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Entries in things that make me angry (10)

Wednesday
24Feb2010

Why I hate insurance companies, reason gazillion

Remember that person who made the really brave step and entered rehab?  Whose friends and family have been struggling to be strong and hopeful for the past week while maintaining a certain amount of privacy for the person?

That person's insurance company has decided they only need out-patient treatment and have effectively ended their in-patient treatment program, sending them home yesterday after a whopping 7 days of a 28 day program completed.

I am so angry about this that I could explode.  Having spent nearly 10 years working in the benefits area of Human Resources, I have spent a lot of time arguing with talking to insurance companies, a lot of time seeing how their methodologies work behind the scenes, how their profit-driven business model makes decisions.

And, frankly, it disgusts me most of the time.  A drug and alcohol counselor confirmed for me that what usually happens is the insurance company waits for the person to relapse and will then cover in-patient treatment for a longer period of time.

In the meantime, however, there is no regard for the friends and family who are being torn apart by what's going on, by the worry that their loved one isn't ready to be home yet, and that a relapse is possible, or maybe even inevitable, nevermind the threat the addict poses to him or herself and their community should a relapse occur.  The policy is so irresponsible and selfish that it is literally making me sick to my stomach as I type this.

Why is it even feasible to start someone on a month-long program, with all the steps and stages built into that idea, and then remove them from it at day seven?  It's like handing someone a bowl of raw eggs and saying, "Here, I made you a cake."  Except raw eggs are only a component of a cake and when eaten on their own, dangerous.

None of us fully know where this person's head is at, which is the most frustrating and worrisome part.  They aren't happy to be home, which is a sign unto itself.  They wanted to complete treatment and their family was looking forward to being a part of the process.

But now, they all have to face this before they're ready.  They thought they had weeks to work through more of the ideas and issues.  Yes, there will be out-patient treatment, but it won't be the same.

I'm glad the person did at least get those seven days of treatment, though.  A medically supervised detox was possible and the groundwork was laid for truly successful treatment and rehabilitation.  Let's just hope that groundwork is enough to sustain the work ahead.

Friday
05Feb2010

Things I Miss Friday: not being appalled and angry

This week I finally told two of my coworkers that I'm pregnant and, of course, they asked me how I was doing/feeling.  My normal answer for this is that I feel really great and I've been pretty happy throughout the pregnancy - happier and less moody than I tended to be on a regular pre-pregnancy/on hormonal birth control basis.

So I have to wonder how I'd be feeling if some of the things I've read this week happened pre-pregnancy, because I've really been getting steamed up about a few things this week.

Our national bloviating douche, Rush Limbaugh, has the honor of the first two of this week's three irritations.

1 - Rush Limbaugh is a misogynistic jackass.  (Oh, you knew that already?)

Limbaugh was a judge for the Miss America pageant last week (I just have to skip over all that is wrong with that statement or else this post will go on for days).  He was on, what else, Fox and Friends to discuss this and, apparently, the state of women - wherein he said this:

"Oh, I’m a huge supporter of women. What I’m not a supporter of is liberalism. Feminism is what I oppose, and feminism has led women astray. I love women. I don’t know where all this got started. I love the women’s movement — especially when walking behind it."

Excuse me while I go barf violently.  YOU CANNOT SUPPORT WOMEN AND NOT SUPPORT FEMINISM.  And since when is it okay to say how you love women, especially their asses, AND NOT HAVE ANYONE SAY ANYTHING IN RESPONSE???

This makes me so angry that I actually am having slight chest pains right now thinking about it.  I understand that people in the media entertainment are going to say things just for shock value and ratings, but they should not be allowed to say harmful things and not have to answer for it.

Okay, deep breath.  Okay, two deep breaths.  Onto . . .

2. Rush Limbaugh is a lying-makes-things-up-as-he-goes-along jackass.  (Oh, you knew that, too?)

Limbaugh believes that President Obama's law school professors wrote his law review articles:

"I think this is the first time in his life that there’s not a professor around to turn his C into an A or to write the law review article for him he can’t write. He’s totally exposed and there’s nobody to make it better. I think he’s been covered for all his life. The fact that his agenda failed this year is the best thing that could have happened to this country."

Can you weep and fume at the same time?  It must be possible, because that's where I'm at.  Like Obama or not, the one thing that I have seen no sane people disagree with is that he's a good writer and orator (disclosure: I think he's a great writer and orator - probably the best we have seen/will see for quite some time).  The notion that he needed his professors to turn Cs into As or write articles for him is incredibly preposterous.  AND, let's say you don't believe the President is an accomplished writer; as a college professor and graduate school student, I can add that the likelihood of something like this EVER occurring is so remotely, remarkably slim - especially in law school.  Could there be a group of people more aware of the legal ramifications of such behavior?

