It’s Over
I'm home from surgery. My surgeon reduced the price to $950 for the alloderm. Apparently the surgery center ordered too big of a piece so they over-nighted a new and smaller one.
The surgeon removed the screw from my tibia entirely. It was in pieces. I believe he said four. He had an orthopedic surgeon from the office where I go come in during the surgery and make sure everything looked ok. He said removing the screw created a substantial deformity in the bone but over time, it will fill in. He placed the alloderm, cut out the scar and I have no idea what it looks like. I'm wrapped up like a mummy and have to stay that way for a week. I also have to wear an immobilizer for a week and they recommended a couple days of crutches too.
It took about an hour for the surgery. I woke up with some minor discomfort. It seems to be getting worse so Mr. BBM is off to the pharmacy to get me the good stuff. This isn't going to be as easy as the last time and I have strict orders to do nothing for a week, followed by another six weeks of pretty much nothing too.
Right now, I'm just so glad it's over.
Out of My Hands
I am walking this very fine line today and feel like an absolute crazy person. I can be reduced to tears and a temper tantrum in mere seconds. I'm supposed to have surgery tomorrow. However, my surgeon's office is recommending I cancel the surgery. My options are to either cancel or pay $3,475.00 up front tomorrow. I don't know how many of you have $3,475.00 stuffed in your mattresses, but I don't. I'm lucky if I have $3.00 in my wallet at any given time.
My surgery has been scheduled for weeks. My insurance decided they wouldn't pay for the one part I desperately need, the alloderm to give me back tissue that is long gone, because they deem it "experimental" and "not medically necessary." They decided this last week, which gives me little time to get anything changed, especially since my surgeon was on vacation last week and will only arrive in the office within the next hour or so.
Today, my insurance company told my husband that my surgeon can request a peer to peer review and appeal the decision directly to the medical director. Today, they tell me this. Today. According to them, this wasn't even an option last week.
If they wouldn't have had their non-caring heads stuck up their lazy butts for the past several weeks, then perhaps I would be mentally getting into the surgery zone instead of figuring out how I can refrain from killing someone today.
To me, it's simple. Almost three years of problems need to be fixed now. I waited weeks to get in with this surgeon and weeks to get on his surgery schedule. It's been months since I begrudgingly went back to a surgeon for help. Months. If I cancel now, I won't be able to get back on the schedule for many more weeks. Then I'm back teaching. You can't take time off for surgery when you're an adjunct and teach two days a week. Which means, I have to wait. . . again. . .
I have to wait until I inevitably bump my leg again and the screw cuts me from the inside out, again. I have to wait and walk around with a painful knee for who knows how many more months. I have to wait again.
I could seriously throw my lap top across the room. I am more angry than I have ever been. I am an emotional wreck. Why can't anyone else understand how tired I am of dealing with this? Why can't anyone else understand that waiting is not an option. I am beyond frustrated. I am beyond tired. And I can't help but feeling like there isn't a soul in this world that gives a crap or can help me right now. It is out of my hands, and that is perhaps the worst possible feeling of all.
Self-Imposed Torture
Sometimes, when I want to torture myself, get all teared up and feel particularly sorry for myself, I go back and read what I wrote when I announced to the blog world that I was finally a black belt. I feel so far from the person I was on that day, just a little over a year ago. It feels like I'll never be back there sometimes.
I'm having surgery again in less than a week to remove the tibia screw and repair the atrophied tissue in my leg. Although my insurance will pay for the surgery itself, they won't pay for a crucial piece of the puzzle, the alloderm that the doctor plans on using to create tissue between my skin and bone, tissue that disappeared after a cortisone shot about 25 months ago. The alloderm is the most expensive part of the surgery.
In October, it will be three years since the initial injury to my knee. In my head, I know that there are people out there dealing with many things worse than my stupid knee. There are people with cancer, and people with injuries that have taken away their ability to ever walk. I feel silly feeling so sorry for myself, but it's no lie that my life has not been the same since the injury. It's hard not to feel a little bit sorry for myself.
