Playing Catch Up

So where to begin? The State Fair seems as good a place as any. We had a super fun time at the California State Fair. The first year it was just Aaron and I, which was magical. This year we went with Jon, Josh, Sean, and Sean's lady-friend Amanda and had a great time. I sprained my ankle mysteriously the week prior, so I was a little concerned I may not be able to go at all. Vicodin saw me through it.

The day after we all got together for drinks and a game of Arkham Horror. It being Amanda's first time, she got to choose the Old One that would seal our fate. She blindly chose Cthulu. Oh noes! Much to our surprise, we did actually did really well. The terror track barely rose at all and thanks to Josh's suicide bombings, we wound up winning the game. Against Cthulu. /flex

That paragraph likely only meant anything to about five of you, so for everyone else I apologize.

So about my ankle then...

Several weeks ago my ankle began to hurt. At the time I thought, "My, this is uncomfortable," but didn't think anything of it. Mostly because I could not recall having done anything to injure it. The next day the entire exterior part of my foot was bruised. The day after that, my ankle was so swollen that the bone looked like my kneecap. I called my doctor to set up an appointment, but they were not able to get me in until the following week, so instead Aaron took me to the emergency room.

At the emergency room they took an X-ray and determined that the bone was not broken. They diagnosed me with a major sprain, gave me an ACE bandage and some crutches, then sent me on my way. I went to my doctor later on for a follow-up, as directed, and she confirmed the diagnosis. Since the swelling and bruising were still present (albeit way better than it had been) she gave me prescription strength Naproxen and told me to take it easy fro an additional two weeks.

Four weeks to heal a sprain, wtf did I do?

My doctor suspects that recovery is slowed by my neuropathy. Since I cannot feel my feet, I forget the extent of my injury and do things a person in my situation would normally find too painful to do -- ultimately refreshing the damage. If it isn't better by the next appointment, I'll have to go to physical therapy. Meh.

Speaking of my neuropathy, I called Blue Cross to schedule a hearing  and they said they would be sending me something in the mail within 2 weeks. Well, 2 weeks passed and I had not received anything, so Monday I called to inquire as to why. The person over the phone could not figure out why my appointment had been declined and needed to make some calls in regards to find out more information. Once she had done this, she said, she'd call me back in a day or so. Tuesday night no one had made any attempt to contact me at all, so this morning (Wednesday) I called again.

This man was far more helpful. While he also could not find ANYTHING on file as to why my appointment with a Neurologist had been declined, he kept me on the line while he made a bunch of phone calls trying to figure it out for me. What it came down to was one of two reasons, neither of which are related to my health whatsoever.

The first: the loopy receptionist who left us waiting in the neurologist's office last month? Well she also works at my Primary Care Physician's office and when she filled out the paperwork for the insurance company to approve -- she spelled the neurologist's name wrong. Completely wrong. So when the insurance company ran a check to make certain this guy was part of their plan, they could not find him on record. So they thought my doctor had tried to schedule me an appointment with a doctor outside of my group and declined the appointment.

The second: my doctor's name is Irina. The office she works for is Greenberg. Greenberg is not her name. The insurance company did not recognize my primary care physician as being the referral doctor because they mistakenly thought my P.C.P. was Greenberg. Therefor when the request came through it was denied because they assumed the referral was made by an outside doctor.

In other words: herp derp.

In either case no reason was ever filed by the insurance company, so there was no way to know which of these was the case and in turn, who was really at fault. Furthermore because there was essentially no record of the appointment, let alone it having been declined, the man suggested I simply go back to my doctor and have her submit the paperwork over again. Though he also filed a grievance on my behalf, just in case. So at least there is a record about my complaint in case I encounter an issue like this again.

Unrelated, many of you have probably noticed many of my updates on bookface recently have to do with Neelix. Essentially he injured himself and compulsively licks and scratches at the wound making it worse. A cone around his neck would fix the problem, if the place where he had injured himself were not his gd neck! So instead he requires constant supervision. This means Aaron and I have to take turns staying up all night caring for him.

He gets Vetricyn 3-4 times per day as well as the area thoroughly (but gently) washed and at night he gets a gauze pad put in place, secured by a bandage made from the cuff of a sock I hemmed to suit the purpose. We tried using bandages but he would just get his tongue or nails stuck in the knit and ruin it. The cotton is much better to that end.

He will undoubtedly get better, the wound was never so bad to actually endanger his health, it just needs to be taken care of so he doesn't make it worse. The fur is growing back and it's no longer raw from being licked, so that's good. I'll definitely be buying more Vetricyn in the future though. It fights bacteria, viruses, fungi and increases oxygenation of wounds to speed healing. To anyone with a pet, you should definitely keep some of this handy. No matter what the problem (allergies, laceration, puncture wound, insect sting, etc.) it really does help.

In the meanwhile we're stressed and seriously sleep deprived. We consider it practice for the future, when we have babies. Only we don't have the comfort of knowing he'll grow out of this. Who'd have thought a pet could be more work than an actual child?

On the subject of cats...

Last week Aaron brought me some beautiful orange lilies, just because. In a fit of jealous rage (because the cat likes to fancy herself cat-wife) Intruder knocked the vase over onto my desk splashing water onto my laptop. It wasn't very much water, and it didn't appear to have gotten beyond the keyboard, so there was no reason to assume the worst. Not until the keyboard randomly began inputting whatever the hell it wanted with no actual contact. I powered it down and waited 36 hours before turning it back on to let it dry out. Normally that's all it really takes when electronics get a bit wet.

Sadly, even after it was all dried out the problem persisted. I was hoping to get at least another year out of this laptop before needing a new computer, but looks like I no longer have that luxury. I had my mother ship my old laptop out to me from Ohio, so that I at least had something reliable to use. Though that one has maybe half the gaming capacity the other one had, so it doesn't bode well there.

In other news, school starts soon. I don't know if I'll actually be attending though. Much to my dismay all of the classes I actually want/need to take were completely filled up -- to the point of there not even being an available wait list. I can try crashing classes and just begging to be let in, but given how full they apparently are, I get the feeling I just may wind up having to wait until next semester.

Not a HUGE deal, but I was really looking forward to taking Sign Language with Aaron, and also not being home alone while he is at class. No sense letting it get to me though, I've had quite enough stress lately to deal with.

On that note, I anticipate wedding planning kicking into official capacity this fall, once I get a better feel about which month precisely will work best for an outdoor Autumn wedding. Any advice to that end is sincerely encouraged. Having never been married before, I obviously do not possess much know-how here. Tips, tricks and even things you may think of as mundane, I'd be happy to hear-out.