I simply have a hard time reconciling the idea that there are no repercussions for this type of blatant lying and misogyny in "the media" (I really don't even want to call them just plain media anymore).  There's always been sensationalism and we've always laughed at publications like The Enquirer and the Weekly World News but now it's mainstream news organizations LYING on a regular (seemingly daily) basis.  I just flat-out don't know what to do with this.

3. Boycott Diesel clothing and write them an email explaining that sexual exploitation should not sell clothes.

Our third aggravation of the week comes from clothing company Diesel.  They have a new campaign entitled "Be Stupid," which is supposed to encourage teens and young adults to not be afraid to "be stupid" - by which they mean to be fearless, be willing to make mistakes, and anti-perfectionist.  But, then wouldn't that be smart??

But besides that, the cornerstone ad for the campaign shows a young woman flashing her breasts at a security camera.  Because that's fearless?

And, to boot, it says, "Smart may have the brains, but stupid has the balls."  Because, 1 - you need balls to be brave (hi misogyny AGAIN), and 2 - you simply can't be smart AND brave.  All of those explorers and inventors and innovators must have been a huge slew of dumb-dumbs, I guess.  (Auuuuugh.)

It's DUMB, for sure - they got that part right.  And it's a mistake - a mistake to fall for the patriarchal, misogynistic idea that flashing your breasts whenever you want is an empowering move.  Yes, loving your body is empowering.  Yes, claiming your breasts as a beautiful part of you that you are free to share as you wish is empowering and smart.  But I do not believe for a single, solitary moment that all of the encouraged flashing in our current culture is meant to empower girls.  Simply, no.  It's exploiting them under the guise of empowerment.

To see the ad (it's so offensive to me that I simply didn't want to post the picture here) and the WeAreTheRealDeal take on it as well as get the contact information for who to complain about this ad to, go to Heather (mamav)'s post about it on WeAreTheRealDeal.

Sigh.  This is such a downer of a post for a Friday, I know.  Fridays should be all, "Yay, weekend!" but it's just not today.  Plus, I have to work tomorrow so that makes it feel less weekend-y.  I promise I'm in a better mood than this post suggests - but these things make me angry and I feel like they shouldn't go unmentioned.

Thursday
28Jan2010

The Glucose Test Debacle (Part 1?)

Today was my big "test for gestational diabetes" glucose test.  Ordinarily, a post about this test would include an "ew yuck" description of the liquid women have to drink for the test and possibly a complaint about having to be stuck with needles twice in one morning.

But that goes out the window when you're the exception.  Since I had gastric bypass surgery (weight loss surgery or WLS), I can't drink the sugar solution they ordinarily give you.  I have friends who had WLS who were allowed to eat jelly beans or a Snickers bar instead, but when I suggested those options to my OB, he wasn't a fan of the idea.  Instead he determined I would do a regular fasting glucose test, where I fast for 8-12 hours before the test, have blood drawn, then eat my normal breakfast, wait an hour, and have blood drawn again.

Seems simple, right?  I thought so.  But you'd think I was asking the lab to reinvent the needle.

First, they assumed he wrote the RX wrong and meant a TWO hour wait, not ONE.  I explained that I was pregnant, so this was to mimic the "normal" one hour glucose test.  Well, then they asked me if I was sure I couldn't drink the sugar solution.  Yes, I'm sure.  I can't even drink orange juice, which has half the sugar of the test solution.  Then they asked if I could eat jelly beans.  I said yes, depending on how many, but that when I had made that suggestion to my OB, he didn't want to go that route.

So I got a lecture about how the lab has procedures and rules and doctors can't just make up their own tests and they "don't have a test" to run for something like this.

Perhaps I'm naive, but isn't testing blood for sugar levels just testing blood for sugar levels, regardless of what the patient ate or drank or how long they've been sitting around?  Yes, I understand those things affect the results, but that's really the doctor's concern, not the lab's . . . or at least that's how I see it.

But at that point of the lecture I was hungry and tired... and so I started crying, which I immediately felt bad about because I didn't want to be crying.  It just happened.  (Ask the hubby, I'm either angry or weepy when I'm hungry.  Weepy is probably preferable.)  So I apologized and explained that I was hungry and tired and that I couldn't wait two hours because I had to go to work.  The lab tech called her supervisor, who first railed against the idea (I could hear her loud and clear) but then said to just do the test the way the doctor asked and they'd figure it out later.

