Friday, January 27, 2006

Selective Nerve Root Block:  The Day After

I know it can take up to a week to get relief from the injection, so I won’t write it off yet; although, from the heavy duty questioning I got at the surgery center, they seemed to expect me to get some relief right away.  There wasn’t any.  Today, I feel exactly the same as always, except I have a big ugly bruise on my hand, three injection dots on my back, and one injection spot that’s bruised.  I have some bruising pain across my lower back - it feels like I was hit lightly across the back with a 2x4.  In all, not the worst experience in the world if either it doesn’t work at all or it works a little and I have another procedure in two weeks.  The only damage from yesterday will be financial.  I was informed that the surgery center was out of network and that the insurance company would pay, but that they would pay me directly and I’d have to pay the surgery center.  My guess is that the surgery center will send bills soon and that the insurance company will take their time sending me the payment.  I also expect that the payment will fall short of what the bill is.  In the past couple of weeks I’ve gotten bills from every single doctor I’ve been to in the past few months.  Not one single visit was covered in full by the insurance company.  In addition to my $30 co-pay, I owe each doctor about $90.  I guess that’s better than the $250 I paid for the doctor who spent five minutes with me, after I’d waited three hours for him.  Then, a week before my procedure was scheduled, he had emergency heart surgery.  While I feel badly for him (although he’s out of the hospital now and recovering), I paid $250, spent three hours waiting to see him, countless phone calls trying to get his useless scheduler to do something...and I got nothing.  Canada is looking mighty good right now, medically.  I know there’s a wait for an appointment with specialists, but even here, seeing any doctor I wanted, it’s taken since mid-October to get anything done.

Oh yeah, and the bladder thing - no improvement there either. 

Next entry: January 30th - A Double Miracle Happens Previous entry: Injection Day Update

1. I’m sorry it didn’t do more for you, in terms of relief. It sucks that you’ve gone through all this for, as Alan would say, “a whole bunch of not much”.

   Helly  on  01/29  at  08:44 AM

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