Evilrooster

 Because I recently turned 65, there were changes in my insurance.
I now have Blue Cross Blue Shield, which I used to have some years ago before I got switched to a different insurance.
They have now denied a med that is a cornerstone of why I am feeling better and breathing better these days.

The switch happened after my August birthday.
All the other meds are (allegedly, and I do believe them) on the way from the mail order pharmacy (who were good when I used to use them).
This med has been denied by insurance, which is BCBS. Even after special authorization, which they told me I needed, they denied it.

Am almost out.

(Yes, this is the med that the other insurance company kept only filling for one month, despite my doc writing a three-month scrip every frikkin time. Yes, this is one of the things I worry about running out of, because it matters a lot.)

Also you may imagine bitter laughter as various med and scheduling people explain to me that the insurance is apparently requiring the patient, me, go in to meet with the doc. The agoraphobic patient, these days. Though we did get to "virtual visit is acceptable," which is good, before we got to "the first virtual visit possible is a while after patient runs out of meds" which is not.

This stuff is what I was already making calls on and trying to handle before I got COVID. The two together is just a really horrible coincidence.

(Even if we did try to switch me to the insurance that was fine with it before (like Blue Cross Blue Shield was actually fine with it a few years ago when I had it!), there's no guarantee we won't run afoul of some new rule.) 

There are options being looked into, for which details will be scant and the passive voice, for the moment, will be employed.

I do not have words that will cover exactly how I feel about this insurance bullshit. However the person just now taking the note to give my doc did write down faithfully that "patient is worried that without this med, she may not be around to keep this appointment," which is at least something I guess.

I am hungry. (I am the king now and I want a sandwich?) Actually what I want right now is soup. I wonder if I can stand up long enough to microwave some. Gotta put some food in or the meds might bounce, and it's meds time.

Grrrrr.

 The "rest like a potato!" protocol continues
and so do we.

 The Sven-Saw is my friend. Even so, getting the muscle memory back to work is going to take a little while. And this particular stump is going to take a little while and then a longer while. After all, I haven't used it for about... whoah, thirty-some years? Eeep. But it's fall yard work season, and needs must.

As someone who has recently gone through the first intake session with a professional counselor for agoraphobia and for grief (which are the two things my GP requested I be seen for), I am now at least technically under care for these things, but anyone who's been through it knows that intake sessions are not quite getting-work-done sessions. They're more like is-this-therapeutic-pairing-going-to-work? sessions. (Signs point to yes. This is a relief.) I look forward to finding out what we can do about various things. In the run-up to this, I have been doing what I can to combat agoraphobia (or more like confuse and distract it) and hopefully lessen it with the strategic use of yard work. During the spring and summer, my goal was "get out and spend seven minutes at least in the yard improving something." It did help some. Also our yard looks better, which probably relieves some of the neighbors.

The Sven-Saw, a marvelous tool made here in Minnesota, enters the picture because there are some saplings that need to be cut off and the little stumps painted with stump-killer before winter. All of them are pretty much broomstick size or smaller, but there is one that's four to six inches wide depending on how you measure it. It's this stump that needs the Sven-Saw, because the stump killer wants a fresh cut to work on.

The biggish stump is inconveniently placed, and I have trouble getting at it. Part of that is pre-existing mobility and agility difficulties. The stump cannot be picked up and put on a convenient cutting frame; it has to be cut off horizontally a few inches above the ground. This is because of where it is: at the corner of the garage where the parking pad meets the alley. Our garage door is perpendicular to the alley. There is a small strip of land along the alley side of the garage which some long-ago person enhanced with a concrete-walled raised bed. It's not very tall, but it's tall enough to get in the way at the corner when I'm trying to get at this stump. It (the stump) is tucked in to a little notch of bare soil at the corner of the garage, where the alley-side raised bed strip ends before the length of the garage does. It (the raised bed strip with little concrete walls) stops early because some sensible person thought ahead, and designed it so that it is nearly impossible to run over the little concrete corner of the raised bed when trying to park. (I suppose someone might manage it, but they'd probably sideswipe the whole alley wall of the garage and then be too far in to successfully maike the turn into the parking pad.) Anyway, there's a little postage stamp of bare earth at the alley corner of the garage that runs a foot or so along the alley side of the garage before the concrete wall of the raised bed kicks in. And that's where the stump is.

Because of the concrete, I can really only get at the stump from one angle. While I can go at the cut from either side, it's all in the same cut, with a total variance possible of maybe fifteen degrees. Maaaaybe. This is due to the slight slope and where the pavement of the parking pad is. It's a tricky spot. Add in my mobility and agility difficulties, plus the dizziness and balance issues that have recently been added to my character sheet, and the necessity of bending over and trying to saw horizontally, and it turns into a two day job with a lot of breaks for resting while my gyroscopes reset.

All the other bits needing cutting and then painting with stump-killer will be much easier, barring one or two that are doing creative things around some pipes outside the house.Take the hard one first, get it out of the way. That's the plan. And it's a good plan. 

It's just going to take a little longer than I thought.

Have you done yard work lately? If so, how has it gone? Any stump issues or adventures?

 (I call housecleaning and sorting through old treasures "attic archaeology.")

Quite a while back, Joel Rosenberg and a number of us had a joke that there should be a Minnesota Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (MSFFWA), and its motto should be "Quae narravi, nullo modo negabo," which he told us means loosely "That's my story and I'm sticking to it." There were cups made, bearing motto and also logo, which was crossed sword and space shuttle over the shape of Minnesota.




(There! Got one photo to work, I hope.)