I Will Not Suffer In Silence

I stayed home from work yesterday and today due to massive cramps. This morning, I was also highly emotionally unstable to start off the day, but I knew the cramps would come for me later, so I came back home after nearly having an emotional breakdown just trying to go to the bank, drop off my suit at the dry cleaners, and fuel my car before work this morning.

I then spent most of the day in fits of rage or tears, when I wasn’t catatonic in front of the computer, just staring off, or sleeping either diagonally fallen on the bed or passed out on the keyboard. I’ll have you know too that I didn’t medicate until after lunchtime today, so the fatigue is mostly from george in general; the cramping, the emotional roller coaster, the bleeding…

Along with popping 3 Tylenol 1’s yesterday (twice), I also smoked two bowls of pot with my neighbor, who gets it from the medical marijuana clinic cuz he’s HIV + and has pain issues.
Honestly, I think most of my ragey stuff is from coming down off of pot. I haven’t done pot in ages, but it’s been known to make me moody before.

At one point I looked up at the IRC window and saw someone talking about ways to try to help me with this condition, and I got all ragey and pissy.

Now, this person was only trying to help. She comes from an honest place in that, I’m sure. But my immediate reaction was rage and venom against this help. I was polite to her though. I screamed and cursed and yelled, but my reply was polite. I’m just tired of having to repeat this to everybody, that’s all.

Basically, it boils down to this:

I’m pretty aware of stuff. Unless you have some new information like my neighbor found about the benefits of Probiotics for me yesterday, I already know about the birth control options, the partial or full hysterectomy options, the Naproxen and NSAID options, the hot baths, the evening primrose oil, the special diets the Experts recommend, the heating pad option, and lots of other things.
I’m just tired of having to go through this routine for the past decade with people and with doctors. I’m TIRED. I’m FRUSTRATED.

Here’s exactly what I want: I want a laproscopy to go in, diagnose me officially, laser off any adhesions while the scope’s in there, which will hopefully leave me pain free for anywhere from a couple months to a couple of years before it grows back, and then I want a pain medication and structured diet plan. No more Naproxen. I need hardcore pain meds. No hysterectomy, no partial hysterectomy, no Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT).

Remember just a moment ago I said, “Unless you have some new information…”, well my friend said this online:

<sherpa> zept: I’m thinking…it may be a good idea to send all your medical records and your personal endo documentation to atlanta. they may consider you an ‘exceptional’ case and be interested in helping you.

So I told sherpa and the other well-meaning person online that I’d photocopy my records and send ’em in. I also showed an example to the channel of the type of logs I’ve been keeping for the past two years, which I’ll also print out and send to Atlanta.

Inbetween naps and lie-downs from the pain, I went through all of my medical records that I’ve kept, dating back to 1991, and flagged everything pertaining to Gynecological records and pleas to family doctors for pain meds for cramping so I can photocopy it this weekend.

Thank you, sherpa.

Today as I said, I didn’t medicate until after lunch. I took three Tylenol 1 pills for the pain, but instead of making me all floaty and detached, today the caffeine in the Tylenol 1’s (which was 45mg total) affected me badly, and my heart raced, and I nearly had a panic attack. So when the drugs wore off, I tried to just hold out, cuz I had nothing else to help me. I should have taken a hot bath, but I was too depressed to care for myself. I’ve been clotting badly all day, too. Huge clots, hence the massive pain.

After dinner, I took an 800mg Ibuprofen pill and I was still bleeding pretty heavy.

I’ve missed two days of work, and tomorrow is Mandatory Fun Laser Tag. There is NO fucking way I’m going to participate. HELL no. I already told my boyfriend we’re commuting separately so I can bail out.

So that brings us up to now. And now is bedtime.

Postscript ~
Mood: foul
Breakfast: 1 corn tortilla w/ Mediterranean cheese blend, salsa.
Lunch: mushroom fettuccini w/ shrimp. 1 trader joe’s berry yogurt smoothie.
Dinner: 1 bowl pumpkin squash soup and a glass of rice milk. Then a couple bites of Talapia w/ steamed/olive oiled veggies (broccoli, red bell pepper, mushroom, garlic). Water w/ lemon juice.
Any snacks: over the day, about a dozen Joe-Joe’s Trader Joe’s natural chocolate cookies (no corn syrup, no partially hydrogenated crap)

Post-postscript ~
January 2010: Although I did not state it at the time, I do recall being in worse pain after having smoked the weed. I don’t always record everything I should – sometimes I forget every detail, however major it may seem later on.

