When I got home last night, after driving way too far to do some fruitless shopping and eat at a food court, I had a horrible headache. Since they put me on lopressor to attempt, unsuccessfully, to keep my heart rate at a reasonable level (say 100 bpm or so), I've had a pretty constant, generally low-grade migraine. I don't really think it's a good thing to fuck with someone's blood pressure when they have chronic migraines, but hey, I'm no third year resident. Generally though, when the headaches get to the point where my whole head is pulsing and I truly wish it would just explode already, I can take my sleeping pills, pass out, and wake up with only a baseline headache - not horrible, not something I want to keep having, but not horrible.
But this morning my throbbing head woke me up at 6:30, along with a sore throat and chills. I drug myself to the kitchen and sucked down a glass of ice water and then took my temperature. My usually balmy 97.5 had rocketed up to 101.5. Shitty. I usually run a low-grade fever of around 99.5 or so when I'm having an autoimmune flare, but this, this is above and beyond and just fucking ridiculous after being in the hospital for four days without going over 100.
After taking four tylenol, my fever dropped down to 100.5. I never get sick, like "normal" sick, but it seems that being "abnormal" sick has made the process easier. I got myself some ice water, some toast, arranged the pillows just right and curled up with Stephen King's "Cell", which I'm reading for the second time and enjoying just as much as I did the first. After a couple hours of reading, my eyelids got too heavy to make out the words and I gave in to the inevitability of sleep, waking up about six hours later. The fever was back, well I should say the full-blown fever was back as it never actually went away.
BF came home soon after and attempted to get me to eat something legitimate. I refused, but he made me some cinnamon-sugar toast. I don't know if that's legitimate food, but everything else sounded totally unappetizing. So we sat around and watched TV and I tried to be comfortable on the couch. Totally boring night. The fever still keeps coming back. I keep taking enough tylenol to keep it to a dull roar. God, I just realized how terribly boring this post is. No climax. Rather repetitive. Ah well...I guess "normal" sick isn't really much to talk about.
Alright, how about this little gem - I got a call from the hospital's billing department about two hours before I was discharged on Monday. The voice at the other end of the line identified herself and then tersely informed me that my health insurance had "termed" June 30th. What?! I had to ask her to explain what the hell she meant as I had no idea what she meant by "termed". Once she explained it, well, I really had nothing to say. I was shocked and there were a million things running through my head. First was how on earth was I going to pay for a hospital visit without health insurance. Of course then there was the fact that I thought I knew that I had purchased a full year's worth of health insurance through my college last September. But there's just something about someone dropping a bomb like that on you that makes everything that you know seem very uncertain. Maybe my health insurance had expired when I ceased to be a student? Maybe I just wasn't paying attention and had screwed up royally? But then there were the prescriptions that I had filled during the last two months and the doctors appointments and the echocardiogram, ultrasound, gallbladder study...You get the point. Thankfully everything is online now and I was able to easily get onto the IBX website and check out my policy. I'm covered. I don't know what kind of crack the billing department is smoking, but freaking out patients, making them think they're going to be responsible for thousands of dollars worth of hospital bills, not cool.
It did turn out to be a blessing in disguise of sorts though. I thought that my coverage was up on September 30th. I'm lucky enough that the company that BF works for offers health coverage for domestic partners, so I can continue my coverage in a few easy steps, but I thought that I didn't have to think about it for another month. Turns out my coverage is up August 31st and I have to deal with all of the details Right Now.
In order to officially prove to the insurance company that we're "domestic partners" there actually have to be legal documents in place that tie us to one another. Who knew? We already have a lease together, so I spent some time this evening putting together a will, of which he is a beneficiary, and a durable power of attorney, so he can control all of my assets. Yay! Neither of these documents actually means anything as I have no assets, unless you count a seven year old Jetta that I won't actually own until next May, but that worth...well I try not to think about that. So after a few signatures and a trip to the notary public on Monday I won't have to worry about my health insurance again ever, well hopefully.
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