Feel free to skip this post, 'cause I'm going to bitch about my current medical crisis for a couple of paragraphs. You remember – the cancer in my kidney. Compared to Chuck Norris movies and old Saturday morning TV shows, it's pretty boring stuff. But I need to vent for a second.
The good news is, my wife's insurance will apparently cover all the expenses of the surgery after all.
The bad news is... not if I want the doctor I already have and actually trust, nor if I want the surgery locally. No, they'll only cover it if I go to Boston. To me, this suggests having to start all over again with a new doctor, running all the tests again and having to travel two states away and back for everything. So much for keeping a positive attitude and my stress levels down.
...It's bad enough that they have to cut me open and take a kidney; why do they have to make the whole thing a huge friggin' pain in the ass, too?
ADDENDUM 01/12/07: Had my first consultation in Boston on Thursday. Eight hours in the car for a 90-minute meeting with a doctor... who won't even be the one performing the surgery. Have to go back next week to meet that guy, who can only see me at 9 AM – which means I have to get up at four in the morning to drive back to Beantown. And I have tests scheduled again a few days later – another 8-hour trip.
Sigh.....
3 comments:
Generally, humans can live normally with just one kidney, as one has more functioning renal tissue than is needed to survive, possibly due to the nature of the prehistoric human diet. Only when the amount of functioning kidney tissue is greatly diminished will chronic renal failure develop. If the glomerular filtration rate (a measure of renal function) has fallen very low (end-stage renal failure), or if the renal dysfunction leads to severe symptoms, then renal replacement therapy is indicated, either dialysis or renal transplantation.
Yeah, I know all that.
I'm actually past the anxiety about the actual cancer/kidney thing. Now I'm frustrated with having no say or control whatsoever over my treatment; that my fate is in the hands of accountants and medical people that I know nothing about. Having the cheapest care doesn't really strike me as the "best" care.
Well, that and having to haul my fat ass to hell and back for everything. I friggin' hate Massachusetts.
We start life as children with almost no control over our world, or even ourselves, but gradually as we move into adulthood we begin to gain a little control here and there. It's a hard fought gain, a constant struggle, and I guess it's not a surprise really that loss of what little control we have is troubling. I remember when I had my last motorcycle wreck and had to depend on many people for many things, which meant bending my schedule to theirs. Very frustrating. Good luck with the hassle.
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