Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

It's hard to believe it's been eleven days since my surgery. I do think I needed the two weeks off to rest and heal, but it's been wonderful to have an excuse to take afternoon naps, sleep late in the mornings, visit with both of my daughters and spend hours reading and watching the first two and half seasons of Downton Abbey.

Erika will be here for one more full day and then fly back to her home and family in Des Moines Tuesday. Later that afternoon, I'll have my followup with my surgeon and then Wednesday, I'll return to work.

I feel like I'm done with the first phase of this breast cancer experience, which included diagnosis and surgery. In a few weeks I'll begin the second phase: radiation treatments. (Edit added 2 months later: little did I know when I posted this that Phase Two would be chemotherapy.)

Unfortunately that will involve having to deal with the insurance company for a new FMLA claim, this one, "intermittent" to ensure that my absences for radiation treatments will be "job protected." I'm hoping and praying that this one will go as smoothly as the last one should have.

We're facing the fact that our little lost cat may not come home and hoping that she hasn't suffered, wherever she is. She is micro-chipped, so we haven't given up all hope of getting her back. Every morning I get an email with the newest listings and photos of cats that have been brought into the city shelter.

I've learned since my surgery that it's not uncommon to feel very emotional upon awakening from general anesthesia. In my case, when I awoke, I  began crying about losing Sasha. I suppose recovery room nurses are used to that kind of thing and might not have found it strange when I told them I was fine, but was crying because my cat was lost. I still miss her, but truth be told, my husband and son probably miss her more, since she spent more time with them. And, of course, with another cat and the three dogs in the house, I haven't lacked for animal companionship.

 

Our other cat, Luna, is more closely bonded with me, although I think Erika might have replaced me as her favorite person in the world this week. She liked Erika and Kelly both, but since Kelly is allergic, she wasn't able to return Luna's affection. Luna liked Erika from the start, but then Erika pulled out her knitting and Luna was smitten. I think she's going to be pretty disappointed when Erika leaves.







I'm sure going to miss Erika too and we'll make the most of the rest of her time with us, but she'll be ready to get back to her husband and children. And I guess I'll be ready to get back to life as usual, at least until I start Phase Two.

Peace and Perspective

I'm feeling so much more peace now. I'm thankful to have family and friends praying for me.

Of course I'm sad and anxious that our little cat, Sasha, is missing and I hope she's not gone for good. I brought her home a year ago from a shelter. She has seemed so at home with us spending her evenings sitting in my husband's lap, waking us up early in the morning for breakfast, rubbing her little head against our hands, purring endlessly. We've treated her for ear infections and bought expensive special food for her because of her digestive problems. But she's probably over ten years old and who knows how many other families she's lived with or how much of her life has been spent fending for herself? Two days ago she went out the dog door, which she started doing months ago. I had intended for her to be an indoor cat, but she figured out the dog door and seemed to enjoy just puttering around the back yard and sitting in the sun. About a week ago I noticed her go through a hole under the fence, but she came back pretty quickly and  I realized she might have done that before. I know lots of pet cats are outdoor cats and do just fine. Being a cat mom is still relatively new to me. Some of  my friends have told me their cats take off for days at a time and always come home, but I still I find myself worrying about Sasha and praying that she'll be alright.

But mostly I'm feeling more peaceful than I was yesterday. I still don't know what's going to happen with my FMLA claim. We faxed paperwork to the doctor's office again and are hoping it's the right paperwork this time and that they fill it out to the insurance company's satisfaction. I probably won't even know if it's approved until after surgery, but I'm determined not to worry about it anymore.

Either way, I am going to have surgery on Wednesday, I have health insurance to pay for it, my cancer was caught early, I have over 200 hours accrued sick time, don't expect to need anywhere near that much and even if the FMLA doesn't come through, I'm sure I wouldn't lose my job for taking time off for cancer surgery. I just don't want to fret about it anymore.

After my surgery I'll come back to a comfortable home and a loving husband and son. I hope Sasha will be here, but there will be at least four other furry friends to welcome me home.