Here we go again, folks.

I hate American health care.
Hate.
FECKING HATE.

On this job contract, I am eligible for health care after 30 days employment, which hit on April 1st. But my paperwork didn’t come in til late April. The health insurance carrier is Cigna.

On April 28, I called a doctor off of the health insurance carrier’s own doctor list to make an appointment. I told the doctor I’m a PPO insurance and I gave my card information over the phone. For some reason, the doctor didn’t believe me and had to call Cigna to verify my information.
The next day, the doctor called back to state that I am NOT a PPO insurance holder and that her office cannot see me at all.

…

Today I stayed home from work due to intense menstrual cramping, so I decided I’d use my time off work to call up some more doctors. I called Cigna and took down the names of Cigna-authorised doctors.

The first doctor I called today asked me a bunch of questions about my insurance, then said I’d have to have Cigna call to verify my insurance with them. So I said screw that noise and called another doctor. The second doctor said they couldn’t even see me until May 31st. So again, I said screw that, because my employment contract ends May 27th. Third doctor I called gave me the same runaround as the first doctor today and the doctor last Thursday; they need Cigna to call them and they insist I’m HMO, not PPO.
This information isn’t even printed on my card – whether I’m PPO or HMO.

So after a half hour trying to figure out Cigna’s phone tree to get to a live representative, I get some hillbilly in the South somewhere who sounds like she could be a relative from Kentucky or Florida, and she tells me I have HMO insurance, and that I have to talk to HR at work as to why the paperwork went in that way as opposed to PPO, which I’d requested.

So the lady at Cigna gives me the spiel of “why don’t you just have your doctor contact us” … so I interrupted and told her that three doctors now, all from the Cigna network, have all told me that Cigna needs to call THEM.

The lady says, “I have never heard of a doctor asking us to call them.”

So …. I got cranky.

Lecture ensued, demands were stated, and then I was put on hold while the douchebag made a shakey-voiced call to the doctor I want to see.

I was on hold for about seven minutes when the other line rang. It was the doctor I’d planned to go see, and she was near hysterics – yelling about how Cigna won’t release any information and I have to demand to talk to their supervisor and how rude the woman was over at Cigna, etc etc, so I had to repeatedly tell the doctor I’m still on hold with Cigna, let me go back and see if they’ve come back to the phone yet. My doctor in hyperactive defensive bipolar mode rattled off quickly, “Ok fine Ok bye” and hung up on me.

I went back to the other line and continued to wait. When the douche came back to the phone, she explained to me that she couldn’t give out my personal information to the doctor’s office. I started raising my voice and swearing at this point. I told her very clearly that the whole damned reason I called Cigna was TO AUTHORISE my goddamned info to the doctor. Then the douche, all shakey-like, told me she’d have to hang up on me if I didn’t refrain from swearing.

So I asked a rhetorical question and got put on hold so she could go ask her supervisor why there’s a breakdown in the system process between doctor and carrier. I shit you not.

I then waited about seven more minutes on hold, maybe longer. When douche got back on the line, she said they can do a conference call and release my medical info to the doctor’s office with me on the line, too.

Ok, fine, let’s do it.

So douche called the doctor’s office, and a secretary answered instead of the doctor.

…

Now, I saw where this was going.

I saw, because I’ve been here before:

* March, 2003
* July, 2004
* January, 2005

This secretary person barely spoke english and said she knows nothing about the situation and why don’t we wait on hold while she grabs the doctor?

Both the lady at Cigna and I told the secretary at the doctor’s office that all we want to do is release my info so we can make an appointment for me.

The secretary stammers, “Ahhhhhhhhh well ahhhhh I dunno what is de matter on dis one…” and asks to put us both on hold again.

Here’s where Cameron goes berzerk…

I declare “this is so fucked up, I’m hanging up on both of you assholes right now.”

*CLICK*

Meanwhile, I’m stoned on overdosage of Tylenol 1 pills a friend had to obtain in Canada for me, just so I can have some sort of temporary pain relief.

Welcome to my hell.

If I had a gun, people would die.

Postsript:
Breakfast: 2 corn tortillas filled w/ Mediterranean blend cheese, two tablespoons salsa (All Trader Joe’s food)
Lunch: 2 scrambled eggs w/ raw cheddar and rice milk
Any snacks: chocolate pieces