I’ve been blogging for three years and never, never, never has anyone questioned whether or not I’ve ever had cancer. It’s the reason I started blogging for the love of God. I started blogging in the summer of 2005 so that I could deal with having ovarian cancer in 2004. It was my way of healing and dealing.
Just as I was making sense of it all I was diagnosed with recurrent ovarian cancer in March 2007. What happened last year was a medical disaster. I’m seriously lucky to be here today.
Now, if you doubt that I blogged about any of it because it’s no longer “live” here, then you’ll just have to figure out for yourself how to find those entries because I’ve got news for you. Nothing ever gets erased from the Internet. Should you be so inclined you can go all the way back to 2005 and read many of my old blog entries. I’m not saying that they are great, but you will see that I’ve been writing about cancer for three years.
Here I am for the third time in four years with cancer again and there are people who think this could quite possibly be a hoax. A hoax? Really? I’ll tell you what…if you think this is a hoax why don’t you call Dr. David Lu at The Reading Memorial Hospital and Medical Center Regional Cancer in Reading, Pennsylvania. Ask if I’m his patient. HIPPA guidelines will allow him to at least tell you that he is treating me.
For those of you who question my parenting and why I’m not spending time with my children…really? I mean, you have got to be kidding me. When do you spend time with your children? Why are you on the computer? What makes you any different from me other than I have a deadly disease?
Well, let me let you in on my daily computing habits and tell you a little about my children too since you seem to have convoluted the two. I love my children and we spend a lot of time together every single day. We talk, we play games, we watch movies, we draw and color, we goof around, we read…my God, the list is endless. Even when I’m really sick and in bed, we spend time together. They don’t mind laying next to me in bed just talking or watching TV together…as long as we are together.
My children also have OUTSIDE interests like their friends, their grandparents and martial arts. In fact they are so involved in martial arts that they go to practice sometimes five times a week when it gets close to testing. Then they practice at home as Dude coaches them. It involves a lot of their time.
When everyone is off to karate or SLEEPING and I’m not feeling good then I lay in bed with my laptop. That’s how I do research, catch up on email and write my blog posts. Twice a week I try to catch up on the blogs in my feed reader.
So, now you know. Feel better or does this just give you more to talk about?
Now if it’s O.K. with all my new found doubters and haters, I’d like to go take some time to absorb the diagnosis from Sloane-Kettering.
The doctor thinks I have a rare form of ovarian cancer that is recurrent from last year and stems from the original ovarian cancer I had in 2004…so he has tied it all together. That makes perfect sense to me so let’s get the treatment started like yesterday. There’s a catch though…it’s still incurable, however there’s a possibility it could buy me some extra time if I respond to chemotherapy.
Even if it responds…it will always come back. As always, I say…it is what it is. Sob story? No, it is what it is.
Cessation of work is not accompanied by cessation of expenses. ~Cato the Elder
~William Henry Beveridge
Yesterday I received a joyful piece of mail from the Unemployment Office. Those kind folks wanted to inform me they were refusing my claim, once again. Their refusal was based on facts provided by the Temp Agency…all false facts.
It infuriated me and it also infuriated Dude.
Last night when I told him about the letter he yelled, “THAT’S IT! Tomorrow we are driving up to that Temp Agency and getting THIS straightened out once and for all!”
He was frustrated because for five weeks he knows that I’ve been trying to get the agency to change what’s in their system because their payroll person keeps providing the Unemployment Office with the incorrect information. Like, I REFUSED WORK. Like, I WENT ON A JOB INTERVIEW. Like, I WON’T TAKE A JOB AS A CSR BECAUSE I PAID 8OK FOR A COLLEGE EDUCATION.
Get it straight…it was 90K.
None of those facts are true.
So, Dude and I drove to the Temp Agency and marched into the office. I requested to speak with the owner. Ten minutes later she appeared looking surprised to see me. She escorted Dude and I into a small interview room. We all sat down and I proceeded to give her the story…THE FACTS.
She said, “Are we going to court?”
I said, “No, not yet…”
She told me how her unemployment taxes are through the roof so they do every thing they can to deny claims. I told her I understood all about the unemployment taxes that she is accessed however there is right and there is wrong…and what her agency is doing is wrong. They are providing false facts to the Unemployment Office.
I made it clear that I cannot take a job that is stressful for 8 hours a day and that I offered to provide medical documentation. I assured her medical documentation will be provided to the Unemployment Office stating that fact.
We had a lengthy conversation and she was very nice about the entire situation. I could tell that she does NOT want to spend a day in Unemployment court as well. She promised to investigate what happened in her office and personally look for an assignment for me.
I thanked her and informed her that I’m sending a big ole’ APPEAL to the Unemployment Office. She asked if we would be going to court AFTER that. I wanted so much to say, “Most likely sweetie, most likely.”
