The proverbial straw

Yesterday that final piece of insurance chaf wafted down from the cruel heavens, pushed me off balance and sent me stumbling down the cliffs of insanity ("Princess Bride" reference). Without dwelling on details here is the condensed version...

Over the course of 6 frustrating months I've spent countless hours on the phone with government agencies, insurance companies, drug manufacturers, doctors' offices, M.S. organizations and assorted others. The goal of these fruitless, circular exercises being obtaining medical insurance and prescription coverage for my husband and myself. The good folks at Verizon Benefits (former employer of husband) refused to send COBRA paperwork until their legal deadline obligation on June 18. All other insurance options failed so this Monday I mailed Verizon a check for $1,935. to cover medical coverage for B & I for part of June, July and August. I enrolled us via the telephone, contacted our former HMO and ordered my medications. Months of research were at an end. We had insurance. All was well.

Yesterday the HMO called to say that Verizon had no record of our COBRA account (I provided the given account number) and that I'd have to pay the $1,475 up front for my shots. After calling back Verizon they informed me that it could be several weeks before they sent confirmation paperwork to me... and they were unable/unwilling to fax anything to the HMO.

Call it tenacity, stubborness or bitchiness, I don't care. The next set of phone calls was to a prescription assistance organization (I'd already registered with them, but my application is still weeks from being processed). Because I enrolled in COBRA my paperwork/application isn't valid with their office and needs to be sent elsewhere. From there I called the M.S. Society... worthless. Next call was to the drug manufacturer. Heck, at this point I was up for expired meds at a discount. I know that prisoners receive meds so holding up a convenience store was starting to sound like a plan.

I tried one more call to a support group for the meds. While retelling this story for the eleventy-billionth time I snapped. All went dark around me, my face burned, my chest began to tighten. I don't know if I screamed or not, but hysterical sobbing ensued and the poor lady at the receiving end of the phone call was at a loss.

B woke up (he sleeps days because he works graveyards at a temp job) and stumbled into the kitchen. The lady placed me on hold and I continued to alternate between ranting and crying.

Several minutes later the nice lady actually came back. She is helping me by locating and having 15 days worth of shots Fed-Exed out on Monday! I'm flabbergasted. This should be enough to get me by until Verizon gets their paperwork out! So, now I'm embarrassed about my behavior and grateful for the kindness and patience of a nice stranger who didn't hang up on me. If I ever win the lottery, find gold in my yard, etc. I will repay this company for the shots and do something really, really nice for the lady. I don't know if she was supposed to do this so I'm not mentioning her name here.

Knitting time was scarce yesterday, but I did manage to cast on a second sock. I'd post a picture, but for some reason they aren't loading. Much redemption is in order following the boo boo pictures divulged in the last post. Heck, the fear of bad knitting juju may have chased away any readers. Cricket, cricket, cricket... hello, is anybody still there?

I hope that Cindy, Jessalu, Dipsy and everybody else plagued by dangerously hot temperatures stays safe and cool. Cheers!