First Light

So it looks like I will be setting up my scope for the first time tomorrow night. I have added a section to the blog called Observing Plans. There is a plan for tomorrow night. There are a couple of reasons this process has taken a week longer than I had wanted it too. First, their was the weather which is annoying during the monsoon season here in Arizona.

The second is much more insidious, I was trying to find an open location which I could use as an observing site, however most parks in urban areas close earlier than one would like. So I had to call around to several parks departments, no one was willing to grant me a permit, I also called one golf course and the manager of operation literally could not get me off the phone fast enough.  It seems that we as a society are so afraid of our own shadow that a person cannot engage in a simple hobby without everyone losing the minds. 

Some would say that you should just set up your scope and not ask, well unfortunately we don't live in a perfect society so I would much rather play by the rules than chat with the police. The good news is Wagoner park is open until Midnight, sunset is ~7:30pm which means I should get a good 4 and 1/2 hours of work in before the night is out. 

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.

When is a clearance not a clearance?

Hi all,

As my last update on the surgery stated I have obtained all of the clearances to go into surgery, my paperwork will be submitted to the insurance company on Monday. (hopefully) Between my announcement that I was cleared for surgery and my current post, is that while I had been told I had the clearance, there was not a formal written clearance from my psychologist. The result being me waiting around for nearly a week while we tried to get it.

This has happened before, and its the reason I could not be a doctor. The problem I would have with being a doctor is that I have a general understanding that what I do affects other people. This makes me a better person in the long run because it means I try to be deferential to them. However, the issue with a doctor is that you have a lot of work to do, and if you were to consider other peoples point of view it would make your job impossible.  Why? because from your patients perspective everything you do is massively important.

The problem I have had is waiting on doctors, the worst of which was my CPAP. I had an acute illness and there was a common treatment for it. However, I could not be treated immediately due to the vagaries of our health care system. First the doctor needed to complete his notes so that the order could be placed to the durable medical equipment company, so that my insurance would pay for some of the cost of the machine. The problem came when the Doctor did not finish his notes until 3 work days after he gave me my diagnosis.

To him this was a small thing, to me it was everything. One of the worst feelings in the world is knowing your ill and not being able to do anything about it. It was no sweat of his back, and he probably had a ton of work. But there was a bit of torture that resulted. This was to a lesser degree with my Psych clearance. Its still painful though, to be trying very hard to remake yourself only to be held up by a few key strokes and the stroke of a pin by someone else.

Frustrations

This post is an update. I am inching closer to a surgery date I think. The problem is that I need approval from my insurance company and they in turn need for me to complete my multidisciplinary pre-surgery regimen. The strange thing about this is, they think that in 90 days I will somehow learn some trick (and it would have to be a trick)  to shedding weight that has eluded me for 20 years. I don't know what the pre-surgery regimen is about to be quite honest.

I also have learned that I suffer from very severe sleep apnea. For those of you who know me you understand that I drink quite a lot of caffeine and I am still tired during the day. This is the result of not really being able to get a good nights sleep. Apparently this has been going on for years, so now when I wake up tired I know why. However, I cannot stand going to sleep knowing that its near useless for me, I want to get on with my treatment, figuring out what works so I can go on with my life! The thing is that I need a CPAP machine and the only way to get one is to wait by my phone until they call. It is a special kind of torture to tell someone they have a major sleep condition, and not help them get treatment for 4 days because its a weekend.

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.