As Dude and I walked out of the office and out to the parking lot I said, “THAT WAS AWESOME! You totally had my back!” because he threw his 99 cents in as well. I’m telling you we were like the Dynamic Duo. My Dude, who is normally shy and quiet spoke up and threw in his constructive criticism about the situation AND stood in as my witness.
I totally think I love him more than ever now.
Today I’ll be working on my APPEAL so I can send it certified mail. Mediation…here we come. Thank GOD I have a witness for some of the really STUPID things the owner of that Temp Agency said. Woo Hoo!
I swear if I don’t win this time then they system is totally corrupt.
Kudos to Dude!
Edit #1 9:30 AM: My oncologist has decided to tell play Sloane-Kettering’s game and tell them that he has STOPPED treatment in order to get me an appointment. Of course he is NOT stopping treatment in the mean time. I hope that I will find out later today that I have a concrete date to go to S-K.
My PCP called me at 9:00 am this morning and told me that they have called the insurance company to have my case re-opened. The insurance company told the PCP that it is now “pending” re-certification.
None of these entities understand that my cancer doesn’t care about polices, rules or regulations. That’s the bottom line.
Edit #2: As of 11:30 AM I have an appointment at Memorial Sloane-Kettering on 7/24/2008 at 1:00 pm!!!
I’ve come to the realization that our health care system, no matter where you live or who you are, is completely fucked up. I used to think it was the government that was a bureaucratic nightmare but yesterday proved to me that health care might just have the government beat by a mile…or two.
Do I need to repeat that I have a rare cancer? Must we go over this again and again? I feel that I go over it over and over with the same people.
“What kind of cancer do you have?”
“It doesn’t have a name, it’s a rare cancer.”
“What kind is it?”
“No one knows.”
“What do you mean by ‘no one knows‘?
“Just what I said, no one knows what kind of cancer I have because it’s a rare cancer no one has seen before.”
The conversation just goes down hill from there because now the health care professional doesn’t have a box to fill, a radio button to click or enough room in the “other” box to write it down. That just pisses them off.
The appointment I was waiting for from Sloane-Kettering? Well, it’s not going to happen. First I received a call from my oncologist’s office informing me that S-K didn’t accept my insurance. I straighted that misinformation out. Then I received a second call from my oncologist’s office informing me that Sloane-Kettering refuses to see me now because I’ve gone through two rounds of chemo.
Well, that’s what the scheduler at Sloane-Kettering said and she is sticking to her guns…REGARDLESS of any PREVIOUS conversations that went on with a doctor, nurse or anyone. That scheduler REFUSES to make an appointment because there are RULES she is sticking to. Oh, and trying another scheduler…didn’t work either because she was onto the oncologist’s office.
Bureaucratic red tape bullshit.
So the scheduler at my oncologist’s office gave up!
I told her to talk to my doctor and make something happen because this was all in the works a few weeks ago.
Then there is the insurance company. Another cog in the wheel of the dysfunctional machine of health care. They had assigned me a case worker because I have cancer. I was diagnosed again on March 31, 2008. They closed my case on April 18, 2008. Wow, that’s the fastest cure I’ve ever heard of. WTF?
As an insured “member” I’m not allowed to open a new case. Hello? Who is the one with cancer here? My primary care physician a.k.a. the PCP has to call the insurance company and tell them I have cancer again. Then he has to request that I have a case manager.
Don’t these people read the claims? WTF?
Do I need this kind of stress? How the hell am I supposed to get the care I deserve? I mean, am I going to live long enough to get the care I need, the care I deserve? Am I going to get past the bullshit schedulers at every hospital or get denied because they have pre-set rules that they aren’t going to budge from?
I’m at the end of my rope with health care…AT THE END OF MY ROPE! I really want to live but the stress and denial of health care is going to be the thing that kills me in the end.
The shock of unemployment becomes a pathology in its own right. ~Robert Farrar Capon, “Being Let Go,” New York Times, 5 August 1984
I’m currently embroiled in a nasty conflict between the Temp Agency I was working for and the PA Unemployment IC that has me so frustrated that if I still had hair…I’d pull it out.
I was let go from my assigned postion on May 30, 2008…due to no fault of my own. The assignment ended and I left with a Letter of Recommendation.
I called the Temp Agency on my last day of work and inquired about available positions. I was told there were none and to call back the following week. They recorded that they sent me on an interview for a Customer Service Representative position on May 30, 2008 and that I refused to take the job.
When I filed my claim with PA Unemployment IC I was denied because the Temp Agency told Unemployment I REFUSED WORK.
It’s been a back and forth, he said, she said, stressful battle between all both parties for the past three weeks and I’m frazzled.
I filed the necessary paperwork with PA Unemployment IC and now I have to wait.
I keep calling the Temp Agency, documenting EVERY SINGLE CALL, and leaving messages. Only when I left a message for the Temp Agency’s OWNER did I get a return call…however this week I’m getting bounced around AGAIN.
