rain and paperwork and more in step

Monday morning and it's back to the radiation clinic.

Ten minutes being zapped, all very efficient. Although there is some disappointment: I see lights flashing but it is not x-rays hitting my brain... it's just, lights flashing. Not even flashing, really. As the zapper rotates around my head it hides the room lights. Then doesn't hide them -- which is when I see lights... Oh well.

Home by bus in what the Irish could call a misty morning: light rain, hardly worth worrying about... if you're in Ireland. The wind, though, means that the "mist" is unavoidable. My jacket keeps me dry, my trousers get damp, it's lucky all I have is cancer and not a cold :-)

I spend an hour or so writing letters. Real letters -- snailmail -- that is. To two people who handle snailmail better than email... though without a printer at home it will be even more days before they get these letters. Still, I enjoy the writing & the getting-it-onto-paper process. Just as well, since current circumstances mean that lots of people -- including these two -- get more letters than usual. I'm not sure if everyone wants regular updates -- too bad, I want to send them :-)

Then there is some more complicated paperwork:

My medical insurance fund has sent an email to tell me that a claim has been rejected. The email includes two reference numbers -- neither of which mean anything to me. All claims -- which I submit online -- are identified by the date & time of submission. Which is not in the rejected-claim email.

As far as I can tell -- there is no way to relate the rejected-claim email to the actual claim that I submitted.

Oh, wait, not quite true: There is a doctor's name. So I could look through every submission, looking for that name. Except that some claims were via a scanned copy of paper, others via an electronic page supplied by the provider. Some claims may have gone directly from the provider to the insurer... Too complicated for me! I open a chat window:

I am told the date and time of the submitted-but-rejected claim. The chat person -- employed by the insurer to help customers -- can't find any record of the last claim that I submitted. Nor can she tell me how to relate the reference numbers in the rejected-claim email to any information that I can access... It's a mess!

Finally... I recreate a claim that seems to have been submitted two days earlier. When I recreate it -- I can see that one of the submitted documents is now unreadable... I guess that it was also unreadable the first time. So I make notes on it to explain that this is a duplicate claim and resubmit a readable copy. And, for good measure -- resubmit the claim which I can see but which is apparently invisible to the insurer's employee...

I also add a suggestion that the claim system needs improving. Making a claim is very easy. Knowing which claim has then been rejected -- or accepted -- is very, very difficult.

Medical treatment is easy -- it's the paperwork which is the real challenge :-)

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Then I phone the Minister for Health.

Have I mentioned my emails to the Minister? Asking for a meeting. I'm offering to solve all... well, one very small problem :-) A very helpful woman is able to tell me that my request is "under consideration".

aside: On the news this morning is a woman who represents disabled voters. There are, she complains, seventeen politicians whose offices she is unable to access. Neither ramps nor a lift, I guess. Does she get my sympathy? Well... The closest that *I* can get to the Minister for Health is the downstairs reception. That's a concierge, security door, lift, thirteen floors, reception... possibly more... between me and a politician.

But then... I'm not disabled. I'm just a voter :-)

Today I send a more specific email to the Minister. That's three. Let's see what happens...

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Radiation treatment is at 9 o'clock this morning. Deb drops me off on her way to look after our grandson. I sit, read, drink coffee for an hour. Get radiated -- that's ten minutes. See the doctor, tell him that I've dropped the anti-nausea (and pro-constipation) drug. No worries, he says. I ask how I can tell where I should put anti-burn cream -- since I have no idea where on my head I'm being zapped. Don't worry, he says... if it turns red then add moisturiser. Which must be good advice since it's exactly what I plan to do :-)

I let Deb know that I'm done... and wait. While waiting, I suggest to front-desk staff at the clinic that the couch where I am sitting should be rotated 90 degrees to let me -- and others -- watch the car park for people picking them up. We'll put it in the suggestion box, they say. Twenty minutes later -- Deb picks me up and we spend the rest of the day being entertained by our grandson :-)

So treatment plus consultation takes 15 minutes spread over half an hour. With lots of waiting -- due entirely to our transport arrangements. All very easy -- but it takes up a lot of the morning.

And I have to remind myself: don't forget to do it all again tomorrow!

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Now a small correction to yesterday's post: I wrote that my brother had put aside -- without reading -- my advice on "running without hurting". He *did* read it -- but has put it aside until he has time to try following the advice. So... we are slightly more in step:

I have read my brother's advice, on diet. He has read my advice on running. I have put his advice aside, he has put my advice aside. In step so far :-) But I have no intention of following the dietary advice. The underlying concepts are good but -- for reasons I explained yesterday -- I see no reason to change ten years of diet which is working well for me.

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And now my sons are offering *real* miracle cures! "Supernatural Healings & Miracles" coming to town in November! A good backup plan, says one son! Second only to Facebook likes in terms of medical potency, says the other! I'm saved! I think...

Or perhaps I'll just give the chemoradiotherapy a few more weeks' trial :-)

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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
Agamedes Consulting / Problems ? Solved
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​"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." ... Albert Einstein

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Now much more than a clever name for a holiday journal:

 https://notdotdeaddotyet.blogspot.com.au/  :-)