And Just When Things Seemed Okay

I had a pretty good morning. My cold is almost completely gone. I'm a little more tired than normal, but otherwise almost back to how things were. I had a great first day of NaNoWriMo with nearly 3,000 words written between midnight and around 1pm. Dinner turned out halfway decent even though I thought I screwed up the whole thing.

And then my husband casually mentions his job is changing insurance carriers after 20+ years with United Healthcare. They have been our insurance for 21 years. With my luck, that means they probably picked some obscure no-name company or one that has like five doctors they cover in the entire Portland Metro area. And that means changing doctors. Again. I'm so tired of changing doctors, especially right when I feel like I've established a dialogue with the ones I have. I just got our kids new primary care doctors after years of just seeing whoever. I like my shrink. She's great and really listens to me and wants to help. I don't want to start over again.

I'm so sick of the almighty dollar being more important than the welfare of people. They already fucked us over by switching prescription drug plans. We have CVS CareMark but before we could go to just about any big chain pharmacy which meant three pharmacies in town (two within walking distance of our house). Now we can only use CVS-branded pharmacies. Want to know how many of those are in the Vancouver, WA area? Two. Both in Target stores. The closest is a 20-minute drive. I went from being able to walk to the closest pharmacy to needing a car to get to the only one in the area (the other one is way across town).

When they switched over last year, I checked to see how many were in the Portland area since that's where my husband's job is. There were like 6 for the hundreds of employees that live in Portland, and all were in the central or eastern part of the city. You were really fucked if you lived on the west side of town.

Now they're going to change from a fairly good insurance company just to save a few bucks. It'll probably be half as good as the coverage we have, cost us the same (bust save the company money), and limit who we can see. I bet none of the doctors we see now (all through the Vancouver Clinic) will be covered because that would be my luck. Our copays will probably go up, too, because those were reasonable besides the ER one ($250!).

I can't win. Now my anxiety is through the room. I feel sick. I lost my appetite after just finishing dinner. I want to cry. Why does everything have to be so hard?

I had finally found a doctor a few years ago that I really liked, but she decided to drop us from her practice without warning in 2020 (right when I actually needed medical care for my blood pressure). Then I had to start over with another doctor and find another shrink. I'm finally settled with those doctors and will probably have to start all over for me and the kids. And how much you want to bet that the doctors that are covered are just as inconveniently located as the pharmacies. Right now our doctors are a five-minute drive from our house, and my specialists are about 20 minutes away should I need to see them (for my sleep apnea and psychiatry).

I can't win.

I'm going to go take some anxiety pills and hope I can distract myself from worrying until the next time I can take more pills. At this rate, I'm going to need a refill on them.