I’ve threatened the Temp Agency with an ADA discrimination suit because they are aware of the fact that I have cancer and I fit the criteria of having a disability under the ADA guidelines yet they are refusing to place me in a job when they have available positions. I know my rights and I’m familiar with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
But why? Why does it have to come to all of this? Why do people have to be so stupid, so idiotic and so daft? Why?
Edit: I’m asking why in the rhetorical sense out of utter frustration in a system that I seem to be powerless in. I’m completely and utterly frustrated. That’s what I wish to convey. Not that I’m actually questioning the idiocy of a Temp Agency and PA Unemployment IC.
I hope that my frustration is what comes across…LOUD AND CLEAR!
Tagged as:
ADA,
Clusterfook,
EEOC,
PA Unemployment Compensation Insurance,
temp agency,
unemployement
Unemployment is like a headache or a high temperature – unpleasant and exhausting but not carrying in itself any explanation of its cause. ~William Henry Beveridge
A few weeks ago I was laid off from my job as an administrative assistant. It was a banner day because it was the same day I found out I have a rare form of stomach cancer. I felt like throwing myself a fucking party but instead I called the temp agency that placed me at the job and asked what other positions they had available. The person I was working with told me she had no administrative assistant positions but she noticed I had “customer service” experience.
STOP RIGHT THERE…
That’s exactly what I told her. I told her that I didn’t spend $90,000 on a college education so that I could go back to a customer service position and that was PAST experience. I explained that my degree was in Business Administration with a concentration in Human Resources and that I am also a graduate student studying for my M.B.A. I’ve done time chained to a phone like a prison monkey, which is exactly why I went to college to get my degree.
Her response to my mini-tirade was that there were no administrative assistant positions available but that I should call back the following week…the week after my last day of work. Which I did. I called the Monday after I was laid off.
At that time my recruiter, Ann, told me that she had an administrative assistant position she thought would be a good fit for me. GREAT! or so I thought. I was HONEST and told her that I have cancer. I explained that my now former assignment was cool with the fact that I was going to need a day off here and there for chemotherapy. I also explained that I WANTED to work but I would need every THIRD Thursday off for chemotherapy. IT IS NOT NEGOTIABLE.
Ann asked me if my doctor said it was O.K. for me to work. Well, he never said I couldn’t work and I would like to work as long as I am physically able. AT NO TIME did I ever say that I REFUSE TO WORK. The only thing I did say was that I was UNAVAILABLE for interviews the day I had to go for chemotherapy. It’s kind of hard to go to an interview when you are hooked up to an I.V. for SIX FUCKING HOURS!
So, Ann asked me to send my resume to her but to send it to the general email address at the temp agency because she was leaving for maternity leave any second. She told me Heidi would be working with me going forward. I have the distinct feeling that Heidi is either overloaded or a complete deadbeat because my phone hasn’t rang. Either that or my resume got lost in limbo because no one ever called me back about the job.
OR Ann heard “cancer” and stashed my file way in the back of the drawer.
In the meantime I filed for unemployment because I lost my job due to no fault of my own. In fact I left the assignment with a letter of RECOMMENDATION. That tells me I did a half decent job. Better yet…I emailed a copy of that letter to the temp agency!!!
So…WTF???
On Saturday I received a letter from Unemployment office stating the amount of money I would receive on a weekly basis and felt some relief. The relief was SHORT LIVED! There was another letter stating that the unemployment had been contested by the temp agency for REFUSAL TO WORK!!!!!
REFUSAL TO FUCKING WORK???
ARE THEY KIDDING ME???
Well Ann has gone on maternity leave but I hope she is ready to find a babysitter for her newborn baby because she is going to have to make an appearance in court to recount our conversation because I am contesting the living HELL out of this.
I WAS LET GO FROM A JOB DUE TO NO FAULT OF MY OWN.
I CALLED THE TEMP AGENCY SEVERAL TIMES TO GET ANOTHER ASSIGNMENT.
THEY DID NOT PROVIDE ME WITH AN ASSIGNMENT.
WHERE IS THE “REFUSAL”?
You CANNOT imagine how pissed off I am. Poor Dude has had to listen to it all weekend because I am furious. Livid. Extremely and explosively angry.
I CANNOT wait to call Heidi at the temp agency Monday morning. God hath no fury than an angry, unemployed woman with cancer…this angry, unemployed woman with cancer. And before I make that call to Heidi you better believe your sweet ass I’m calling my attorney.
The $90,000 degree is finally going to pay off…thank you God…because I’m finally going to use it to my OWN ADVANTAGE. I’ve absolutely had it with this kind of crap.
Good Morning Heidi…hope you had a FABULOUS WEEKEND because I’m about to blow the lid off of your Monday! Coffee and donuts anyone?
Tagged as:
Asshats,
Monkey Bastards