So she drew blood and then set me up in a little room with a super comfy chair so I could eat breakfast and read for an hour (yay reading).  She asked what I had for breakfast and when I said a yogurt and a banana, she said, "That's it?" So I had to explain that I was told to eat my normal breakfast and that I can't eat a lot for breakfast because I'm not that hungry early in the day.

Seriously. This should not have involved all of this explanation.  I was really feeling like a freak at this point, like some huge exception to the norm, and it really got on my nerves (still is on my nerves).

So they marked the time after I ate (I was just happy she didn't stand there and watch me eat) and then I read for an hour.  They drew blood a second time (not easy since they used my one easy vein the first time, so she had to dig around a bit this time, ouch) and then I headed to work.

The lab called my OB's office.  I know this because the lab accidentally called me first and asked for the doctor.  Five minutes later, my OB's office called me and asked exactly what I did this morning.  So I explained that I did exactly what my OB instructed.  The nurse said, "Okay, and that's all you have to answer for" and hung up before I could even ask her if that was okay.  I had a feeling they had been aggravated by the lab, as well.

I don't know how this is going to turn out, hence the "Part 1?" of the title.  I'm hoping the lab runs the tests as my OB hopes and that the results are just fine, but I won't be surprised if for some reason I need to do this again - either with jelly beans or with that sugar solution that will make me sick.  In the end, I'll do whatever I have to do in order to make sure The Force is okay, but I would like to not have to go through this ordeal again. 

It sucks to feel that your judgment or opinion isn't valued or trusted - and then, on top of that, to be told that your doctor is just making things up as he goes along.  1 - I trust my doctor (I wrote a whole post at WATRD yesterday about my good experience with him and his office so far) and 2 - doctors have had to make stuff up since there have been doctors.  New situations or concerns appear and doctors do what they think is right until they get the results they want.

It is frustrating to me that there's no set go-to instructions about how to check the gestational glucose in a WLS patient.  There are recommendations, but no known authority that I'm aware of.  This seems unfair and a bit unsafe.  It's not like WLS is new and I personally, in my relatively small life, know several WLS women who have had babies.  Somehow we're all managing, so where's the person or group putting the data together?

My first hope is that the test and The Force are fine.  My second is that someone else doesn't have to fight for their test like I did today.

Thursday
07Jan2010

Dear Thursday: Go back to where you came from

1. Jerk-face neighbor who always takes up two spots with his one small car (thereby preventing yours truly and the hubby from parking in front of their own home) today warmed up his car for over 15 minutes with music blasting . . . right outside our bedroom window . . . at 8am, when we were both trying to sleep . . . and he wasn't even in the car.  He was already on our shitlist . . . what list comes after that because he's on that one now.

2.  Random highway construction made me late for work.  (Does one of the busiest highways in the area really need to be down to one lane at 10:30am??)

3.  I get to work and neither my phone nor my computer is working.  Fear I've been fired and just not told.  Turns out it was just a disconnected cable, but that's still fishy because it was fine when I left last night and no one should be under my desk when I'm not here.  (Um, or when I am here because that just sounds dirty.)

4.  I got in a fender bender three weeks ago and the girl (or her parents, she was only 18) reported it to my insurance and so they're paying for her "repairs" (i.e. teeny dent and scratched paint).  They couldn't tell me if my rate was going to change.  It had better not.

5.  I still do not have a grade for one of my Fall '09 grad classes.  What is going on??

Grrrr.  No likey Thursday this week.  After work today I have to go home and puppy-prep the apartment since the hubby and I are going to have Buster over for the weekend.  YAY for puppy time!!  . . . But it means hiding all wires, cleaning up clutter, and covering up outlets - definitely a bunch of stuff to do, so it'll be a busy night after this "ugh" of a day.  I'm hoping not to be too wiped out so I can get a lot accomplished.

Tuesday
22Dec2009

Pondering the death of Brittany Murphy

My latest post at We are the Real Deal, Are we all just bricks in the wall?, is up.

It's all speculation right now as to why she died, but there is little doubt that her health needed more quality (i.e. not tabloid) attention than it was getting.  Even if she had a congenital heart problem and her death truly was due to natural causes, the fact that everyone automatically leaps to blame eating disorders and drug use is telling.  Is this the new norm?  Do we just expect this now?  Are we not supposed to actually care?  What can we do?