Dear Ms. B*****, Please remit

a grand total of $401.00. That's all. Out of $7,223.20. I am breathing an enormous sigh of relief.

On June 12th I woke up with this really weird feeling in my lower left abdomen. It didn't wake me up, but I felt it as soon as I moved. Sore-ish, tender-ish. Hmmmm. Must have pulled a muscle at the gym. OK. Took some advil, showered and headed out to work at 5 am. By 9 am I was doubled over. It REALLY hurt to walk. Coughing was a nightmare. Forget sneezing.

I called my doctor's office. I've only seen him once and it was one of those "Eh, he's ok, I guess" kind of things. Still, I needed to be seen. They could get me in at 3, be there at 2:30. Alrighty then. I made it through til 2 at work. By then it was cold sweat, clenched hands, Sweet Jesus this really hurts bad time.

I go to his office, they take me right in, the nurse takes all my vitals and tells me the doc will be right in. She was frustrated because she couldn't really tell if I was running a fever because I had Advil in me. Sorry ma'am, it was either pop them like they were M&Ms or curl up in a ball wishing I could die.

Doctor comes in. He doesn't ask me what's wrong, he doesn't do or say anything you'd expect a doctor to do in this situation. Instead, he walks in, drops my chart on the table, and says, "Well, let's see. The last time I saw you, I gave you paperwork to have blood and urine tests, a pap smear, and a mamogram. You've had none of that done. I don't know that there's anything I can do for you."

My jaw dropped. Excuse me???? OK, wait, see me here? Doubled over? I don't really give a rip about your tests. No I didn't actually say that, but I really wanted to. Instead, I explained the whole "single mom, two kids, no help from anyone, I'm sorry but I can't afford all those tests" deal. He didn't respond at all. Not one word. Just stood there staring at me like I was something distasteful.

He finally told me to get up on the table. I don't really want to but I don't have a whole lot of choice right now. It's not like I can go looking for a doctor at the moment. He pushes on my stomach a couple of times really hard, says, "Well, I just don't know." And walks out of the room. Um...huh? He comes back 15 minutes later, tells me his nurse is taking me over to the ER in a wheelchair because he doesn't trust me to go there myself, and they'll evaluate me. OK. Whatever. Just DO something for me here, ok?

I go to the ER via wheelchair, they sign me in, and I sit for THREE freaking HOURS! Oh yeah, it was imperative that I be seen. There was no one else there, literally no other patients in the Urgent side, but I had to sit for 3 hours. I have no car to leave. It's on the other freaking side of the block, 1 mile away. I called Andy's friend's mom, because he was at their house. She finally called them and raised hell.

They take me in, start an iv for fluids, and the doctor comes in. He's really very nice, kind, compassionate. He examines me carefully, orders a shot of morphine for the pain, and tells me they're going to do an abdominal CT. He doesn't think it's my one and only ovary. He suspects it's intestinal/colon/something like that.

20 minutes later they could have hung me by my thumbs and I would have smiled. No tolerance to drugs. I'm flying without a plane! LOL 4 hours later, they have the CT done (in two parts after drinking some REALLY nasty stuff!) and he comes back in. It's diverticulitis, pretty bad. He says ok, time to talk turkey. This is serious. You can die from this if it's not treated. We have to admit you.

By now it's nearly 8:30. Marcy's out of town, so is Karen, Sally, and Glenda. The only support system I have and they're all gone on vacation. Andy's friend and his family are leaving on vacation in the morning. OK, wait, doc, I can't. You can't admit me. I have two kids who, although they're not small, I'm still not comfortable with the idea of leaving them alone for a couple of days. I can't do that. DHS could take my kids for something like that. There has to be another way.

He thinks for a few minutes and says ok. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to run a couple of bags of different kinds of antibiotics into you in the next few hours, along with lots of fluids. Then you'll go home with more antibiotics. And you'll STAY HOME IN BED. No walking, no lifting, no driving. If you start to feel even slightly worse, you come right back. Make sure you see your PCP, your regular doc first thing in the morning. You swear you'll do all those things? Yep, I promise. I really will.

So they do their thing until I have enough holes poked in me that I should leak. I finally get out of there at nearly midnight. Katie and Andy walked the 6 1/2 miles from the house to the car, and then she clandestinely drove it around to where I was. She wasn't supposed to be driving without a licensed driver in the car yet. Oy. I was worried, but she did well. Prescriptions filled on the way home, tucked me in, and I slept off and on, with the help of meds, until morning.

I called my PCP's office first thing. He wouldn't take my calls, wouldn't return my calls, wouldn't schedule an appt for me. But he wouldn't tell his staff why either. I called my insurance company. What the heck do I do now??? They tried calling him. He wouldn't talk to them either. Finally, at 4pm they called me back. He told his receptionist to call them and tell them he was dismissing me from his practice for failure to follow his instructions. He told them he told me he was admitting me and I had refused to comply. That wasn't true! That's not what he said! At 4pm on a Friday he leaves me with no follow up care. Yeah, he was really concerned about me.

Got pretty upset. The customer service lady at the ins co was really nice. She said ok, let's not worry about that now. Let's worry about getting you a doctor so you can be seen. If worse comes to worse, you can go to the after hours clinic tonight. She'd call me right back. While I was waiting for her, I called the ER. I talked to the nurse who took care of me the night before and asked if I had to be seen if I was stable and doing ok. She checked with the doc and he said no, as long as you're ok you can wait til Monday.

The C/S rep calls me back and gives me the name of another doctor, same building, but not the same practice. Says he's highly rated, recommended by a number of people. They've called his office, and I'm to call to schedule an appt. I call them, they'll see me Tuesday. Call if I need him sooner or I get worse. Breathing a little easier now.

I spend the weekend and Monday in bed for the most part. Liquid diet, clear liquids only. I tried to convince Katie that beer or vodka were clear liquids but she wasn't buying it. hehehehe I was just kidding anyway.

Tuesday, I go to see my new doctor. I'm dreading this. Is he going to be a real ass like the other guy? Dr. K is greek, probably in his mid-50s, very soft spoken, incredibly kind. The first thing he did when he walked into the room was to put out his hand, shake mine, introduce himself, and tell me he was truly sorry for the way I'd been treated by my former doctor. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

He examined me, pronounced me doing much better, we talked a lot about diet and the things I have to stay away from, and he gave me a boatload of material to read. He also gave me a list of books to get from the library. He asked me why I wouldn't stay in the hospital and I explained. I asked if he thought I'd been unreasonable. He said, "When you go to sleep at night, do you sleep well knowing you're an excellent mother?" I said I didn't know about the excellent part but I know I do my best. He said, good, that's all that matters. I love this man. I love the heart he has for his patients.

Tuesday I went back to work and was talking with one of my coworkers. She said if I left AMA, the insurance company might refuse to pay the bill. Oh no. Oh damn. I called. Talked to the same lady I'd talked to on Friday. She said that was correct. I have an HMO, I"m supposed to follow the orders of my doctor no matter what. However, she just happened to also be the one who handled member appeals, so if it was denied, I could appeal it. She already knew all the background, she'd see what she could do to stop the denial of coverage before it happened.

I've spent the last month sweating it out. Worrying almost constantly. I got the statement from the ER. Big bucks. I worried more. Today I got a new statement from them. The insurance company paid all but $401.00.

The bill is paid. I have a new doctor that rocks. I can sleep a bit easier now. I cried when I opened that statement today. Good tears for a change.

Good tears. They're so much better than tears of grief, bitterness, sadness, pain. Much better.