Thursday, March 22, 2007

One of these things [seemingly] doesn't belong...

This is my desk drawer at work, as viewed through my camera phone. It's a fairly normal-looking drawer--several colors of Sharpies, a ChapStick, ruler, pack of gum, plastic spoon, single-serve Crystal Light-type-product and...what's that thing there? My drug paraphernalia?

It didn't fit in the picture, but I always keep a vial of Humalog in the drawer just to the right of what you can see here. I figure if anybody goes rooting around through my drawer and is concerned about me having needles at work, then I can whip out my handy-dandy insulin bottle, and perhaps the box with the prescription on it too. I don't suspect I'll ever get in trouble. The important people at work all know I have diabetes.

What I find amusing about this picture is that outside of those of us who have experience with diabetes (or any other condition requiring injections for maintenance medications), someone could probably mistake this for a pic from some kind of anti-drug advertisement about drugs in the workplace being a hidden problem.

What do you think? Ever had an awkward diabetes moment at work?

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Help, I need somebody; Help, not just anybody......

Excuse me a moment whilst I flip the bird to my insurance company.

I need some insulin pump supplies and a visit to my endo. They say they are being nice to me because they have waived my usual 18-month waiting period for coverage to only 8 months. I suppose this is a gift, but I'm sorry, this is a bunch of bullshit. It's bad enough to make me swear on my blog posts! I'd use an even worse word, but there might be 13-year-olds reading this somewhere.

Me: I can't even get reimbursed?
Customer Service Lady: Ma'am, we can't reimburse you for something you don't have coverage for.
Me: Well, this is something that's never happened to me before. I can't afford these things without insurance. Isn't there anything you can do?
CS Lady: There's nothing, Ma'am. You could go to your doctor for whatever paperwork you might need, but they're just going to show you have the pre-ex condition, and we can't cover any pre-exes until your waiting period is over.

This is just so damn awesome. I can't believe how lucky I am to live in this country with the greatest healthcare in the free world. AAAAAAAAAARGH.

But maybe there is some light in this situation after all.

My co-worker informs me that HIPAA guidelines state that it's illegal to deny me coverage for ANY period of time as long as my coverage previously didn't lapse. (And it didn't!) My co-worker knows her way around health insurance...she is a cancer survivor.

Tomorrow I'm having a chat with the HR lady, hoping she can help me straighten this stuff out once and for freakin' all.

What kind of crap has your insurance company tried to pull on you?

***
In slightly related news, the nurse educator from my endo's office is my new hero for the week. I explain my problem to her last week, and she gave me an entire box of sample infusion sets. I had been using Sof-Sets at home, but she only had Quick-Sets for the Paradigm (or Silhouettes, but I was kind of worried about the angled-needle thing). She let me borrow an insertion device and I'm on my second Quick-Set. I really like them. I might switch to them permanently once I can figure out what I'm covered under.

Any opinions on infusion sets?

Monday, March 5, 2007

I'm not cheesy enough to get one of those "I *heart* My Husband" Bumper Stickers

My husband is one of the most patient people I know, unless of course he thinks I am ready to go somewhere when I am actually not.

When my BS levels are sky-high, he'll go get me a glass of water, make sure I took a correction, tuck me into bed if I need to take a nap to get through it.

When they're low, he'll hop out of bed in the middle of the night and run to the kitchen naked to grab me a glass of juice. He rubs my back to calm me, holds me until the world stops shaking.

We first started dating in high school. We went to different schools and met at a mutual friend's Halloween party. We were instantly infatuated with each other and ended up making out before the night was through. Then we made plans to call each other. Matt still has the Post-It note that I wrote my phone number on. It's tattered, but he keeps it amongst all the other things in his wallet, no matter what. He's gone through a number of wallets since then.

We've grown and changed as people, but through college we kept up our long-distance relationship. We helped each other cope through our parents' divorces, which were only a year apart from each other, right before the start of our respective senior years at Elizabethtown College (me) and the University of Delaware (him).

He has always known about and wanted to help me with my diabetes. In high school, he told me he checked a book out of our public library on diabetes because he wanted to learn, but he couldn't get past the first chapter because right off the bat it ran though the typical GIANT list of complications. It made him cry. I told him it's not always that bad. He marvelled at the wonder that was my first insulin pump, a Minimed 508, with its clicks, beeps, its tubing that never got in the way of being intimate (although it was initially a concern).

Of course, there came the kidney scare. The first bout of depression. The divorce. The long nights spent apart. The bad A1cs. The swollen ankles. The second bout of depression. The tears that seem to come once a week for one reason or another.

But he is always there. He always loves me exactly the way I am, and tries to remind me, gently, if I seem suddenly cranky with him that "maybe you should do a finger prick, Hannie, hasn't it been a while?"

The other night, I was sitting on the bed in my pajamas while he rubbed my swollen feet and ankles. I was busy making happy noises and readying my mind for sleep when he asked, "Do you ever write about how I do this on your d-blog?"

Well, Matt, I just did.