The Latest News, Since There Hasn't Been Much To Report Until Now

I know it might seem as though I have completely dropped off the radar, but I'm still here. I'd like to tell you all that I've had a miraculous healing, but, sadly, that isn't the case. For a while there I was in what you could call Kaiser-limbo (sorry Mom), but then I finally had to put my foot down and call Member Services and this is the lowly tale: My primary doctor ordered an MRI of my spine to see if there was any plaque on it and a couple of days before my having said MRI, I read an article that it's best to have those kinds of MRIs done with contrast due to the patient's breathing and the pumping of the heart tending to blur the outcome. So the next morning I call the appointment center to leave a message for my doctor, only to find out that she was going to be out of office until after my MRI. So, on a whim, I asked if there were any earlier openings with the chief of Neurology (I already had an appointment for August 23rd). The call center person says: "You don't have an appointment with the Neurologist on the 23rd," to which I replied "Yes I do!" So she puts me on hold for a minute while she looks on her computer and when she comes back she says: "On one system it says that you do have an appointment and on the other system it says that you don't, which means that your appointment has been canceled." Imagine my HORROR! She said the next available appointment that the chief had was for September 20th! Naturally, being me, I started to cry! I accepted the appointment, but I told her that I couldn't understand why my appointment had been canceled and nobody had notified me. So when Member Services opened (the little stinkers don't open until 9am and don't answer their phones until well after that), I called and filed a complaint. The person I talked with PROMISED that a supervisor would be calling me back THAT day, so I waited all day to be called back and received NO call. So, the next day, I called again and talked with someone else and was told that it takes 3-5 days to receive a call back on a complaint. I told her, that's all well and good, but I was promised a call back THAT DAY and did not receive one. If the woman I had spoken with had given me her name, I would have filed a complaint against her, but she didn't. I told her that I feel as though Kaiser is waiting for me to die and, essentially, I am slowly dying because I do not eat much of anything, so I am slowly wasting away, so she gave me my case manager's number, but patched me through to her voice mail and I left her a message. THREE HOURS LATER she calls me back and I give her my grievances.

The next day my case manager calls me back and says she can get me in to see the chief of Neurology on August 29th, so I accept the appointment. Then about three or four days later, she calls again and can get me in the next day! So, when I go to see the Neurologist, I check in and put my slip in the box and when the nurse pokes her head out and gets it, she turns back into the office and says: "She has arrived!" All snooty! Like I've done something personally offensive against her or something! At any rate, the chief took almost an hour looking me over and said that he doesn't think that I have MS (Multiple Sclerosis), but that he's not really sure what is going on with me. He did blood work and ordered another MRI (but called it an MRV) to see how the blood is draining from my brain. He was also the first Neurologist to actually watch me walk down the hall and see how off my gait is, so he's sending me to physical therapy, though that has yet to happen.

We got the results back from my MRV (MRI) and it came back "unremarkable", which is code for "normal". It's good news, but when you have migraines that last for days on end and lay you out flat (like I'm going through right now [or else I wouldn't be typing this at nearly 4am]), it really kind of baffles you. My blood work, however, came back showing that my folic acid, thiamine, and vitamin B1 are all low, so I have to take a vitamin B complex which is turning out to be rather complex (insert corny drum beat here). The thing is, you have to take it with a meal, I don't eat, ergo, a problem. I feel so...sick when I take it, it's not even funny, but it's the only thing that has everything in it that I need, so it's been kind of rough. I'm doing my best to tough it out until I see the Neurologist on the 7th and see what he has to say...maybe he has a better solution...I don't know.

That's the scoop for now. I hadn't written for a while because you can only write about bumping into the walls and throwing up so much before you have people doing the same thing!