Tapped

Having to replace the HVAC system in your house would be a major event. 

Having to replace the engine in a four year old v2017 Ford Escape would be a major event. 

Having to replace the transmission in the same vehicle would be a major event. 

Being diagnosed with cancer and spending the next eight months in endless doctor appointments, chemo and preventative surgeries would be major and life altering. 

Welcome to our 2021. 

To describe this year as hell would be an understatement. 

It has been difficult beyond words. 

Any of those events could throw a person or family for a loop but pile on all four in seven months and I'm tapped. 

Please understand that I AM NOT SUICIDAL but I'd be lying if I said that the thought of, "I want to go to sleep and not have to wake up" hadn't crossed my mind.  

Especially this week. 

I've done everything I could possibly do this year to laugh. To find the weird or humorous in a bad situation. I've made the best of things that have no "best" beyond being alive. 

I can't find the humor in this. There is no weird, funny, strange etc. 

I'm on a roller coaster of depression and anger. 

I'm either crying or seriously pissed off and deperately trying not to scream at everyone around me. 

People ask me how I am and I can't smile. 

My face reads like a book. I can't hide my feelings.

I've cried more this past week than I did the whole time I was going through the cancer treatment.

Aaaaaaaand... now the medical bills are rolling in. 

I spent three hours on various phone calls today between Penn Medicine and Blue Cross. 

I learned today that my chemotherapy, which is delivered via infusion, is billed as both an infusion therapy and as chemotherapy. I'd been paying our $80 copay (yes, you read that correctly) at each appointment only to learn today that that only applies to the oncologist not the infusion/chemo. 

They are billing the infusion and chemo as separate services despite being concurrent and each has an $80 copay. This means that each oncologist/chemo appointment is a $240 out of pocket expense. 

Now, multiply that by 12 and that is my out of pocket expense just for the chemo. That doesn't include the thousands of dollars that I'm being billed for the necessary tests presurgery or the echocardiograms that I have to have multiple times a year. 

Additionally, every three weeks I go back for Herceptin infusions. I will continue that until June 2022. I will have to pay the $80 copay to my Oncologist and another $80 copay for the infusion. So that's another $160 every three weeks. 

I guess now would be a good time to say that our family deductible is $8,600. 

Thanks Obama. Our insurance is much more affordable that the old $500 deductible and $25 copays. We're so much better off. Asshole. 

Falling asleep has always been tough for me but now it's filled with anxiety because I'm afraid to wake up. 

I'm waiting for the final shoe to drop and break me completely. 

At least my antidepressants and my Ambien are covered.