It's especially hard when, through no fault of your own, you're stuck with a protruding screw (a problem less than 3% of patients deal with) and tissue atrophy from a cortisone shot (something less than 1% of people experience). I have bad luck sometimes. I accept that. But this is some seriously craptastic luck.
I've had people tell me to get a lawyer for years. Maybe it's the fault of the screw manufacturer. Maybe I never should have received that cortisone shot. I did everything I was supposed to do, and still I'm facing another surgery. I don't know how I feel about trying to blame someone else for this situation, but I'm positive it's in no way my fault. It's hard not to blame someone else. I didn't do this to myself and I don't deserve this.
Throughout the years of this injury, I've had many highs and lows. Today was definitely a low and I told Mr. BBM tonight that I've crawled back into that mental dark hole in the ground and am staying there for the time being. Let him deal with the insurance company. Right now, I'm useless, reduced to a heap of tears with even the hint of an annoyed sigh on the other end of the phone. That's not normally me, but it's me for now.
I miss my family at the dojo so incredibly much and being around them this past weekend, to watch some of my friends test, and for womens self defense training, can only be described as bittersweet. Everyone wants to know why I'm not in my gi, and I'm starting to feel like a broken record when it comes to my knee.
I'm not a complainer. I'm not someone who thrives on attention from injuries. I'd rather blend into the background and just learn something new or have a mental break-through on a kata. I'm hoping that next week I'll be on my way to being myself again. Without karate, I'm just not me.
Not Medically Necessary and Other Nonsense
On Thursday, I got a call from the surgery center where I'll be having surgery next week. They told me what my co-pay would be and everything seemed to be good to go.
On Friday, things changed.
It took one call from my doctor to reduce to me to a crazy lady who didn't know if she wanted to scream, cry, hit someone, crawl into a dark hole, or all of the above.
My insurance denied the surgery claim.
The plan for next week is that the plastic surgeon is going to open me up, remove the screw in my tibia, clean up the mess that is inside my leg, attach a piece of alloderm (commonly used for breast reconstruction surgery to attach implants to actual human tissue), cut out the nasty scar I have now, and close me up from the inside out.
The insurance has said this is "not medically necessary" and that alloderm is only approved for use in the "breast." They're also saying this surgery is "experimental," to which I'd like to say "Of course it is, you morons, because how many people have the 'common' problem of having a screw back out of their bone, complicated by the fact that they have no tissue in that area which means that the skin is basically indented and transparent. Oh, and it bruises and bleeds a lot. The screw also cuts me from the inside out if I happen to graze it on anything, even lightly."
So, in the world of medicine, where it takes almost two months to get a surgery scheduled and even longer to get an actual physician to call you back, I need two letters of medical necessity from a plastic surgeon and my orthopedic surgeon, by like Tuesday (as in tomorrow). As if that's going to happen.
To say that I am frustrated would be an understatement of universal proportions.
Because I knew I wasn't going to be able to handle speaking to anyone about anything regarding this, Mr. BBM took over and called the insurance company and my plastic surgeon's office.I tackled the office of my ortho guy and the lady on the other end of the phone from me made the mistake of saying "Humph, well I can't guarantee that he can have a letter for you." Yeah, because it's SO hard for a physician to dictate a letter and have someone type and fax it.
She was about ready to hang up the phone, when I reiterated that my ortho guy said he would do whatever I needed him to do so I can get this taken care of and that he, himself, had offered to write a letter for me. I told her that I didn't wait until the last minute to ask him. The insurance waited until the last minute to deny the claim, not even two weeks before surgery. This isn't my fault and I clearly need some help. She repeated her line and I had an internal debate about whether or not me telling her off would expedite the process or not. Instead, I opted to tell her that the screw is soon going to come out of my leg on its own if it's not fixed. I also gave her the visual of it cutting me from the inside out. I'm hoping that will motivate her to be a bit more helpful. My gut tells me it won't.
