What's the minimum amount of effort I can get away with?
Because I have a sneaking suspicion it may be more than I'm capable of these days.
Anyway, as an update on my health, I had my MRI on Friday. It was just as stressful as I had been fearing all week. Which actually just again underlines the fact that stressing about something beforehand neither prevents nor aides a stressful situation. Literally zero of my fretting did anything to affect what happened. In fact, all it did was just waste an entire week by not being as relaxed and high functioning as I would have liked.
At 5pm Thursday, the MRI facility called to say that my insurance (which is paying for exactly zero of the procedure) was still somehow managing to dick around with them. Even though an MRI is not a procedure they cover in any way, apparently they still needed to approve it in order for me to get the cheaper, contracted rate and also have the amount I spent applied to my deductible. I literally have no idea why they gave a fuck, because again, they were not fronting any of the money, but they were being nitpicky shitheels and my 8:15 the next morning appointment was suddenly in jeopardy of not happening.
I basically tried to make it as clear as possible that the only acceptable outcome was me getting the fucking test done because I was not going to weather another weekend where every physical symptom was a cause for a hypochondriac panic attack. After a few tears, and lot of anger about my health insurance, the woman at the facility (who was very helpful and determined) managed to make it happen. Yay, right?
Except for the MRI was the worst. First off, because of the scheduling drama I wasn't given any tips about how to maximize the experience. I showed up with damp hair (a no-no) and a regular bra with underwire instead of a sports bra (my boyfriend said you get to keep your jeans on, and that has metal. I didn't think a bra would be any different. I was wrong.) I also finished off a Starbuck's chai that morning because I thought I would be able to get up between the MRI and the MRA. (I was wrong.)
Cue me lying in a tube, eyes shut for the first test: 45 minutes trying not to move my head in any way while the MRI machine makes a bunch of random noises at me. At one point it was like I was inside a fire alarm and the stupid thing was vibrating. About 20 minutes into it my back started to hurt thanks to a figure skating injury. About half an hour into it, I started needing to pee.
But throughout the first test I told my body, "Hey, calm down. This is harmless, you are not in danger, everything is going to be okay." My body was doubtful, but with enough encouragement would occasionally allow my thighs and shoulders to unclench. Then the nurse had to put in the IV to introduce a contrast liquid to my system. It should be known that I have tiny, ladylike, delicate veins. They are literally the only small thing about me, I swear. I told her about this. She meant well, but she popped the vein. It hurt. A lot. My body basically was like, "YOU SAID WE WEREN'T IN DANGER! OH MY GOD YOU ARE A LIAR. PANIC! PANIC!" There was nothing I could do to calm myself down, I just started shaking and crying because my arm hurt, and I couldn't move or look at it and I had to be still for the next 20 minutes and bleh.
The nurse was really sweet and understanding, but she had to find a vein in my hand instead, taking even more time between the second test. Eventually it got started and with back aching, arm aching, bladder whining, I just lay there worrying about whether or not my shaking fit was going to ruin the test and if I would have to come back. It was thankfully over surprisingly fast and once freed I got to look at my gross swollen arm, put my bra back on, and gloriously got to pee.
Then I paid the bill and found it was roughly $370 more than originally quoted. Bummer, but hey, they had a payment plan. Then the girl misunderstood my payment instructions and took charged about $250 more upfront than I meant her to charge to my card. Thank god my boyfriend is my landlord, or I would be well and fully fucked this month.
Ugh. And after all that, I still went to work for a half day. (I'll admit this was mostly for manipulating my boss reasons.) I won't go over the results with my neurologist until Friday morning but I think one of the reasons I was so scared of the MRI was because of thinking, "They're going to look at my brain, see something terrifyingly wrong, and next thing I know I'll be in a hospital." When that didn't happen, I guess I was able to breathe a sigh of relief. I won't feel fully out of the woods until my doctor tells me that my brain looks amazing (a perfect specimen!), but I do feel a lot better just getting the tests out of the way.
Though I swear to God, if one of the many things that went wrong jacked up the test, I am going to make them put together a stone-cold flawless case for why I should do it again because NO.