I am reminded once again of my many blessings.

I was reading about how people in underdeveloped nations have such higher death rates and suffer so much more from all types of cancer, because it's seldom caught when it's treatable and there aren't many treatment options available to them anyway. That helped give me some much needed perspective.

God's Got This

Today, I, a customer service representative, make that a senior level customer service officer who takes escalated calls from other reps, yelled at a customer service representative of the insurance company who handles FMLA for my employer. I lost it and I'm not proud of that. I was immediately sorry and wanted to apologize, but I didn't get a chance to. Apparently she was not trained to take rude, yelling customers in stride like I have to in my job. She started lecturing and threatening to disconnect my call if I yelled again, which I hadn't planned on doing, so I just hung up in shame and frustration. Then I did something I haven't done since I was diagnosed with breast cancer three weeks ago. I cried. For a long time.

Bear with me as I backtrack over what led up to this and I know I'm being redundant here. A blog is a great outlet for venting selfishly and I'm afraid you've stopped in on my pity party. My employer changed medical insurance carriers for 2013. I had opted for a more expensive (to me) but lower deductible plan knowing that my husband needed hernia surgery, but having no idea that I would be diagnosed with breast cancer on January 2. For the first week and a half of the new year, insurance company H had no record of us in their system, not when we called, not when our doctors offices called to try to verify coverage. Needless to say, this resulted in much frustration and wasted time on the telephone. That was finally resolved, Thank God, no really, I do thank God for that.

While that was going on, my supervisor encouraged me to call insurance company A, who handles Family and Medical Leave Act claims for our company. He knew as well as I did that regardless of how much sick time I had accrued, I would need to have my absence for surgery and recovery certified for FMLA in order for the absences to be "job protected." So I called insurance company A and told them I thought I'd need "Intermittent FMLA" since I knew I'd miss time for surgery, recovery, followup appointments, pre-op appointments, radiation treatments, etc. I got the paperwork from them, filled out my part of it and took it to my surgeon's office. When I talked to them a few days later, they told me that all they could certify was the day of surgery and continous time for recovery afterward, not intermittent absences. Fair enough.

I called insurance company A back and told them I had been wrong, I didn't need intermittent FMLA; I needed about two weeks for surgery and recovery. Brenda, the rep I talked to that day told me that what I needed was short term disability and that she would cancel my FMLA. (Today I found out that this is where the real problems began. She was wrong. All I needed was continuous FMLA. I don't even have coverage for short term disability nor do I need it.) Brenda transferred me to Frank, who kept me on the phone for about 20 minutes taking information that I had already given previously for the FMLA, but that didn't seem too unreasonable. Then I called my surgeon's office back to tell them to shred the paperwork I had given them and that I'd get the new paperwork to them when I had it.

Then I waited for the new forms to arrive by mail or email or for a new claim to show up on insurance company A's website. I sent several secure messages that seemed to go into a black hole. Finally I called back two days ago to find that nothing had been done on their end. Over the past 48 hours I've talked to at least a half dozen of their representatives, received and printed out three sets of forms, two of which were the wrong ones, and spent hours working on this. As of last night I thought maybe this was finally going to be resolved.

Then this morning, just as I began my work day, I got a cell phone call that went to voice mail. It was "Sean" an A insurance company rep calling to talk to me about my claim for...completely wrong dates. Anyone who has ever worked a call center job knows that every minute spent off the phone has to be documented and explained and I've had to document lots of minutes like that recently. This is Thursday and my surgeon's office only fills out this paperwork on one day a week: Friday. Tomorrow is the last Friday before my surgery. I got off my work phone, emailed my supervisor to tell him why, checked my cell phone voice mail and tried to call Sean back.

When I finally got through the automated system to a live rep, I told her that I was returning a call from someone named Sean. She was not Sean, but asked for my name, date of birth and claim number and then proceeded to tell me that they had a helpful website that could be used for most concerns people might call about. That's when I yelled. They have told me this on every one of the countless phone calls I've made  trying to resolve an increasingly more convoluted situation that the website offered no help for. So this time, when the representative started off by telling me that again, I lost it and yelled, "PLEASE, don't go there!" .

