I had my first chemo at the new location yesterday. I'm glad I'm over
there because I get the "good" doc, but really prefer chemo at my first
location. The new place is a zoo. Lots and lots of chemo chairs,
different nurse each time, competition for chemo appointments, etc. It
will be fine, but man do I feel like a number. Nonetheless, lots of
good came out of my appointment. First, my friend E picked me up and we
went out for a fantastic, high fiber lunch at Birchwood. It was great
to catch up with her. Second, I'm off the steroids today. I slept a
total of 7 hours last night (with a break halfway through) and I am not
feeling any more nauseated today than I did with the steroids. Tomorrow
will be a better test, but I've been able to sit at my computer today
as well as move the sprinkler around and basically just stay upright.
I have a new constipation management plan for this week including
basically only eating fiber with just a bit of protein and trying some
different medicines. I think part of my problem last time was eating
too much red meat. For at least today, the plan is working. And that's
all I'll say about that for now. :)
Have I mentioned what a pain in the ass it is to deal with the medical
billing? First, every different procedure or appointment generates a
number of different bills. For example, the docs are in a different
medical group than the radiologist or the clinic. Second, one of the
Fairview groups creates a different account number for each bill.
Online bill pay is a nightmare when the account number changes. Third,
yesterday I received a bill for almost $5,000. The damn thing isn't
even itemized so I have no idea what's what. Don't you think that when
a bill is over a certain amount, it should come itemized? I'm trying to
figure it out compared to my EOBs but the whole thing is a nightmare.
The hospital double billed for my node biopsy so maybe this bill has to
do with that. Medica/UHC also refused to pay about $1000 of my biopsy
that I need to follow up on. It was supposedly refused because I had
alternative medicine. Not in that case. It was a regular
outpatient procedure and really straight forward. I don't have the
energy for forensic accounting this week. I'll tackle it after the
holiday.
Good news on the dissertation front. I sent a hard copy of the whole
thing to my chair last week. She got back to me today saying chapters
one through four were excellent and the second half of chapter five was
also good. She is sending me some recommendations for the first half of
chapter five and then I'm supposed to edit and send the whole thing to
the committee. I think should have it to them by the end of next week.
At this point, I'm still on track to finish by the end of the year.
Some less happy news: I found out an old friend of mine, who I haven't
been in touch with for about six or seven years, died about a year ago.
She was never a well person because of lots of complications due to her
juvenile diabetes. But what ended up killing her was a really, really
rare (only 250 people in the world have it) disease. Even though we
haven't been in touch in years and I knew she probably wouldn't live to
be 80 or 90, it is still really sad to think of someone my age dying so
young.
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