hooray!

Guess what, guess what! I received a skinny letter from the hospital today. My skinny letter did not say that which I dreaded (where is our money??) but instead said "Legacy recognizes that medical bills are often unexpected and difficult to pay..." and went on to tell me my balance was ZERO! Woo!!!

I have already paid quite a bit toward various other doctors and services not covered under the "hospital bill" portion, but this was the big scary thing that has been hanging over my head for months. I've been thinking about it even when I'm not thinking about it. You know how it is.

Anyway, hooray! (and lest you worry that I am defrauding tax payers or taking vaccines from little babies -- which I HAVE ALREADY WORRIED ABOUT -- this is a private hospital which makes these assessments from on top of a big pile of foundation money. YAY!)

next on the agenda: INSURANCE! and lots of fun. The second part should be easy since friends are coming over in a few hours for craft night. Hooray!

edit: and in the spirit of WHY NOT? (and also because they made me laugh):
+If The Beatles Were Born Today
+Other Options Available On The New Poetry SUV
+Possible Titles for Future Sue Grafton Novels After She Runs Out of Letters.
+Horror Movie Titles on a Three-Letter Budget (and Subsequent Blurbs)

the waiting is the itchy part

This morning I woke up thinking of that Tom Petty song The Waiting. (everybody wakes up with a song stuck in their head/heart, right? RIGHT??) Why this song? Well, I do have a soft spot for Tom Petty, but I think this particular song was playing because I am doing a lot of in general waaaaayaaating right now. Everything in my ENTIRE LIFE is waiting (or so it seems) and it is making me crazy. er. Crazier. I know, I know -- time to turn that frown upside down and look on the bright side blah blah blah -- but I feel like someone replaced the inside of my skin with a cheap wool sweater and I am itchy itchy itchy. Not so much that it hurts, but I can't think of anything else. I have a waiting rash! An allergy to TIME. (okay, maybe not an allergy to time. although now I'm curious to know what would be the cure for an allergy to time? death? ointment? dietary supplements?)

Most of this waiting stuff is good. It's the next necessary step after some important first steps, and I have no doubt things will get moving soon. (although it is disconcerting when even my horoscope is all "think good thoughts, wait for years, and we'll see!") I know what has put the itching powder in my underpants: the evil elephant in my brain with an unending supply of itching powder is what. It's my freaking unknown final hospital bill -- 3 days in the hospital with no insurance causes its own special stressy hell. It's only money. If one has to have a problem, a problem that money can solve is better than a problem that no amount of money can solve, right? AND YET. I think if I just had a final number, I'd be fine. I know that it's right around 11,000 dollars as it stands, but my Financial Statement is currently under review. The hospital may knock a small or large portion off of the bill (they write off millions of dollars like this every year for the uninsured) or they may not knock any off at all. Obviously, I hope that they DO, but I will deal with what I have to deal with -- I just hate not knowing what that is!

You know what else? GWB can go directly to hell for any number of reasons, but wanting to tax insurance benefits should get him there a little bit faster. (giant incoherent rant deleted. summary of GIR: We need Universal Health Care in this country.)

In less itchy news, The New York Times has an interesting article on magical thinking. I do it a lot, but more as a method of self-comfort (which they talk about) than a compulsion. I'm not to the point where I can't function if I'm not wearing my lucky shoes or whatever (I have no lucky garments! see? I'm not crazy), but I will admit that a crappy day can be turned right around if I see someone carrying a book that says YES in huge letters or some other "sign." Anyway, it's an interesting article and I contend that indulging in that kind of thought in moderation is not only not-dangerous, it's beneficial to your mental health! AND way cheaper and less dangerous than other forms of self-comfort, like say.. heroin or krispy kreme donuts. (you know why I hate krispy kreme? There are many reasons, so I'll just hit the highlights: 1) I despise, despise that kind of kreativ spelling. It makes me go from serene to stabby in seconds. 2) to the krispy kreme evangelists: it's just a donut, people!! Maybe it's even a delicious donut, but seriously -- a DONUT! ) (did I mention that I feel itchy all over? It's sort of like ingesting waaaay too much caffeine.)

on that note: something to consider -- do you think it is possible to "think too much?" People say this to me, and on the one hand I know that I can over-think certain things (really? not you, jen!), but seriously... think too much? It's like saying "you breathe too much" -- it doesn't make any sense! That's what we DO. Just like lungs are for breathing, brains are for thinking, right? If people aren't thinking all the time then what the hell are they doing? (I don't mean necessarily deep thinking or profound thoughts -- just, you know, THINKING about stuff. ) I don't get it. If you can explain it to me, please do so. I promise I will think about it, but not too much (as if!) or too little -- just the right amount.