I get yelled at multiple times a day in my job, sometimes cursed at and called names, but I don't ever want to treat anyone else that way. That insurance company representative was not personally responsible for the mistakes others have made and she didn't deserve to have me take out my frustration on her. It still pains me to think about it, but I've asked God's forgiveness, not only for raising my voice, but for the attitude that led me to do it.

After that phone call and after I spent some time crying and praying, I was calm on my next phone call with yet another representative, but they never did get things sorted out. Two emails, one more secure message and another set of forms later, I finally called my HR department. They intervened and they think the problems are resolved. I'd like to think that the paperwork Rick faxed to the doctor's office for me yet again today will result in my FMLA being finally approved so that I can use two weeks of my own accrued sick time for surgery and recovery. I wish I could tell you that when I go to bed tonight I'll be confident that the issue is resolved. But I'm not counting on Brenda, Frank, Colleen, Jessica, Ken, Laura or Sean from the insurance company or my HR department or my doctor's office staff to make this happen.

As my niece, Grace, often says, "God's got this." At some point today I finally remembered that.

Now one of our cats has gone missing. I'm praying that God's got her too and will bring her home to us safe and sound. If you are a praying person, I'd appreciate it if you'd pray for Sasha too.

Sweating the Small Stuff

If there's anything that irritates me more than breast cancer it's dealing with insurance. Don't get me wrong, I'm truly thankful that I have it. It just takes a lot of work to take advantage of it sometimes.
 
It started with our medical insurance company having absolutely no record of us right when my surgeon, Rick's surgeon and the radiology practice where I was supposed to have an MRI were all calling to verify coverage. My employer had changed insurance companies as of Jan. 1. I was diagnosed on Jan. 2. Rick was scheduled for hernia repair on Jan.10. The new insurance carrier apparently had some kind of mix-up in loading my employer's records. So they deleted us all and it was days, I honestly don't know how many days, until they reloaded our records correctly. In the interim it appeared that we simply didn't have any insurance, except dental, which is not a lot of help when you're dealing with hernias and breast cancer.

That necessitated lots of time spent on the phone getting nothing but frustrated. Finally that issue was resolved the day before Rick's surgery, much to our relief.

Then it was time to certify for my time off of work for my surgery and recovery. Yes I have sick time, but to use more than a few days here or there, you have to get it certified as FMLA or Short Term Disability so that the absences are "job protected." I don't know if this is as critical for salaried employees, but I am hourly and work for a call center where any time off is closely scrutinized. Whether it's FMLA or short term disability, you have to deal with, once again, an insurance company.

So I started by calling to open an FMLA claim, then found out that this was not what I needed. I needed short term disability. So after getting my FMLA paperwork, filling out and signing my part of it and getting that to my surgeon's office, I had to call them back, ask them to shred it and told them I'd be getting the new paperwork to them.  This misunderstanding was probably my fault as much as it was anyone else's.

Then the real frustration began. Last week I called the insurance company that handles both FMLA and short term disability, told them I needed to cancel the FMLA claim and open a new claim for short term disability. A nice lady named Brenda said she had cancelled the FMLA, then she transferred my call to a friendly fellow named Frank (OK, I admit it, I love alliteration) who spent about fifteen minutes on the phone with me taking lots of information for my short term disability claim. I got off the phone feeling that I was at least now making some progress after my initial setback and loss of time.

There was only one problem. Neither Brenda nor Frank did what they told me they had done. I waited in vain for my new short term disability claim to appear on the website when I logged in. I waited for paperwork to arrive in the mail. Finally today I called back and was told that the FMLA claim could only be cancelled if I requested it in writing, a little detail Brenda failed to mention. And there was no short term disability claim pending. So once again I started over from scratch, I think. Surgery is just a week away.

Lord, please give me grace for the little things.