How my healthcare is shortening my life

Today I called a doctor's office to set up a physical.  14 minutes and 27 seconds later, I hung up the phone. I was in tears and I didn't have an appointment.

This seemingly simple task, which should, in theory, be making me healthier in the long term, has now added stress and anxiety.  I'm sure that the stress is killing all of my cells just a little faster than nature does on it's own.

What happened? Why is it that, I, an intelligent well-educated women, can't make a doctor's appointment? Well, I'm not entirely sure of all the details, but it was something about the insurance doesn't cover it, and the cost, and but when my husband came we didn't pay that,  but that's because he had another condition so it wasn't just a "physical" and the bloodwork at our lab  (>$200) versus the lab across campus ($15-and you pick up the results on the 2nd floor, we're on the 3rd). Finally when I said I would pay whatever, we got to picking a date, there was a question about birth control and well then, if you get pregnant we can't take care of you would need to see an OBGYN instead and that's two new patient visits in a year and that's not allowed and ?!?!?!?!?!  I can recommend and OBGYN, you should call them instead, what hospital would you like to have your baby at if you did get pregnant?  Huh? What?

Before you all freak out, I am not pregnant.  I'm not planning to be, we've been batting around the idea.  Let's say that we have always known we wanted a kid "someday" and "someday" is starting to seem closer. Right now, I just need a doctor to check my blood, bang my knees and look down my throat, or whatever a physical constitutes these day.  I know most people don't do these things, but I have enough family history and friends with freaky illnesses that I think it's worth doing it every now and then.

To be honest I'm so confused  and there are so many things wrong with this situation, I don't even know where to start.  My blood pressure is raised, I want to cry more and I feel pretty crappy, all from trying to make sure I was healthy.   We live in a stupid world.  I had really bad experiences with doctors were we lived before this. I thought that it was just the particular location, my "northern" accent, or something else- but maybe it's just me.

Given my past experiences, I had a lot of anxiety about even picking up the phone, which is why I waited so long to do it.  This time, I did my research,  my husband has been seeing this doctor, many of my colleagues have been seeing this doctor, so, I bit the bullet, called the number and said exactly what everyone told me I needed to say to access the services I wanted. Yet still, I'm not getting those services.

We don't have stellar insurance here, I work for the state, and there is a substantial out-of-pocket amount (~$2500 per person) that you pay before you get covered.  They cover really big stuff, but not the stuff most people actually need in order to avoid getting to the really big stuff.  That's sucky model, but at least it's something.  I suppose something is better than nothing.  Although until I actually see a doctor, I feel like actually I have nothing.

I'm rambling, I know, but there has been a lot of talk lately about "healthcare reform" and "access to healthcare".  If you don't think that we need it in this country, if you don't think that it's important and that really it's only going to help poor people and screw over the rich, you are wrong.

So healthcare naysayers take this nugget of information:  I'm a university professor in my mid-30's with a "good health plan" and it seems that even I don't have "access to healthcare".

The Universe always provides

Just a quick check-in. Today is much better than yesterday. I had an absolutely lovely lunch with another knitter who is also a physicist, so she's as cool as they come in my book. A leisurely lunch with great conversation was just so normal on a day like today that is was perfect. Well, almost normal, we did eat outside on the day before Thanksgiving. I will adapt to this weather eventually.

Top that off with some encouraging news from a granting agency, not an award just yet, but not a rejection either, and not the make you want to cry kind of reviews, but the kind of letter that says could you fix a few things for us, which in this game is encouraging. It's a biggy too, the kind that would get my Co-PI's tenure when they go up next year, and give me instant cache around here, so encouraging is really exciting news.

And, just this morning I finally broke through the wall on my next paper. There is still a lot of work to do, but I now have a vision/road map in my mind, rather than just a jumble of numbers, it's the turning point on any paper and the rest is hard work, but not the kind where you feel like you are banging your head against a wall. Sometimes science is a mystery to even scientists.


So the world stays in balance. The way I like it. :)

Keeping in touch

As promised...consistent posting!

So, I'm at a workshop in Boulder, CO. I haven't been here in 5 maybe 6 years, and it turns out I'll be back again for a conference in June, and if we get the funding we are applying for, possibly for another month in July. It's grown a bit from what I remember. Last time I was here I was at another conference on a similar yet not so similar topic, and oddly there are some people at this conference that were at that, it's like two worlds have collided. I went to that other conference twice and made a really great friend, who I really had met previously when she was my host for a grad school visit at a school I didn't attend, long story, but we became fast friends and when we went to this conference we would fly from our respective schools and meet at some connecting airport and talk nonstop for the whole damn week, like we were long lost sisters or something. We both loved to travel and loved the National Parks, we would take a couple of days after the conference and go up to Rocky Mountain National Park and hike and laugh alot. She was fun, we had fun together, when I made my exodus from engineering we lost track of each other. I miss her.

Life is funny like that, I've had some really good friends over the years, and there are several I've lost track of, that I regret losing track of. Most of them I knew from the time that I was getting my MS, and a I was little lost off my path, a period of my life I was happy to leave behind because it was the right thing for me to do both personally and professionally. I just lost track of them, not because I didn't care, not because they didn't care, just because life took us on different paths. I wonder if it was because on some level in my brain they were associated with a time that I wasn't happy with everything in my life so I blocked it out. I don't really know, but I know I miss them, and I regret losing touch, but it feels weird to still call them friends after all this time without contact all this time.

Anyways, being here reminded me of her, so I googled her today. That's the great thing about the internet, and the bad thing I guess, you can track everyone down. It turns out she finished her PhD a year before I did and she is also doing a post-doc, and those are good things, so it's nice to know that she is being successful. It'd be nice to get in touch with her again, because I think friends are important, and she was a good friend. I wonder if I should email her.

It's weird that she's a post-doc too. I've been lamenting the lack of not knowing any other post-docs, it's been a very difficult phase of my career, a rather depressing one at that, and lonely. My grad school friends don't understand it yet, even though they try to. My real life friends also try to understand and are fabulously supportive, same with my family (I'm a very lucky girl in that sense, lot's of people who what to see me happy and that on its own makes me pretty happy), but it's hard for them to fully understand too. I'm living it and I don't totally understand it. My almost-but-not-quite-because-I'm-not-a-professor-yet colleagues apparently have blocked out their post-doc expereinces, or never had them because they are all from a generation where it was possibly to get the job without this bizarre holding tank period. So, I'm feeling kind of alone, it would be nice to talk to someone in the same boat. But that's a selfish reason to email her. But maybe she feels the same way, and she'd like someone to talk to too. Maybe I should just let things be and see if our paths cross again in some other way. Maybe I should stop spending so much time in hotels by myself, it makes me think too much.

What to blog?

I don't know what I should blog about.

Should it be the very exciting news that I'm going to be an aunt?

Should it be the flurry of knitting this news has brought on?

Should it be on the progress of Ellen's Afghan? (6 out of 99 squares complete!)

Should it be something thought provoking and insightful on the plight of a post-doc looking for a job?

Should it be to blushingly admit the social scientist in the house might be right?

Should it be to warn of no posting for 2+ weeks while I go on vacation?


Well, how about that, I managed to blog them all!