I can change bandages faster than you

Injury update: So, the swelling has gone down significantly. Now the first thing you notice is the bandage instead of my mutant lumpy jaw. This is good! the nurse at the wound clinic told me that everything was healing really well. I thought this meant I was almost done having to go down there, and she said "oh, no. you'll still have to come down for at least another week to ten days. it's really deep." And since the swelling's gone down, I can tell just how deep it is because I can feel the stuff they pack in there from the outside. The hole in my face (I believe that is the correct medical term) is right above my jaw line-- there is packing material right up to the corner of my mouth (!!!).
I was hoping when that the swelling subsided that The Hole would be right below my jaw, but it seems unlikely. But who knows? It's still somewhat swollen, so there's hope. Or even better, it'll be a cool-shaped scar -- then I can come up with some good scar stories that involve maybe... parachuting, fencing, cat burglary, time travel, piracy, cat fight, bar fight, or the time I was touring the chocolate factory and slipped on some fudge and fell backwards into a table and whew what a relief it was that nothing else happened and just then a giant knife (that I had sent into the air, unawares, when I knocked the cutting board with my elbow) fell from the sky and jabbed me in the face, or something...

In other news, lest this become all about The Hole in my face, all the time, I watched Annie Get Your Gun again Christmas night. Betty Hutton! Howard Keel! (I think Hugh Jackman would be great in the Frank Butler role, but I can't think of an actress today that could be Annie... I'm probably not thinking hard enough because my brain stops at Hugh Jackman.) There are things I love about this movie (more on that in a minute) and things I do not love at all, even one little bit, even if I listen to the insidious voice that says "hey jen, it was 1950 for god's sake! you can't hold them to the politically correct standards of today." To expect any kind of non-cartoon like treatment of indians in this movie is a futile pursuit, but because I like so many other things about it, that this thing is wrong pains me more. True, Chief Sitting Bull is the only character who is consistently not an idiot, but that distinction rides pretty close to the Magical Negro/ Noble Savage trope. ANYWAY, if you are in search of a sensitive/sensible portrayal of indians in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, this is not the movie for you! If you want to see every indian cliche in dazzling MGM color... you are in luck! Fortunately in the age of DVD you can easily skip around. Which I would recommend, so you don't miss...

My favorite scene in the whole movie is the Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better number. Why? Because, that's why! Seriously, though, I like it because it's the closest this movie gets to the kind of screwball antagonism that cheers me so. It's completely irrational and lovely. When it was just Annie mooning around after Frank it was cute for a while and then it was sad. And Frank -- who knows what he's thinking, other than feeling a little professional competition and having his (already giant) ego inflated because she's mooning around after him? But in this scene they have reached the stage of Mutual Irritation and the gloves come off. When you are arguing about who can sing softer, talk faster, buy cheaper, or knit sweaters, reason has left the building! It was here that I knew Frank cared about her since he was Just As Irritated as she was. (lesson: the people you love WILL drive you crazy, either occasionally or often; to pretend otherwise is to stick your head in the sand.)

(I couldn't find the picture I wanted on the internet, so I had to take a screen capture myself. This program makes it so easy! it's cross platform and FREE!)

'twas the week before christmas

Leslie brought me some appropriate reading material

Week before christmas: great time for shopping, baking, holiday cheer, or for a surprise stay in the hospital to treat a facial abscess! Okay, it was not really a great time to be in the hospital, but we don't always get to choose. I should say right now that I am well on my way to recovery and that every single human I interacted with at Good Samaritan Hospital was unfailingly kind to me -- the one person who was kind of abrupt (the surgeon) has so far gone on to behave like the stereotypical crank with a heart of gold. (Thought I should have stayed longer, yet was the one to spring me out, grouch grouch, grouch/ nice, nice, nice.)

here's a brief timeline of what I've been up to this week. Believe me, I would have rather been standing in line at the post office!

Sunday the 17th (evening): I can't believe I am getting a huge stupid zit between my mouth and jaw.

Monday the 18th: in retrospect, making comparisons between yourself and the elephant man, quasimodo, phantom of the opera, the beast (of beauty and the) is probably a sign that medical attention is required.

Tuesday the 19th: The day of optimistic whimpering. Errands were run with scarf in dramatic bank robber style. Pain increasing to the point where sleep was only available with the aid of old Tylenol with codeine tablets left over from wisdom tooth extraction.

Wednesday the 20th: spent entire day in pajamas whimpering (less optimistically) and taking Tylenol 3 every 4 hours until Mom came and made me get dressed to go to the emergency room.

