Doctors Updates

I've had quite a few doctor appointments from my last update.  I usually update after each one, but I've been feeling kind of lazy.

Last friday I went to Hemey to get my Procrit shot, but we ran into a problem with my insurance.  You may recall back in October I had decided to opt-in to my company's insurance plan.  I had opted out the year before since I was covered under my husband's plan and my company offered us a cash incentive for opting-out.  I thought I was healthy at the time and rarely went to the doctor.  How things have changed!  This year I decided to get insurance through my company so that I would have dual coverage.  When you have dual coverage, your insurance is primary and the one through your spouse is secondary.  (Also for those interested, if your children are covered by two insurance policies, the parent who's birthday comes first in the calendar year is the primary.)  Anyway, getting to the point, I forgot that I would need to get pre-authorized for my Procrit shots under my new insurance policy.  Because of this, there were problems with my billing, so I wasn't allowed to get my Procrit shot for the week.  They turned me away and said they would call me when I could come in for my next shot.

After that I headed down to the laboratory to get my bloodwork done.  Rheumy had faxed in my order.  I pulled a number and waited my turn only to find out that I was at the wrong laboratory.  I was in the "Medical Plaza," not the "Physician's Tower" of the hospital.  Wouldn't you think that the tower with all the doctors offices in it would be called "Physician's Tower" and the one with the hospital would be called "Medical Plaza"?  Apparently that is not the case.  They were able to call the other location to fax over the order, but I already felt like my day was off to a rough start.

Next I headed to my Opthalmologist for my annual eye exam.  I don't have a name for her yet...guess we'll go with Opthy.  Luckily everything went smoothly at Opthy with no real surprises or setbacks.  Because I am taking Plaquinil, she needs to check for drug toxicity and damage to my retina, which is a side effect of the drug.  She had taken a baseline image of my eye a year ago when I started Plaquinil.  Everything looked alright.

I was finally done with doctors for the day and had decided to take the rest of the day off from work.  Hubby and I went to eat some sushi for lunch.  Yum!

The next day, I had an appointment with Rheumy.  My blood counts were looking better.  Not great, but back to my "normal" lows.  We decided to stay with the same drug cocktail and check back in 8 weeks.  I tend to judge my progress by how far apart my appointments are, and 8 weeks is pretty good!  So far it is the longest I've gone between appointments.

Yesterday I got a call from Hemey's office saying that they hadn't heard back from the insurance company yet so not to come in for my shot this week.  I haven't been feeling too bad despite missing last week's shot, but was a little worried about missing two weeks.  I am kind of glad to be on the Prednisone, because I think that is helping to keep my energy up a bit.

Today at work I got the call.  Insurance came through and I can get my shot!  Who knew I could ever be so excited about getting a shot?! 
- a little lupie -