. So I say, I will have to get into my files and see if I can find my copy of it as I had been remembering that I had seen it recently in some stack or another because I had left it out for this very reason. When I finally got home today (from the dentist - BLECK) I searched and searched and found the referral. AHA! It is current! For one of my other specialists. *deflate* So I look some more and can't find the referral I am looking for that says I can go to this week's doctor. So....okay....dreaded activity number 7,985 - I call the HMO to see if they have a current referral for me for said doctor or not. They do. It does not expire until 08/08 - good for 4 visits. YAHOO! May I please have those dates again and the authorization number?? Thank you very much. So I call back to my doctor's receptionist and tell her that there is in fact a current authorization and she says okay, what we're going to need is for the HMO to fax us a copy of that referral. Grr. Can you do anything with just this authorization number? No ma'am. We need the paper. Grr. Okay! Let me see what I can do! (Tell me again WHY I am working so hard to go be invaded when I do not want to be invaded?) (Was that gross? Sorry. *blushes but does not delete*) So I decide to make one more concerted effort at dreaded activity number 6,435 - searching through my files...
What do you know? I found the correct referral for the correct doctor in the correct file. Ahhh.
Now I face a quandary. I have the referral. It needs to be faxed. I am going to be in the area this afternoon to take my daughter to the dentist (bleck) and can drop off the form, however I don't know for certain if I have used all the visits or not and so they need to have it in time to research if necessary during office hours because I do not want to be slammed with a $165 cancelled-at-the-last-minute-due-to-lunacy doctor bill.
It is now time to put on my big-girl panties and try the fax machine that lives right in my own living room and has been begging to fulfill its purpose. Here's the thing - our phone line is vonage(through the Internet), hooked up to our wireless router, blah blah blah *this is going to be soooooo complicated and could possibly wreck the delicate cosmo balance of me being able to access the Internet and my all-in-one machine of wonderment wirelessly from bed at any hour of the day or night. do I want to take this chance??* So, I take a few deep breaths. Lift up a prayer for mercy and pull out the 80lb manual. How to fax. 1. plug the phone line into the fax machine at correct, clearly labeled port. 2. enter number. 3. push green button.
Huh? What's this? I hear it. The noise. You know the noise of calling a fax machine. You've done it with the phone to your ear. You know the noise. HA! I immediately called the doctor's office(on my cell phone cause the vonage is still hooked up to the all-in-one [no, apparently it does not fax wirelessly. slacker.]) to see if it could really be true - did...did...you....receive my fax?? Yes. We have it here. *hoots, jumps, laughs ~ receptionist waits patiently* So, I ask her if she could now please verify for me if I have used all the visits or not and the saga goes on with please hold then we have to call the HMO can we call you back, blah blah blah. But who cares.
I FAXED.
And I don't want to go anyway. AND, as I am now posting this story wirelessly from my bed - the cosmos are still in order. *insert some shout of victory like HOOAH but not HOOAH because we are not army*