Month: August 2012

12 days until the next surgery

“Suddenly, through birthing a daughter, a woman finds herself face to face not only with an infant, a little girl, a woman-to-be, but also with her own unresolved conflicts from the past and her hopes and dreams for the future…. As though experiencing an earthquake, mothers of daughters may find their lives shifted, their deep feelings unearthed, the balance struck in all relationships once again off kilter.”  ~Elizabeth Debold

Sitting with my coffee this morning fishing around the internet as I often do I came across the quote above.  As I believe I have mentioned before, I am not an avid reader…I browse but when I hit this one I re-read it several times.  Interesting!

I am now the proud parent of an 8 year old little girl.  The birthday went well. Although the weather did not cooperate for a pool party, Meg had a good time playing with her cousins inside.  It is always nice to see family.

Now we are back to focusing on what needs to be finished before surgery.  Time is ticking, we are right around the corner!  I am ready and anxious to get the reconstruction completed!  Time to get the “pointy parts” back!

Time for my MRI…Really?

SO the normal sounds of the mail truck, and exciting part of a summer day here.  The girl’s head out to the mail box to collect the treasure inside.  Todays treasure though caught me a bit off guard. A letter from the hospital:

It is time to schedule your breast imaging appointment with Cooper Health Systems.  Blah blah check with your insurance blah blah call your doc for referral blah blah.

BUT wait….I just had those cancer threats removed.

So, billions of dollars have been spent to computerize patient records.  I know that last June when I had the biopsy, and the last MRI, the hospital was undergoing its transition.  Everything is computerized. So how could it be possible that I should receive a letter telling me to have a scan on a body part that no longer exists in its previous state?

What is the point of the billions of dollars if office A can not even communicate with office B and building 3?  It is not really that big a deal..I will just toss the letter in the trash but I guess I just do not understand what the billions paid for which frustrates me as I begin paying my medical bills.

Speaking of the medical bills, the next annoyance is the phone call I received the other day.  On Tuesday 7/31 I wrote a check to cover the first set of doctor bills.  It was cashed, I check the bank on-line. The  bill covered  several doctors and was just under $700.  SInce I have another surgery scheduled, I did not want to delay paying and have any issues.  So how annoyed was I to receive a call on Tuesday 8/7 telling me I had a balance of $20.64 and when did I expect to be paying that.  My not so polite voice came out very quickly and explained that I pay any and all bills that are actually mailed to my house such as the one for $692 and change the week before and was sure that I was not trying to scam them for the 20 bucks!  I realize that I again was talking to someone who probably had all of an hour training and was just supposed to call those with a balance but REALLY?

Maybe my lack of sleeping is making me a little edgy.  Maybe it is the upcoming surgery or the soreness left from the last.  I hate the lack of common sense that seems to run wild these days!

Not too smart

With Megan’s Birthday this weekend, we cleaned the basement today.  It is a split playroom and TV room.  It is finished but is a basement so the cobwebs come quickly.  We also have an old cat who lives down there.  She is not very social, keeps to herself but sheds up a storm.

So, with family coming, some basic clean up needed to occur.  Here is where I admit that due to my patience issue, which I have often discussed in the blog, I could not wait for my husband to come home and carry the vacuum down the stairs or even run the vacuum.  Instead I figured I am doing so well no problem.  I carried it down and swept up the entire room and carried it back up.

Through out the day I was then exhausted actually took a nap for the first time in many days. For the last few hours have had pains around the incision of my abdomen.  I am hoping that I just over did it today and things will all be fine in the morning.

And…if we are being totally honest, before the vacuum I also did 20 minutes on the elliptical machine.  I promise..tomorrow will be a down day.

I know..I am smarter than this!  Fingers are crossed!