In the medical profession, people are just so used to saying the word "no" that it seems they say it without even considering the desperate person on the other end of the phone. Mr. BBM tells me I am having this surgery whether it's approved or not, and that we'll spend our lifetimes fighting the charges if necessary. I just wish something about this whole knee business would be easy, just once.
How To Teach Your Kids Stranger Safety
How do you teach your kids stranger safety without scaring them?
We've all seen the news and terrible things about child abduction. A lot of people get the attitude that they have when they were teenagers themselves. "It can't happen to me." "It can't happen in this neighborhood." "It can't happen to my child."
I bet that's what Jaycee Duggard's parents thought too. . .
It's a scary thought.
After many years of martial arts training, and after hearing many horror stories, and then having two daughters…talk about stressed out.
Shortly after we moved into our neighborhood, my daughter took off on her bike down the street and around the corner. She didn't come back as soon as I would have liked her to round that corner and I was a wreck. Here, she had decided to go around the block and while I was walking down the street to find her, she pulled her bike in the garage and went inside. I didn't know it and I started searching frantically. Several neighbors were outside and I began yelling to them and asking them if they had seen her. In my head were images of a car pulling up beside her and throwing her and her bike in the trunk. I was sick about it.
My one neighbor, recognizing my panic, yelled across the street to me, "It's a safe neighborhood. That's why we moved here." She was trying to be nice and calm me down, but all I could think was "Yeah, it's safe until it's not anymore." I didn't want to be the first person to break the unsafe ice.
When I went back in to recruit my husband to help me in my search, I found her sitting on the sofa watching the Disney Channel. I wanted to kill her and rejoice with relief all at the same time. Since then, I've taught my daughters to stay within view of me (although my 9-year old is enjoying greater freedom these days which is a whole other scary issue). But how does one go about teaching children about stranger safety without scaring them half to death? And how does one teach a child that the biggest threat they face isn't necessarily from a stranger, but rather from someone your child already knows? Over 95% of bad things that happen to kids are perpetrated by someone your child already knows.
Most often, people who intend to do your child harm will start a "grooming process" where they gradually build up your child's trust in them. This can come in the form of allowing your child to do something that you might not allow them to do. They also work on the comfort level of the parent so that parents trust these people as well. The Safety Kids instructor at my dojo, D. Nowicki, strongly recommends that every parent read "Protecting the Gift" by Gavin DeBecker. A mastermind of the human psyche (both victim and predator mentality), his book "The Gift of Fear" is a must-read as well.
There is a fine line between scaring them so much that they can't sleep at night and not telling them enough to be safe. Parents have to find a happy medium.
At my dojo, they teach a class called "Safety Kids." By combining fun and games, kata and self defense, and some basic stranger safety skills, it is introduced in a safe and non-scary environment while still getting the point across. But not everyone has a Safety Kids program nearby.
So here are a couple pointers for parents that I've found really work with my kids, and I've seen it work in the Safety Kids program that my daughter did for several years. . .
First, teach them this rule that has no exceptions: "Ask first before you go anywhere with anyone for any reason. And if you can't ask first, the answer is NO!" D. Nowicki says this: "Predators need privacy to do their dirty work. You are your child's best defense. Your child needs to check with an adult that is in charge of them. At home it is you (parents); at school it is their teacher; after school it may be a babysitter or Grandma. If your neighbor comes into your yard and asks your child to help him get something out of the car, even though he may have done it a thousand times before, he still needs to come check with you first."
Second, teach your kids your first and last name. In a department store of screaming children and desensitized parents, if your child knows to yell your first and last name, you'll hear them faster than if they're just yelling "Mommy!" Think about how many Moms are in the store at one time! If you explain it to your children in this way, they're more likely to remember to yell your real name. It can be presented in a less scary fashion too. "Hey sweetie, if you lose Mommy around the clothing racks, yell my first and last name so I'm sure to hear you. Let's practice!" Practicing is key to making sure they remember to do it! Role play is a wonderful thing.
