Final Takedown

My (hopefully) last surgery is now scheduled: Monday, May 8th.  This is ten weeks after the last surgery and two days after the Jimmy Fund FitFest.  I'm still not allowed to lift anything so my performance at the FitFest may be less than stellar.  That said, if I did it last year, just two weeks after debilitating radiation treatment, I will probably be okay.  I'm speaking again too, did I mention?  I need to update my speech.

I haven't freaked out in the same way I did after scheduling surgery number three.  This last one is supposed to be much easier and quicker, and with less pain and fewer post-op hospital days, although still more than truly needed, as they wait for your GI function to wake up before they discharge you.  Pre-op appointments are on 4/27, which also happens to be my daughter's 17th birthday.  I will probably freak out then.

In other news, in looking to update the cost of my cancer, I realized that the medical supply vendor I use owes me a little bit of money, due to timing of my orders and when they receive the insurance payments.  While researching the discrepancy I realized I only get an estimate of benefits statement from BCBS when there is a remaining balance due per that statement.  I couldn't find the full list of claims via the BCBS member portal either.  I contacted them and they are helpfully gathering every single claim between July of 2015 to date (all 251 of them) and will email me a summary of this information in the next 30 days.

I think this means that the $200K in costs that I had directly observed via these EOB statements is potentially a piddling amount.  I think it means the actual costs are potentially significantly much much higher.  This is not an April Fool's joke, either.  This will be interesting.