Thursday, April 08, 2004
I'm Free! Sorta....
This was a very long day for me. I had my appointment at the VA and this is how things went.
First of all, my stupid clock. It had fallen to the floor and the batteries came out so I had to reset the whole thing. This is the kind of clock that automatically adjusts to your time zone based on radio waves or something like that, I don’t know, my parents bought it for me one year for my birthday, but it’s not a normal clock. I set the date and alarm and adjusted the time and I SWEAR I put it in the correct mode to get the correct time zone. I go to bed and sleep.
I wake up this morning, look at the clock....got two hours to kill. So I start reading blogs. About an hour into this, my email notifier shows up on screen and as it sits right above the computer clock after it enters from the right, I glanced at the time. It was 9:30. Not 7:30 like my not normal alarm clock said it was. My appointment was at 10, I still had to call a cab and the VA hospital is about 20-30 minutes away. DAMN! Seems my not normal alarm clock had switched back to PST sometime during the night.
Anyway, I made it only 5 minutes late and got underway. I got to see the x-rays of my metal and screws. WEIRD! After that I went to get my cast/splint removed and the staples taken out. I must have been really delirious after surgery cause they didn’t use staples, they used stitches. I had 10 of them and each and every last one of them hurt like an evil bitch from hell getting yanked. Especially the very last one as it was embedded further into my skin. I’m not sure which hurt worse....getting them out or breaking my ankle in the first place.
My leg....hahahaha....oh man. What a site that was. The skin was all dry and still bruised up and even though there was still a lot of swelling, it was all hella skinny. Hilarious. My incision.....eeeeesh. I am Frankenstein! It’s gross looking. Eventually it’ll get better but right now.....blech!
Then I went and got my walking boot. This thing RULES! Of course I can take it off to take a normal bath and put lotion on my skin and if there is a really bad itch that will be taken care of but it has this little air pump like those tennis shoes had? Like that. That’s the coolest thing. With that little pump on there, I don’t have to yank the velcro straps so tight; I can put them on snug and tighten up the brace with the air. Nice.
Now the bad news. The VA will not be paying my E/R bill. The reason for that is because I have not been into the VA within the past 24 months so I’m ineligable. That sucks. However, the guy there gave me some really good “key words” to say and told me just how to fight it NOT only for the amount Medicaire would have paid like you all told me but further, what the VA would have paid. Even more off. He told me what to say, how to say it and what to do when/if I receive a “No”. So, on Monday, I’m going to start making phone calls and hope I can get those bills knocked down significantly.
The other partially bad news is that I am out of work much longer than I thought. My next appointment is May 06 and I do not get to go back to work before then because of the type of job I had.
However! The guy who was giving me billing advice told me that I should apply at the VA, told me how much a starting person makes and told me where to go to do that. I am going to do just that. It’s a ways from my house and while I make money initially, I would have to take the bus and that would SUCK but they pay more than I have ever made, starting, AND the cost of living is WAY cheaper here so I could have a car muy quickly. AND, I can always transfer to other VA hospitals in other parts of the country. Nice.
Finally, because the billing guy felt bad for not being able to help me with the bills really, he set it up so that I no longer have to pay a cab to come get me and take me home. Yep. The VA is driving me home and picking me up using a contractor and I don’t pay a dime. Woo-hoo! That saves me $50 a shot right there.
So, all in all, a long day, (got there at 10am and didn’t get home till 6pm) and not all of the news was good but I’ve been offered hope and that isn’t so bad.
Oh, and I got asked out on a date. hehehehe.
