nlbarber

I haven't been posting updates on the ankle problem--it has not gone away despite 4 weeks in the air cast, 4 weeks (overlapped by a week) of 2x/week PT, and now 3 weeks breaking in and using the new cu$tom orthotic$. The current symptoms are these occasional stabbing or burning pains just behind the right inside ankle, sometimes spreading upward a little toward the tendon.

Today was the "how are the orthotics?" visit with the podiatrist. I told her that the orthotics themselves were fine--I'm past the stage of foot fatigue, have no issues walking in them, but....there's still this pain. She poked around a bit and proposed that this could be tarsal tunnel syndrome, possibly caused by varicose veins in the area. I've recently noticed some small varicose veins around that ankle, and it appears that you can have other varicose veins that don't show on the skin at all. The choices she offered for treating TTS were a compression sock, which I'd tried briefly after the last visit and stopped because it was so uncomfortable, or a cortisone injection.

After some discussion, I took the cortisone. (After I decided, Doctor said that in her experience, the compression sock people are back in 2 weeks for the shot.) On the pessimistic side, she also said "if it improves with the cortisone, we'll know it's TTS." I went off to my office with a chill pack for a 20 minute application, and just repeated that this evening. Only one round of burning pain post-injection so far, about 30 minutes ago.

I sure hope this works. I desperately need to get back to regular exercise, for both weight control and general health. I think I may have to admit that regular Jazzercise is just not going to be possible for some time longer, and go find an alternative. That I'll do regularly--that's the hard part.

Busy Friday...

Finally get my overdue perm at 9, then stop at the thrift store in search of new-to-me black pants (successful), then home briefly to change clothes and punch down the challah dough rising in the fridge. Off again to Petsmart for cat food, then Weight Watchers, lunch at the newly opened Alcove Coffee & Tea (moved from another location) just down from WW, home again. Quickly off to St. Joseph's medical complex for the annual mammogram. That accomplished, fight the building Friday PM traffic through Spaghetti Junction and around to Northlake to the grocery store. Parking lot cellphone consultation with sister-in-law leads to the purchase of a chuck roast for grilling. Home again, braid challah, marinate chuck roast. Grill the meat, bake the bread, eat both with veggies provided by sister-in-law, in company with sister-in-law and younger niece. Nephew is at friend's for a sleep-over, older niece and my brother at softball practice.

Reflection 1: spring must be approaching. After a brief temperature dip into the 20's and a few snowflakes spotted on Wednesday, we were back to 61 or so today. And there was still enough daylight to read the meat thermometer at the grill at 6:30. And I felt like grilling...and the result was wonderful. We all (well, except the nephew who rarely eats beef of any type) love this barbecued chuck roast recipe.

Reflection 2: on the inefficiency of health care providers. If they make a special call to me 2 days before a scheduled procedure (to my home number, thus requiring me to call back from work the next day), and verify name, address, birth date, doctor, emergency contact, and insurance, and provide me with a 'confirmation number' and tell me I must bring it with me....why don't they ask for the confirmation number? Why have me fill out a form which repeats much of this information, instead of printing it out from their database? I see they've started asking to see and copy a photo ID, too. Insurance fraud by people stealing the card, perhaps?

The weekend is over, and my "must do" task is not done: I haven't finished making the last of the decisions on the shopping list for the kitchen remodeling. Yet undone: sinks, faucets, and any cabinet inserts like spice cabinets and silverware drawers. Maybe I can do this at lunch time tomorrow and get it off to my designer.

I shall blame this inaction on the weather (incredibly hot and muggy--heat index was predicted to reach 105 or so today), a nice day of fannish activity yesterday (ASFS meeting in the afternoon, and I made it to my first housefilk yesterday at joyeuse13's, spending time at both events getting hints for my upcoming first trip to DragonCon), and some health stuff.

( TMI warning on perimenopause... )

In fact, he was almost ecstatic. When I saw him last October, prompted by vague chest pains (that turned out to be mostly acid reflux), my total cholesterol was 204, and the LDL/HDL breakdown was 137/37. In other words, the total level was marginal, the LDL ("bad cholesterol") was too high, and the HDL just barely made it into the good range.

This time, under the influence of drugs (Lipitor, though I've since switched to the cheaper Zocor), thirty pounds lighter, and eating a better diet, the total was 116, and the LDL/HDL was 61/42. The LDL seemed to be the cause of the most joy--though it may not hold that low with the drug change.

But today is for celebrating. I'll go back in 3 months to check it again.

Up to now, I'd managed to escape any sort of daily prescription medication--I think my last prescription may have been filled 2 years ago. But today my internist decided to put me on a statin called Crestor, as my CRP (a marker for heart disease risk) is elevated and my LDL cholesterol is also high. So, he writes the prescription at my morning appointment, and I truck off to my office and get immersed in Stuff.

Toward the end of the afternoon, I start thinking about getting the prescription filled, and decide to see what the Aetna Web site says it will cost. I also decide to check out the other drug that he just gave me some samples of, Nexium. That one is a test to see if it affects the chest/throat pain that started all this round of doctors and tests (and to some extent, the incentive for the weight loss attempt).

The Aetna site's Price-A-Drug is not very informative: it won't give me a cost, because neither of these drugs are allowed under my health plan. Information of a different sort, I guess... The doctor can request a "prior authorization" (somehow I don't think this phrase means what they think it does...) for me to get it, but if he does, the months' supply will probably cost me $80 (still a lot better than retail, I'm sure). I call my doctor's office and relate this to them, give them the phone number of the pharmacy I plan to use, and go back to Stuff.

This evening I got to the pharmacy to see what had transpired, and ended up with a pharmacist who couldn't grasp the concept that she was speaking in an arcane pharmacy/health insurance jargon to me. She finally got across to me that the doctor had called in a prescription for Lipitor to replace the Crestor (OK, fine), and they had filled it, but that it was "paid for" with cash because my insurance was invalid. "Paid for" was finally translated to "how it was marked in our pharmacy computer in terms of insurance"--that took me a while to grasp. Then I had trouble explaining to her the unlikelihood that my employer, the U.S. government, had randomly switched insurance carriers at the first of the year. (For those who don't know, there's a set of insurance options under the Fed. Employees Health Benefits Plan, and each employee gets to choose the coverage and the associated cost that they prefer. Thus I was sure that my health insurer was still my insurer, thankyouverymuch. Along with the evidence that I was logged into my account on their Web site 4 hours before, checking my personalized information.)

After much more of this non-communication, she tried putting the (now unneeded) Crestor prescription into the computer to see what happened. My insurance number again was kicked out as invalid, and she agreed to call the company to ask. Somewhere during that conversation I realized that the pharmacy had both the insurance card number and my birthdate in as identifiers, and that they gotten this information off my card. Bing! I found out this fall that the insurance company had a totally wrong birthdate for me, and got it corrected--but the card still had the bad one. I whispered this to the pharmacist, she changed the date in her computer, and all was copacetic. Although the Lipitor did cost me $40 for a month's supply. Must ask doctor if other statins will do as well for me.

And, if the samples of Nexium do indeed help the mysterious chest pain, I'll have to go repeat this lovely experience shortly.