The Cost of My Cure

I've reached my chemo midterms. Not only am I dealing with side effects and the regular sickness, but it's almost comical how there has not been one week of 2013 where the Cooper household has been free from illness and trips to some sort of medical professional or pharmacy. We've had multiple rounds of ear infections--all 3 boys have had single or double ear infections at least once. There has been the occasional upper respiratory problem with each of us, and at least 2 of us have not been able to shake that tell tale cough. Even when all started to seem well in the health department, we've made trips for well-checks/immunizations and one trip to Urgent Care for pink eye! At least nothing is dull around here.

Other than the inconvenience of sickness and trips to doctors and other appointments, the worst thing is all of this is the cost--both the drain financially and the frustration of trying to sort out and organize insurance claims, payments and refunds. I'm sitting here drowning in a sea of receipts and claim forms (55 pages of claims that have been processed so far), attempting to make sense of it all so that I'll have all of my information together to back up proof of the overpayment, in some cases, in order to send payments to cover outstanding balances. I'm also supposed to do all of this in between changing poopy diapers, playing Candyland, fixing mac and cheese, and keeping out of the way of the workers who are replacing cracked floor tiles.

So far this year, I have been to the following appointments and procedures:
1/14--mammogram, Cy Fair
1/16--biopsy, Cy Fair
1/17--follow-up appt. with Dr. Schmidt--diagnosed, Methodist West
1/17--initial appt. with Dr. Pollack, Methodist West
1/18--initial appt. with Dr. Naqvi, Houston
1/22--Pollack pre-surgical appt., M.W.
1/23--CT/PET scans--Excel, Houston
1/24--follow-up with Naqvi, M.W.
1/24--cardiologist--baseline echo, Christus St. Catherine
1/25--port surgery, MW
1/30--first chemo,MW
1/31--shot, MW
2/1--blood work, MW
2/5--chemo, MW
2/6--shot, MW
2/8--blood work, MW
2/12--chemo, MW
2/13--shot, MW
2/15--blood work, MW
2/19--chemo, MW
2/20--shot, MW
2/22--blood work, MW
2/26--chemo-MW
2/27--shot, MW
3/1--blood work, MW
3/5--chemo, MW
3/6--shot, MW
3/8--blood work, MW
3/12--chemo, MW
3/13--shot, MW
3/15--blood work, MW
3/17--appt. with Naqvi for possible blot clot, MW
3/18--ultrasound on arm, MW
3/19--chemo, MW
3/20--shot, MW
3/22--blood work, MW
3/26--chemo, MW
3/27--shot, MW
3/28--cardiologist for midterm echo, CC
3/29--attempted blood work, but closed for Good Friday, MW
4/1--2nd attempt for blood work, MW
4/2--chemo, MW
4/3--shot, MW
4/5---blood work, MW
4/9--chemo, MW
4/10--shot, MW
4/12--blood work, MW
4/16--chemo, MW
4/17--shot, MW
4/19--blood work, MW
4/29--ultrasound, blood work, MW

Summary:
2 trips to Cy Fair--13 miles x 2= 26 miles
2 trips to Christus St. Catherine--16 miles x 2= 32 miles
1 trip to Naqvi's Houston location = 20 miles
1 trip to Excel = 20 miles
45 trips to Methodist West--17 miles x 45= 765 miles

total miles traveled to date: 863
My Tahoe gets about 15 mpg, and gas is, what?...$3.00 per gallon? Add that to the list of expenses.

As you can see, it was a tough first quarter for Cooper & Cooper. The bills are piling up, but the tumor is shrinking. We've met my deductible ($3,000) AND my total out-of-pocket cost for insurance ($6,000) so the good news is that the rest of the year is pretty much care-free, medically speaking. Now I just have to sift through the confusion of what seems like a million appointments and procedures, all filed out of order and at different stages of the insurance company being caught up on facts and figures. We were paying everyone we saw at the beginning of the year, knowing we had a large deductible to meet. What we hadn't counted on were all the costs and specialists working in labs and behind the scenes, still billing. In the confusion, many people were overpaid. For example, we paid one lab over $400, and the actual amount we should've been billed was $19.01. I have the lovely job of now trying to work that all out and to fight to get refunds in order to pay other balances.

And tomorrow the hard chemo starts. Like I said, it's never dull around here.