The past few weeks I have been a little down. Almost depressed. I think after blogging and giving everyone who asks "updates", I began to feel like this has become my life. All I do is schedule appointments, go to appointments, do research, deal with insurance, call in prescription refills, pick them up, get tests done, pay bills, give meds. Then I rinse and repeat. The thought of this, mixed with physical exhaustion just caught up with me. Last week I had a little "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" talk with myself and realized many things.
1. I am SO are blessed!
2. It could be SO much worse.
3. Thank God we are in a position that I'm able to stay home to care for Kate.
4. To everything there is a season.
5. What more precious honor than to be able to be Kate's advocate, nurse, comforter and mother.
I was reminded through a Bible study I'm doing that all I needed to do was to bind myself to God. He would walk before me and with me. I decided I would try my hardest (which it takes) to stop worrying. Second guessing. Doubting. But rather hold on to Him and trust. Immediately my outlook improved. Being able to get some answers at the doctor's last week certainly helped too.
This week has been absolutely amazing. Both girls are fighting head colds and the sleep has been little, but it has been a true mountain top experience. Without getting into too many details, the insurance plan that Kate is on, required us to reapply after 6 months. There are payment tiers based off of income. If you will recall back in June, Daddy-O took a pay cut to get the girls on the insurance because there wasn't any other choice. He then started working a second job just to get benefits.
Fast forward to this week. I hadn't given much thought to the fact that it had been almost six months since we applied. On Tuesday, I received a letter from the insurance company and opened it knowing it would be asking us to reapply. I knew there would be no way we would be accepted since the second job would put us over. I thought about the number of appointments, procedures and tests we have coming up, thought about the deductible we would owe up front with the new insurance, not to mention the way higher copays and 20% of every single lab, test, hospital bill and I panicked for a minute. Instead, the letter was sent to inform me that they had already reviewed our case. Not only did we qualify for another six months, but...But...BUT... since we had SO many bills during the last six months, our copays were being lowered (see: less than half) AND we would be meeting our out-of-pocket maximum before the end of January, leaving the other five months covered at 100%. What in the.... How in the.... Hmmm, only one way to explain that. Praise God!
Later that night, I got a call from Kate's GI doctor. We chatted for a few minutes and he informed me that we should probably go ahead and move Kate's EGD scope and pH probe date up. Her extremely high dose of Prevacid doesn't seem to be making much difference. It will give us a good chance to see exactly where she is at. They will basically put her under general anesthesia and use a scope to check the top half of her GI tract. Once that is finished, they will place a small tube with a probe on the end in her esophagus. This will come out her nose, be taped to her face and looped around her ear for a full 24 hours. It is connected to a monitor that she will wear at all times. We will have to keep a journal, as well as push buttons on the monitor, every time she eats, sleeps, burps, has a reflux episode, coughs, etc. Should be challenging. We will go back the next day to have it removed. The doctor did mention that it would be important to have a cardiologist check her before the anesthesia.
Last week when I called to get an appointment with cardiology, I was informed that you can't just call and schedule an appointment. Our pediatrician had to fax in a triage report so that they could prioritize appointments. It would take 4 to 5 days, once they received it, before someone would call to schedule the appointment. Yesterday, I had the thought that I should call and check up on it. Before I got a chance to, the cardiologist's office called. The soonest we could get in was February, which was better than I expected. I inquired about a wait or cancellation list and was told I needed to call the location we would be seen at. It is a satellite office, for the major medical center, that is about 15 minutes from our house. Almost all of Kate's specialists rotate through there which is so convenient. When I called the receptionist said they could move her appointment up to the 13th of January. I accepted it and hung up.
I had no sooner put the phone down when it rang again. This time it was the GI nurse calling with a date for Kate's procedure. Any guesses? January 14th. As in LESS than 24 hours before her procedure. God's timing? I think so!
On Monday we finally will see pulmonology, Lord willing. Then we have the January appointments and procedure. We still have one more separate specialist to see (who is not even taking new patients for now) and then hopefully we will be done. At least, I pray, we will have a better picture of what's going on.
On another positive note, Leah has been sick with a head cold all week that she picked up from her cousin who was here last week. Kate has had quite a bit of exposure to it and has yet to get it as bad as the other two have. I keep "holding my breath", but so far, so good. Maybe her respiratory drugs are going to do their job now. I just hate that she is so little and on such high doses already.
I know that so many of you have been praying for our family and specifically for Kate. I cannot thank you enough for that. God is most certainly listening.
God is good ALL of the time!!!
1 comment:
GOD IS GOOD!
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