.... hospital time....

emergency room: jabby jabby needles (which barely registered because my face hurt so much), blood drawn, the doctor telling me things that sounded insane like "you'll need to see a plastic surgeon, if this gets into your airway it could be deadly, you'll have to be admitted, these infections develop very quickly, etc." What seemed like one million years and one CT scan later, I was finally admitted upstairs to a room with a view of the christmas lights on NW 23rd and the west hills. Not exactly how I had planned to spend the day, but the pain was considerably less (god bless narcotics).

Thursday the 21st: Feeling somewhat better because the abscess started to drain on its own. Moved to a private room (view of the fremont bridge!) and got lots of phone calls and visitors which was nice because the hospital is boring if you're conscious. Still really tired from the infection and loopy from the medicine, so I couldn't really do stuff or read anything too complicated. The plastic surgeon came by at around 2, poked at my face (he said "let me get a q-tip" and then proceeded to poke at me with the pointed wooden end), said he would do the surgery, which should be easy and quick at 7pm. No more food or liquid for me! Managed to catch a repeat of the Colbert Report's "Guitarmageddon" episode, which I took as a good sign (and also found hilarious).

surgery: they wheeled me down in the bed I was in! It was the end of the day, so they let my mom and sister come down with me, although I sent them home so they could see "Guitarmageddon" for themselves -- also because my mom was getting fretful and worried. I wasn't too worried -- I think because they weren't going in and poking around my innards, just doing something on the outside. Anyway, if the hospital is boring for a patient who is still loopy enough to fall asleep every 20 minutes, it is Double Plus Boring for the long term visitor.

When they finally wheeled me into the operating room I knew everything was going to be fine because The Cure was playing on the stereo! (Just Like Heaven, which is about a dead girl, but I love the song, so whatever.) I got about 20000 sticky monitor things stuck to various parts of my body. Once I realized that the beeping I was hearing (over The Cure) was my heartbeat, I thought "I'll see if I can make it go slower" (it sounded fast and very unmusical to me), but that only made it go faster so I gave up. I later found out that my heart rate was elevated because that's what happens with a big infection. Anyway, the anesthesiologist (who was so nice, even though I heard him making rude puns as I was coming out of it in the recovery room), told me that he was going to give me some oxygen and he was sorry it smelled like plastic and then that he would see me in a little while and then I was OUT. I have absolutely no recollection of anything that happened in the OR beyond that point, and it's just as well. I hear there was "a lot of pus," which is all I needed to know. My face was still swollen because they packed the abscess with medicated gauze, but not nearly as painful. I'm sure the morphine helped with that, too.

speaking of morphine, I am fairly certain that's what made me think it was a great idea less than an hour after surgery to take pictures of the fremont bridge from my window. Of course in order to do this, I had to crawl over my bed because the IV wouldn't reach otherwise.... can you see where this is headed? It ended with me in the dark frantically trying to put the drippy now detached IV thing in the sink while I failed to notice that I was bleeding profusely through the IV site. Then I tried to clean up the blood, and ended up getting it all over before I gave up and fell back onto the bed until the nurse finally came. Good times! (I did get my picture after she put me back together, though.)

Friday the 22nd: Feeling so much better, and therefore 10000x more bored. I tell every single person I see (not that many, actually) that I feel SO MUCH BETTER, and that I should probably go home so that some sick person could have my room. The doctor doing rounds tells me that she "thinks about knitting 24 hours a day," and that she was going to wait until she heard from the surgeon before making any decisions about me. So, I sat around and waited for the surgeon. Drank thick milk and thick apple juice (this is what they serve in hell), because someone charted that I needed a pureed diet. The whole day was largely waiting for the surgeon, the surgeon whom I think actually forgot about me because the nurse (who was no doubt sick of my piteous, beseeching looks), finally called him and he came in in his street clothes. ... there was some negotiating -- he thought I should stay at least one more day and I disagreed. In the end he relented. It all turned out okay because the culture came back on the infection and it is the kind that is treatable with oral antibiotics. (which was a relief since everyone kept telling me that they usually only give 3-4 courses of this particular IV antibiotic because it is so hard on the veins and I had already had FIVE.) I get to go to the Wound Clinic once a day for a few days until it has healed up enough for me to dress the wound myself.

ANYWAY, the point of all of this is I have never even been in the hospital before, let alone had surgery and all that jazz. I'm glad I got it out of the way in 2006 so 2007 can be spent in more pleasurable pursuits.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate! (and take it from me, if there is stuff you wanted to get done but didn't and are stressing out about it -- it's probably no big deal and the people who love you will love you still.)