Anyway, as an update on my health, I had my MRI on Friday. It was just as stressful as I had been fearing all week. Which actually just again underlines the fact that stressing about something beforehand neither prevents nor aides a stressful situation. Literally zero of my fretting did anything to affect what happened. In fact, all it did was just waste an entire week by not being as relaxed and high functioning as I would have liked.
At 5pm Thursday, the MRI facility called to say that my insurance (which is paying for exactly zero of the procedure) was still somehow managing to dick around with them. Even though an MRI is not a procedure they cover in any way, apparently they still needed to approve it in order for me to get the cheaper, contracted rate and also have the amount I spent applied to my deductible. I literally have no idea why they gave a fuck, because again, they were not fronting any of the money, but they were being nitpicky shitheels and my 8:15 the next morning appointment was suddenly in jeopardy of not happening.
I basically tried to make it as clear as possible that the only acceptable outcome was me getting the fucking test done because I was not going to weather another weekend where every physical symptom was a cause for a hypochondriac panic attack. After a few tears, and lot of anger about my health insurance, the woman at the facility (who was very helpful and determined) managed to make it happen. Yay, right?
Except for the MRI was the worst. First off, because of the scheduling drama I wasn't given any tips about how to maximize the experience. I showed up with damp hair (a no-no) and a regular bra with underwire instead of a sports bra (my boyfriend said you get to keep your jeans on, and that has metal. I didn't think a bra would be any different. I was wrong.) I also finished off a Starbuck's chai that morning because I thought I would be able to get up between the MRI and the MRA. (I was wrong.)
Cue me lying in a tube, eyes shut for the first test: 45 minutes trying not to move my head in any way while the MRI machine makes a bunch of random noises at me. At one point it was like I was inside a fire alarm and the stupid thing was vibrating. About 20 minutes into it my back started to hurt thanks to a figure skating injury. About half an hour into it, I started needing to pee.
But throughout the first test I told my body, "Hey, calm down. This is harmless, you are not in danger, everything is going to be okay." My body was doubtful, but with enough encouragement would occasionally allow my thighs and shoulders to unclench. Then the nurse had to put in the IV to introduce a contrast liquid to my system. It should be known that I have tiny, ladylike, delicate veins. They are literally the only small thing about me, I swear. I told her about this. She meant well, but she popped the vein. It hurt. A lot. My body basically was like, "YOU SAID WE WEREN'T IN DANGER! OH MY GOD YOU ARE A LIAR. PANIC! PANIC!" There was nothing I could do to calm myself down, I just started shaking and crying because my arm hurt, and I couldn't move or look at it and I had to be still for the next 20 minutes and bleh.
The nurse was really sweet and understanding, but she had to find a vein in my hand instead, taking even more time between the second test. Eventually it got started and with back aching, arm aching, bladder whining, I just lay there worrying about whether or not my shaking fit was going to ruin the test and if I would have to come back. It was thankfully over surprisingly fast and once freed I got to look at my gross swollen arm, put my bra back on, and gloriously got to pee.
Then I paid the bill and found it was roughly $370 more than originally quoted. Bummer, but hey, they had a payment plan. Then the girl misunderstood my payment instructions and took charged about $250 more upfront than I meant her to charge to my card. Thank god my boyfriend is my landlord, or I would be well and fully fucked this month.
Ugh. And after all that, I still went to work for a half day. (I'll admit this was mostly for manipulating my boss reasons.) I won't go over the results with my neurologist until Friday morning but I think one of the reasons I was so scared of the MRI was because of thinking, "They're going to look at my brain, see something terrifyingly wrong, and next thing I know I'll be in a hospital." When that didn't happen, I guess I was able to breathe a sigh of relief. I won't feel fully out of the woods until my doctor tells me that my brain looks amazing (a perfect specimen!), but I do feel a lot better just getting the tests out of the way.
Though I swear to God, if one of the many things that went wrong jacked up the test, I am going to make them put together a stone-cold flawless case for why I should do it again because NO.