Stress, stress and more stress

F*^k optimism.

Just kidding. I thought that would grab your attention though. Aaarrrrggg….

I’m not gonna lie, it’s a very, very stressful time around here. Beyond the miscarriage which has caused me to be poked and prodded like cattle – there are 3 other major things causing our stress.

#3 – I’ve been extremely busy. It’s just been one of those crazy months that I haven’t been able to sit down, relax and take a breather. I haven’t had a no-kid day off in I don’t know how long.

#2 – Owen is having his tonsils and adenoids out and ear tubes put in on Friday. Set aside the enormous anxiety I feel about the surgery, if you knew what it took to actually get him in, you would understand the stress. We started out with a referred ENT in Flint because we didn’t want to have to drive to Ann Arbor for yet another doctor. He scheduled us for tubes right away but didn’t look at his tonsils while we were there. Well, this oversight escaped me until he had an appointment with one of his (yes I said one of his) neurologists to discuss his mild obstructive sleep apnea. The neurologist suggested we cancel the tubes and have the tonsils, adenoids and tubes all done at once. Good idea. We decided that if we were going to do the T&A, we may as well stick with U of M.

Flash forward to 2 weeks later and we still don’t have a phone call from the otolaryngology department (yes, I Googled how to spell that). After several phone calls and several days, still no one calls me back from U of M despite my notes that it’s urgent and a note from the neurologist ordering an ASAP consultation. They finally get me a consultation date of July 16th. Uuuuhhhh, yeah, not going to cut it. I’m furious about lack of urgency for at least the tubes. Everyday week that goes by, Owen is further delayed and at further risk for permanent hearing damage. I finally had to call the neuro’s office back and have the doc send a personal email . Even then they didn’t get back to us until we had decided to go back to our original ENT. It’s the first problem I’ve had with U of M before (aside from billing naturally), but I hope it will be the last.

#1 – Due to some changes, we will be switching benefits. Unfortunately, these benefits are going to have a major effect to our medical care. We were previously enrolled in BCBS which worked very well for us. With the new insurance co, our out of pocket expenses double and most of our doctors are not in network. If we go to a doc out of network, it will cost us 40% of the billed expenses in most cases. Of our family’s 7 doctors, 4 are not in network including Dr. Pauli, the family doc I’ve been seeing for 25 years, Owen’s neurosurgeon and Dr. Tykocki the wonder OBGYN. Beyond that U of M hospital is not in network nor is the hospital that Dr. Tykocki is affiliated with meaning, even if I could work something out with his office, he couldn’t do my prenatal care because I would have to pay 40% of my hospital stay when I had the baby.

I am literally sick to my stomach over it. I haven’t slept well in 2 days because we are not quite sure what we are going to do. Private health care doesn’t look like an option because of the expense especially with Owen. I don’t even know if anyone would cover him with a preexisting condition and if they did it would be at a huge cost.

On top of it all, we have $1000 that we’ve paid into a flexible spending account that if we don’t use by July 1st, we lose. I don't think that stools and light extenders will be covered but are their any suggestions for equipment/needs that a FSA will cover that Owen could use? Anyone have any suggestions or product recommendations?

Also, please tell me your T&A surgery stories. I’m completely freaked out. My main worry is that something will go wrong with the anesthesia or which the surgery and we will lose him. Ahh….ease my mind please!

Uuuuggggg….I rarely wallow and I really don’t want to after the last post, but I’m just really stressed out.