Health status update 11-18 : problems
Thank you for the emails asking if I am okay or for a health status - cancer battle update
Yes I know I have not done one in awhile
Problematic week - problems with recovery efforts
First is the health care - state Medicare department. I received my renewal paperwork and filled it out promptly and sent it back 3 days after receipt.
A few weeks went by and I was watching the mail for any notices or new cards - and I went to pick up scrips and they could not process them at the pharmacy - per the system my coverage was cancelled.
I called the health care place - which is a nightmare designed to provoke a heart attack or suicide. They say I never renewed so policy cancelled. I would have to start over and reapply - which requires visits to them and can take months.
I complained and requested supervisor assistance - made a pain of myself making complaints. Funny when their conflict resolution person called me back and left voicemails the messages came to my phone and to makailas phone...
When I sent in the renewal paperwork I switched my emergency contact from my mom to makaila - the only way for them to know that was through the paperwork they say I never returned...
Eventually I got emergency assistance status and the renewed me over the phone instead of having me start over and die off waiting for coverage.
The request is now in final review status with no flags so should be back up and effective again soon - meanwhile I can't see docs or pic up scrips.
I am supposed to be seeing a neurologist expert and a cancer surgeon and a general surgery specialist and am supposed to get a head CT scan and a brain mri scan and cannot do any of it until they fix my coverage.
I was doing some physical therapy this morning and while walking the dog my right leg gave out and I fell down. The leg has stopped working - the knee is not working and the leg is like dead weight or a prosthetic.
The right eye went color blind for about an hour and this caused vision issues and a headache.
I can see fine now - and am ambulatory but dragging the leg around.
I am not sleeping or eating - and damn near had a panic attack - because I am worried the tumor in my head has gone active or grown.
Vitals are normal.
Stairs are proving a difficult.
Mike
Yes I know I have not done one in awhile
Problematic week - problems with recovery efforts
First is the health care - state Medicare department. I received my renewal paperwork and filled it out promptly and sent it back 3 days after receipt.
A few weeks went by and I was watching the mail for any notices or new cards - and I went to pick up scrips and they could not process them at the pharmacy - per the system my coverage was cancelled.
I called the health care place - which is a nightmare designed to provoke a heart attack or suicide. They say I never renewed so policy cancelled. I would have to start over and reapply - which requires visits to them and can take months.
I complained and requested supervisor assistance - made a pain of myself making complaints. Funny when their conflict resolution person called me back and left voicemails the messages came to my phone and to makailas phone...
When I sent in the renewal paperwork I switched my emergency contact from my mom to makaila - the only way for them to know that was through the paperwork they say I never returned...
Eventually I got emergency assistance status and the renewed me over the phone instead of having me start over and die off waiting for coverage.
The request is now in final review status with no flags so should be back up and effective again soon - meanwhile I can't see docs or pic up scrips.
I am supposed to be seeing a neurologist expert and a cancer surgeon and a general surgery specialist and am supposed to get a head CT scan and a brain mri scan and cannot do any of it until they fix my coverage.
I was doing some physical therapy this morning and while walking the dog my right leg gave out and I fell down. The leg has stopped working - the knee is not working and the leg is like dead weight or a prosthetic.
The right eye went color blind for about an hour and this caused vision issues and a headache.
I can see fine now - and am ambulatory but dragging the leg around.
I am not sleeping or eating - and damn near had a panic attack - because I am worried the tumor in my head has gone active or grown.
Vitals are normal.
Stairs are proving a difficult.
Mike
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We continue to Pray for You, Mike.
Our Hearts Ache for You.0 -
Prayers sent to you....and my brother who has multiple myeloma...every night ... 0 -
I know - take a breath - relax...
When I blacked out the last time and fell on my cane and broke 9 ribs and layer my head open...
I had been having vision issues and headaches and cognitive dissonance and motor function issues but that was during the last mini prophylactic course of radiation treatment and oral capcitabine chemo meds - I chalked up the issues as side effects on an already wrecked body.
And when I was in the hospital one of the things they did was a head CT since I had a head lac that required stitching up - and wow do head lacerations bleed profusely...
That's when they brought in the neurologist and told me about the sub arachnoid brain stem base tumor.
But they were positive about it - hey think the mini round of chemo and radiation stopped it and it appeared to have shrunk...
No cancer precursors in my blood work - not believed to be malignant - looks benign and isolated - I had never had a head CT before as the massive stage 4 tumor had been in my gi tract / the small brain tumor might have been developing at the same time...
It's somewhat amusing and frightening to hear experts downplay an aberrant growth in your head.
I was warned that even if the tumor continued to shrink changes in pressure and space relationships might cause issues.
And I know I should be dead anyway and have been facing death daily for years...
But I kind of freaked out and panicked a bit today when my eye stopped working right.
Thanks.
Just trying to sort it all out.
Mike0 -
Mike,
I can't even begin to wrap my head around all that you are and have gone through.
You are still in our prayers.
Anything that you need to survive, that requires forms / paper work, someone will screw up and then you fight an up hill battle, like my property tax issue. I have paid reciept, but no, I am wrong.
When there is some kind of major paper work that has to be done by such and such a time and returned by mail, I send it registered, siginature required.
Once in awhile I get migraine headaches. Had them since I was a teenager. Not often, but when they do happen, it puts me down for a day or more. No warning, they just sneak up and hit me. About 10 years ago, I was at work doing inventory and my vision started going. First wild colors and then things started going dark. I was freaking out, I can't see. My boss got me to the ER. Now it is like I am looking down a tunnel and my head hurts. Great, I'm having a stroke. ER ran a CT scan. Nothing. About 3 hours later my vision was back to normal. Head still pounded, but I could see. Since then, it has happened like that 4 or 5 times. Doctors say it is just another way the migrains work.
I get what you mean, when your eye sight goes whacko. Scared me.
Hang in there. You have made it this far, you still got some fight left in you.0 -
I kind of sat there in the chair with my phone out and my eye not working right imagining things getting worse - having to call for an ambulance or sitting in the emergency room waiting to die in the hospital...
Not wanting to have to start making phone calls - really not wanting to end up in the hospital again.
And I know the reason the health care service people finally decided to grant emergence review renewal status and expedite restoring things was that I had caught them in a lie - that they could not explain away the updates of certain info on my file in their data base - must be a time stamped and forensically traceable history of access and editing that they can not erase...
They hang up on you - they disconnect you - they transfer you to voice mails of people who never pick up the phone or call you back - every step they take requires you to call back and start over again...
Many days you call and cannot get a human being - an automated message says call volume is high - try back tomorrow and hangs up on you...
Or you spend hours on hold being passed back and forth to folk who cannot or will not help you...
It's after lunch and nobody wants to get involved - it's Friday and nobody wants to do any work before the weekend starts...
They treat you like inhuman garbage - they try to break you and break your will.
It's deliberate and institutional and systematic.
I appreciate that you guys care - I still get scared and tired.
Mike0
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