This was one of those days ... and it is not yet over.
It was one of those days that I find challenging, that I find scream at me that life is not worth the bother. I am better at ignoring those taunts, but both the strain and the hurt remains.
Medicare. SIGH. Five of my medications are not covered. One was not even run through. I am hitting brick walls on getting the money back from the one that was not run through, and, after the first smooth sailing authorization, I have not made any progress on the other four since August 30th. This despite having a written policy that decisions would be made within 24-hours of receipt of the doctor's explanation.
Because calling the pharmacy and calling the doctor's office has not seemed all that productive, I drove myself over there to bring the doctor the written instructions I received from the insurance company. I tried, so very hard, not to cry as I explained what I needed. I want to be clear and concise. I want to present the problem and the solution. That is who I used to be. But not anymore. Instead, I wept. And I spoke aloud what I was thinking: What if I just stop fighting, what if I just stop taking all of this medication and let nature take its course much, much more quickly?
The nurse said the woman who started the process would be back on Thursday, so I would hear from the doctor's office by Friday. But, really, it is not just the doctor's office. Coordination has to happen between the doctor, the insurance company, and the pharmacy. Coordination seems to be near impossible and inordinately time consuming.
I went from there to the post office.
Over the past two years, as I have been seriously downsizing, amidst the organizing, I have kept aside things that are important to me, waiting to find someone who might savor those things as I have, rather than just donate them for tax deductions or try to sell them. One such beloved item that found a home this week was my GREEN Dooney & Burke cross shoulder purse bought back in the hey-day of my first real job. It is too small for all the medical things I need in my purse, so I have had it hanging on a hook in my closet for years. Now, it is hanging on the shoulder of someone who LOVES the color GREEN as much as I do.
Recently, I finally thought of who might enjoy the good (i.e., good-to-me) bits of my teaching supplies that I have hung onto all these years. In all the time since I left the classroom, I never found someone to pass them on to or a school really interested in them. Some are dweeby homemade things, such as keys with a story starter on a tag, and some are cool things, such as a system for using Legos in instructions. Not counting the dweeby things and the time-filler things, the rest is worth rather more than it would cost to ship them, so I waited to find a home for them.
Last week, I went to UPS, thinking that would be the most economical way to ship them, but UPS wanted over $80 PLUS a $20 packing charge. I gulped, struggled to hold back tears, and lugged everything that had taken me three trips to get inside back out to the car. A few days later, I went to the post office and brought home several of the medium flat rate boxes (which, to me, seem larger than the large flat rate boxes). I brought them home because I knew I could not stand long enough at the post office to stuff them. But I also suspected I would need copious amounts of time to figure out how to best stuff them so that I used no more than three of them. Spacial problem solved, I put my friend's name on the labels and then hand-wrapped the two pocket charts that went with the one box filled with sentence strip paper. I wrapped them in bubble paper and then plain brown paper (stuffing from packaged I have received) and put another label on them.
At the post office, I was struggling to get the packages all into my arms and still hold my cane to use once I at least got inside. I did not want to make four trips inside, which is what it would take, to use my cane. However, I couldn't figure out how to bring the cane, too. Just as my frustration was about to spill over to waterworks, this very old man walked up to me and asked me to hand him the boxes. I mean very, very old. I was justifiably worried the weight of them might cause him harm. But he insisted and I gingerly lowered them into his surprisingly strong, wiry arms. He walked me inside and then stayed to scoot them along until he could put them on the counter for me. As he turned to leave, and I thanked him with free flowing tears, the rest of the people in the post office gave him a hearty round of applause.
The post office is sending my cherished teaching tools (okay ... my cherished teaching memories) to my friend for less than half what UPS wanted and in less than half the time. I suppose it is probably insensible for me to be spending money to give things away, but there are bits of my life I want to know will not go ... unforgotten ... at least for a while.
With that bit of kindness on my mind, as I headed to Walgreen's for the giddy-inducing-sale-priced milk, I thought to call someone who has been kind to me and might want to hear about the post office angel.
I dialed the number. The phone rang. I heard a voice. I started to spill the good news. And ... then ... I realized that I was hearing the other person talking about me, not to me. The person was saying that the call was "Myrtle, someone with issues" and that the person didn't want to face talking with me then. An explanation for not taking a call that was actually taken.
Someone with issues.
Not someone who loves the Psalter like a loon.
Not someone who reads the Christian Book of Concord like others read novels or magazines or newspapers.
Not someone who prays a lot.
Not someone who tells me how kind I am all the time.
Not someone who sends old-fashioned, hand-written thank you cards.
Not someone who is more besotted with a puppy dog than ever a human was.
Not someone who likes to write.
Not someone who was odd enough to create a rock river in her yard.
Not someone who finds moss wondrous.
Not someone works way to hard on projects in her 1920 home.
Not someone who is a mad organizer/reducer/recycler/donator.
Not someone who's using learning to cook new things as a brain exerciser and a coping mechanism.
Not someone who is chronically ill with several diseases/conditions, one of which is rather devastating.
Someone with issues.
That's how I heard myself described to a stranger.
That's who I am.
That's why I really do want to be a hermit ... a real, bonafide hermit.
I mean, what kind of person would want to inflict herself on others? To be a bother? A burden? A drain?
In a heart beat, I went from excited to share good news with someone to trying to stay in my lane as I stuck my head out the window and vomited down the side of the car.
I wept for a while in the parking lot of Walgreen's, before using quite a bit of the baby wipes that I keep in the car to clean myself up. I bought my three gallons of $2.49 milk and then drove home.
In the mail were a letter from the radiology center with the wait and see approach being my course of action and three medical bills that were completely unpaid since the insurance information did not go through with the claims. Two of them had numbers to call, so I spent 45 minutes on hold contacting both with the insurance information. I wrote it on the third bill and put it out for the mail.
I took a photo, because someone asked me about how to eat/serve the Grilled Eggplant with Balsamic Vinegar, Basil, Feta, and Grilled Baguette, so I added a photo to the blog entry ... for reference, not for art. I thought that maybe I should include photos ... if nothing else than to remind myself that I actually accomplished something. I want to make the Apple Praline Bread when my teenage-hood friend comes this weekend, so I plan to take a photograph then ... perhaps of a slice on a plate.
Yes, I wondered if I could have used lime with squash somehow.
[In case you are wondering, Amos is thoroughly enjoying "cleaning" all of these lime-juiced dishes. He is, at the moment, micro-howling-hushed-whimpering over the ear of corn sitting on my napkin since he already licked the corn plate clean.]
Cooking completed, I have been looking for a way to stop hearing those words in my head. I have yet to find it.
Actually, I am now thinking that I simply do not take enough Amos photos. Here he is, eyes never leaving his heart's desire (not me at the moment), mid-micro-howling-hushed-whimper.
As soon as I drag myself off the couch to properly dispose of the cob, clean the dishes (and the porch where the burned husk fell), and crawl into the GREEN chair with an ice pack or two, I know I will become his first love again. And he will probably wrap his paws around my neck and snore into my ear.
Amos doesn't find me a bother ... except when I wish for him to conduct his major business out of doors. SIGH.
I am Yours, Lord. Save me!
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