What to wear....

What a heck of a week! Here are just a couple of general observations. How can people afford to get sick? Really - I have been going through insurance hell. Short story - husbands new insurance (he changed jobs and he as an AWESOME policy) does not kick in and be the "primary" until I cancel my own. I spent ALL day Friday dealing with this. So, I canceled my policy - gave 30 days notice and guess what - not until October 31st. So, Nov. 1st is when his policy kicks in - 100% coverage for everything in network.

The bad thing is that I was fearful of using a local hospital here - Lovelace. I am sure all would had been fine, but they have not done a great job with the administration and it is topsy turvy. My current insurance is Presbyterian, the plan was to help "get me by" until I got situated in school etc. Then would figure it out. All of their in network people are with Pres which I have had great luck. So, the surgery - oh - did I tell you - mastectomy with reconstruction - will be at Pres. This all happened between Thursday at 11:30 and Friday at 8:30a.m. The scheduler at my Dr.'s office is to get back to me today....hoping for the 19th. Funny thing, Chris said, so then, surgery won't be until after Nov 1st? And, I said, nope, we press on. Worst case is that we pay the $2000.00 out of pocket max. Best case is $1000.00 for the hospital stay and his BCBS picks up the rest.

Here is how it went:
Tues - met with Dr.
Wed - met with Plastic Surgeon.
Thurs - met with the Dr. again. Gave her my decision. Mastectomy with reconstruction tram flap. Here is the reason. Her fear is that the cancer is more than DCIS in other areas due to the shift after getting the MRI, ultrasound and mammograms. She also would like to take the lymph nodes "just in case" and will some type of procedure to put dye into my nodes (via the nipple the day before surgery - OH MY ouch!) The recovery time and the hurt time is long. At least 2-3 weeks of hurt and no driving. I have been reading posts and one of my friends has a sister that did the same thing - I am going to ask her for reality. Anyhow, two night stay if all goes well and about 3 hour operation. The surgeon gets in an cuts the bad stuff out - the plastic surgeon goes in right after and fills it up with my stomach muscle. No nipple - that comes later, I am hoping to put that off until the other insurance kicks in! The decision is finally made, and for the first time I am finally accepting things as they are and what is to be. Until.....
Friday - dealt with the insurance "primary" question at 6a.m. (8a.m. EST), went to my radiation consult with the Dr. Great guy - maybe a few years younger than me. It sounds as if I don't have to have radiation treatments unless there are three things happening - 1)Invasive cancer 2) oh who cares - I don't think that the cancer is invasive so I'll stop there. I said good bye to the Dr. and said that I hope not to see him again!

Off to deal with ins. I went to the Pres office to xxl the ins. Found out that I could not until the end of Oct, blah blah blah and in between the blahs, the gal looked at me and said "is everything OK" - my response was "I am about to blow!". Yep - it had finally reached where it just was too much. No more. Then I had to re say to her, just to make sure that I was stuck with this policy, but the worst is the $2000.00. Yes true - it is what it is and life just has to move on. So, my day entire day may I add, was focused on something that I care not to focus on, by 2:30 p.m. I am finally close to home, grab a quick lunch and favorite Diet Limeade, head home to hop on a 3:00p.m. conference call. For that hour, I am normal. Now, only now, do I understand why so many people work during all of this. Work is not work, it is an escape. I love to work - and so, it really is my forget it all! Point of this - Friday's are my school day - writing paper day, and it did not happen. Let me ask all of you - with a 2 1/2 year old, when is the paper writing if it is not while she is in care. 4a.m. in the morning is my answer. Since I can't sleep that is a good time!

I took a breath on Friday evening and kept going all weekend. Now, I am back to Monday and have to finalize some stuff. Also, while my mom was here we talked through some things - such as what to wear. I bought a moo moo (I don't know if that is the correct spelling) but it is a "patio gown". Went to Dillards to find something that I can wear right after surgery. I wear mostly t-shirt type of shirts, nice and comfy, but over the head. So, I am now searching for easy to pull on type of things. Chris wouldn't let me buy the bright moo moo, plus it had snaps, I opted for the zipper one. Do people really pay 60 bucks for these ugly things? I got it at 75% off - 15 bucks and that is still too much!

Off I go to do some stuff today - it is Monday. More later.