12:57 p.m. - Saturday, Nov. 20, 2004
I Hate HMOs
Mama and I are gettin' ready to move in with my sister, CM. Mama's gettin' to be just too much for me to take care of alone. We hope to be moved before Christmas, but it may be as late as after Christmas possibly. This time I plan to hire regular movin' people to move me instead of lettin' friends do it. The last time it took a couple of days to get me moved in usin' a hitch that attached to the back of the car. And by the time I paid mileage, etc. I still ended up payin' about as much as I might have had to pay for professional movers. But professionals would have gotten everything all in one haul on a bigger truck and it wouldn't have taken as long or been as nerve wrecking. I think my friends had to make four or five trips and of course I moved farther than I'm movin' this time.
I'm also gettin' chewed out by my doctor because I haven't been back to see her in over a year. I have HMO coverage and that requires one check-up a year at least. I despise HMOs. They want a person to go to the doctor whether they're sick or not. Seems like a complete waste of time to my way of thinkin'. But they make money off of each visit times the number of people on HMO coverage. So they're rackin' up! I liked the old way of doin' things when one only went to the doctor when she had a real reason to go. Forget preventive medicine. I hate that program. They would run a person ragged back and forth, back and forth, to every doctor they can think of to send a person to.
I have cellulitis due to a hip surgery I had. At first it started out as a little red spot near my left ankle that I pointed out to my regular HMO doctor, Dr. B. She didn't seem to think anything of it at that time and had no idea what it might be. On my next visit to her in a few months, for a preventive check-up, the red spot had progressed around the ankle and was turnin' purple in places. Still with no idea what it might be, Dr. B. then sent me to a disease specialist. The specialist couldn't determine what it was and thought it might be cellulitis but wasn't sure. So Dr. B. sent me to my surgeon who had done the hip surgery, Dr. C. When he found out what I was there for and that it had nothin' to do with my hip, he questioned me as to why Dr. B. had sent me to him. I told him that I had no idea. Just followin' orders. Each doctor that I was goin' to was chargin' me $15 on top of what the insurance was payin'. Dr. C. said he also thought it was cellulitis but went ahead and did some x-rays and other kinds of -rays. Finally pronouncin' it to be indeed cellulitis and he referred me back once again to Dr. B for further treatment. Dr. B. gave me a prescription for some medication called Amox-Clav that did seem to have an effect on the inflamation. But Dr. B. wanted to send me back to the same disease specialist which I thought was a bunch of unnecessary nonsense by then and I could logically see no reason to continue to play this merry-go-round game so I just stopped goin' to any of them.
I had read on the Internet that many times people who have a hip replacement surgery will develop cellulitis. This is where the cells die out. So the blood doesn't circulate as it should and can cause the loss of the leg or an embolism to the heart or brain causin' death, the same thing that happened to a news reporter during the beginning of the Iraq war when he rode around in a closed in jeep for days in a cramped up position without any exercise. He also had a blood clot (embolism) due to lack of circulation and died. I was hospitalized once when all at once the redness in my leg which had progressed half way up to the knee all at once turned bright red one evening and I could see the redness climbing upwards. I was online chattin' with D at the time and I'd downed some more Amox-Clav. I became scared and told D that I was on my way to the emergency ward at my hospital. This proved to have been the thing to have done because the doctor told me that I could possibly have an infection that would cause me to need a leg amputation. They put me into the hospital for 3 days and pumped me full of intravenous anti-biotics to get the cellulitis back under control. Then they released me but not before Dr. B. came to see me and gave me the riot act for not havin' been back to see her.
I did go back to see her then but after a couple of visits and then her tellin' me that she was sendin' me back the rounds again to the other two doctors I haven't been back since. I hate HMOs.
