Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I am in health-care hell. I finally got ahold of someone actually interested in solving problems at Total Health Care instead of playing the "promise something vague and hope that gets the patient off the phone" game or trying to make me wait until February to find out what I wound up learning today, and her instructions set me off on a long chain of this-place-says-to-call-over-there phone calls, which finally wound up at the folks the various other places collect their fees from, where I was basically told, "the state health-insurance-for-poor-people plan doesn't cover injuries, those aren't 'normal adult health care'; no specialists at all."

(Gee, y'think maybe a "what you're getting" packet more informative than the "here's your card, you have health care" letter might have been a useful thing to send me sometime back?)

Out-of-pocket costs for going to the orthopedics department at Maryland General start at $380 just to walk in the door, and X-rays and, y'know, treatment are added on top of that. No idea what the total will be, because after four months I still have no diagnosis, just an explanation from my primary physician that it's Not Her Responsibility and that I have to see a specialist. I'm guessing this means that the pain management specialist that my doctor wants to write my pain prescriptions instead of her will be out of my reach too, and the sleep referral she wrote is functionally meaningless unless I win the lottery.

My wrist fucking hurts, even more than the rest of me, and I've had varying degrees of pins-and-needles sensations in my right shin for the past week. I'm going to stick my head under my pillow and try to hide from reality for a little while (not having slept, first from leg twitchies keeping me awake, then from the car crash at the corner near my house, then from more leg not-quite-cramps -- felt like a snake crawling around inside my left calf for a while -- is almost certainly not having a positive effect on my coping skills right now.

At this point it feels like my options are to cry myself to sleep or blow something up, and one of those options seems a bit healthier than the other. (Not that I can walk far enough right now to purchase bomb-making supplies or get to an appropriate target under my own power anyhow.) Maybe I'll feel less gloomy if I can get some sleep and clear my brain.