Denials and Delays

Hi all,

I know I promised a post on cross platform IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) but unfortunately life has intervened. A couple of weeks ago I got word that my insurance company was denying my pre-approval for the surgery on the basis that the surgery was not a covered benefit.

The irony of course is that there are still documents available on the website or my insurer referring to bariatric procedures as a covered benefit. This, along with the fact that the weight-loss center was told that the procedure was covered are the basis of my appeal. I mailed it about a week ago. This is my next immediate move.

As for the move after that its unclear. I need to get insurance that will cover the procedure, thus I may end up attempting to cancel my current coverage and go to an insurance policy which is on the newly set up exchange in Arizona. However, I think this will be costly as I have several pre-existing conditions. Another option is to sue my insurance company, which I really do not want to do since it will be costly. The other options available are to appeal to the insurance regulator in Arizona or go on Access.

All of this has delayed my plans, including The Plan. My goal was to have the surgery in mid to late October so that I would be recovering over the course of the end of fall beginning of winter. Then I would hit the ground running, putting the plan into motion. Now it appears that I am not going to have the surgery until mid to late November at the earliest. This delays my plan, and to be honest, I it has put me in a sort of purgatory, as my body continues to betray me.

Purpose

I spent some time with an old friend this evening, I had lost track of what was important in these past few months in my slavish devotion to the path I have chosen academically. Its funny, I know who my groomsmen would be if I were to be wed, who my best man is. This blog is about my hopes, my activities, I want to share them with those people who care about me.

My life is somehow gotten harder over the past few months since I made the choice to alter my life drastically. Days blend together, I cannot keep track of which doctor I have seen and why, its all a wall of memories of lab coats offices and paperwork, the same paperwork over and over and over. The same exams, weight and height, blood pressure, then the questions about medications. My normal is now sitting inside the health care bureaucracy begging to be seen maybe even heard. I could not spend as much time as I wanted to with my friend, because I need to be at yet another teal office at 8:00am tomorrow.

The day to day is bleak, inhospitable but I do it with the knowledge that there is finally light at the end of the tunnel. Its a strange thing to choose to remake yourself. You begin to reflect on those things you would like to change, what you want to do with yourself, with your free time. I want to expand my existence.  I want to earn a bunch of money, to buy things, not for the sake of having them, but for the sake of pursuits I enjoy. My life should not be about the existential crisis of my professional choices, I should be able to enjoy it.

This surgery is a tool to reach a healthy equilibrium, so I do not spend any more money on prescriptions or unhealthy food. So I can save, be self sufficient, I can prove to myself that I can set a goal, attain it and drink the rich nectar of its reward. Evenings under the sky with a few friends, a telescope whirring from one object on the dark canvas of the sky to another.

My dear reader I hope that you take away from this, not the despair of my daily struggles but a reflection about what it is you truly want. What can you do to nurture your soul when not at work?

Why I am so stressed out right now

Sometimes we stress about things for no reason other than we are conditioned by our upbringing to be constant worriers. I know this condition well, but it is not why I am stressed right now. I am stressed because I fear that, thought I am attempting to make a positive, massive change in my life I will be stopped by some sort of bureaucratic snafu.

I have found the people in my department have been extraordinarily helpful, giving me the opportunity to maintain my enrollment and health insurance.  Though there was a snafu early on.

I hate my insurance more than anything, but I need it. I need it to pay for an operation with an 80% chance to make me a healthy individual. But before they will pay, I need to go through a 3 month supervised diet, where I will not loose any weight. Its not enough that I am willing to subject myself to one humiliating test after another, and go through health scares when doctors try to cover there ass. It is not enough that I am willing to fill out the same form at one doctor or another, endlessly.

This is all so I can undergo a procedure which will cause me to absorb food differently.  Gastric bypass surgery is not for the feint of heart, you will be required to chew vitamin supplements for the rest of your life. I must forgo tobacco and NSAID pain relievers for ever. There are times when I worry about what I am giving up, and have to remind myself that I am only giving up things that are bad for me. I am willing to risk life and limb for the chance to reshape my future.

But to demonstrate that willingness to risk life and limb, I must continually return to student health services and prostrate myself for yet another referral. I must complete a 3 month supervised diet, while at the same time undergoing the pricks, and the prods. I must do battle with the university trying desperately to make room for my surgery which may or may not happen. I must call, prod, and be frustrated with people who are "just doing there jobs." It would seem that Franz Kafka was right, I am enduring this suffering for a goal in the not too distant future, which is still very nebulous, all I want is a surgery date, all I want is to suffer through a 2 week liquid diet and painful surgery and 3 more weeks of  all liquid diet. All so that I may have hope that I will not drop dead at 45, weighing 500lbs.