While we're on the topic of "lost in the store," another thing you can tell your child is to "glue their feet to the floor." Kids love to pretend crazy things like this anyway, and this is a great tool to keep them from wandering even further out of range. If they stay put, you'll find them faster! Although it seems unlikely that your child would do this, in a panic you just never know, so tell them to NEVER leave the store. If someone comes to their aid as they're standing in one place and yelling your first and last name, your child can tell them to find you.
Third, at Safety Kids, they always teach kids to take a giant step back when a stranger talks to them. Martial artists know how crucial it is to establish space when being confronted by someone in a threatening way. It's no different with children. That casual step back could mean the difference between someone grabbing them or not. Teaching your children to keep some space between them and other people is a good idea. You can teach your kids to take that step back without scaring them, by simply telling that that establishing space between themselves and people they don't know is a good idea. They don't have to imagine all the things parents do in their heads. If you repeat this rule enough and practice it with them, they'll remember it.
Fourth, warn them about people who may seem nice ("Can you help me find my lost puppy? Would you like some candy?) by telling them that it's not safe to take anything from strangers and that if there's a lost puppy, they should come and tell an adult they know and trust instead of searching for it on their own. Other things predators might do or say: asking for directions, asking for help unloading a van, or even asking for help getting a book at the library when the person is on crutches (This technique was used successfully by Ted Bundy). Things you can teach them are the following: Adults don't need help from children. They get help from other adults. If an adult asks your child for help, then your child should come find you so you can help. The other important thing to tell your child (and this goes for bullying at school too), is that no one has the right to touch you, move you, or do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable. The best way to get someone to stop is to say, "Stop or I'll tell." D. Nowicki says "predators go for the weak. The thing they fear is being discovered." And remind your child that they should tell whether the person stops or not.
With women's self defense classes, we teach "Avoid, Escape, Report," and with children, we teach "Say No, Get Away, Tell Someone." It's crucial that your child tells someone until they find someone who believes them.
Finally, it's important to teach your children the best people to ask if they need help. Statistically speaking, the best person to ask is a woman. Sorry guys, but 95% of predators are men, not women. If you're out somewhere and you need to ask a stranger for help, you have a 1 in 10,000 chance of having a predator come to your aid. However, if you choose the stranger to ask for help, your odds get a lot better. You have a 1 in 100,000,000 chance of asking a predator for help. You're more likely to have a winning lottery ticket and get struck by lightening while wearing socks that don't match on a Tuesday, says D. Nowicki. When you need help, talking to a stranger can be the right thing to do. Kids need to know that strangers aren't always bad people, but rather just people they don't know.
If your child is lost in a store and needs to ask for help, their best bet is to ask a Mom who has other kids with her. Statistically speaking, their next best bet is to ask any other woman for help. D. Nowicki suggests walking around a big store with your kids and asking them who they would ask for help if they couldn't find you. Let them make smart choices and have them explain their answer. Then let them try asking that person what time it is with you nearby. You can teach them that not all stranger interaction is a bad thing. They just need to do it in a smart way.
Culturally, women are brought up to be nice and children are raised to respect their elders. It's important to teach them that it's ok to say "no" to an adult and that they don't have to do what an adult wants them to do just because that person is an adult.
Last but definitely not least is an important fact. Sometimes a little bit of fear drives the point home in just the right way. There are scary things happening in the world around us at times, and it's just not possible to shelter your kids from everything, all the time. We teach them not to chase their ball into the street because cars might be coming. They know what can happen if they chase that ball without looking first. If they run into the street, they could get hit and hurt, or even worse. If a child is having a particularly difficult time following that rule, as parents, we ramp it up and infuse a little fear. It's not always a bad thing to introduce fear. It's just important that you do it in the right way.
For more information on keeping your children safe, visit the Safety Kids website. Thank you to D. Nowicki, the Safety Kids teacher at my dojo, for a wealth of help with this post.
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