Well, that was one big cluster.
Aug. 31st, 2012 08:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
missroseroseDiscussion of girly bits, includes (like most discussions of healthcare) swear words, yadda yadda. You all know the drill.
Not too long after my last entry on the subject, I'd called Planned Parenthood to see about getting my Implanon removed, and possibly replacing it with an IUD. Apparently the individual clinics don't handle their own scheduling; instead, the number you call goes to a centralized call center where they have the information for all the clinics in your area, and where they'll set you up with an appointment at one that has the services you need, as well as taking down your insurance information so they can make sure everything's covered in advance. I was actually somewhat impressed with this setup, as it seemed far more forward-thinking than the haphazard "oh well it should be covered" system that most medical offices seem to use.
Unfortunately, every system is run by people, and people are prone to failure at times. Apparently, somewhere along the chain from "person I talked to on the phone" to "information sent to the clinic", whomever was responsible for getting authorization from my insurance either misunderstood or got the wrong message. Because when I finally got to talk to an assistant, she informed me that their paperwork said I was authorized for an Implanon removal, pap smear, and replacement. I (politely) corrected her, saying I was far more interested in the Mirena IUD, but she looked confusedly at her paperwork and said she'd have to check on that.
For the record, I'd like to note that at this point I had [a] arrived ten minutes early for my appointment, [b] filled out all the paperwork, and [c] waited two hours in their nearly-frigid waiting room (seriously, I get that Tucson is hot and all, but they must've had the A/C cranked down to 60 - I was shivering whenever it clicked on). I also hadn't eaten since my late breakfast, assuming (somewhat naively, as it turns out) that I'd only be there an hour, two at the most. So when the girl came back and said "We can try reauthorizing your insurance, but we'd have to schedule you for another appointment and there's several people in front of you so you'd have to wait until the end of the day", I might have gotten a little cranky with her. The possibility might also exist that I teared up a bit. Apparently the constant frustration of dealing with the general incompetency of the medical-industrial complex is something that can do that to me.
In any case, I told her I didn't really want to wait around all afternoon, so I'd just take a prescription for pills. So she took down my blood pressure and height/weight/etc. and then led me back out into the lobby, promising that I was next in line for the exam room. So I sat down, trying not to burst into tears, and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Several girls who'd come in an hour after me went in, came out, and left. (I realize they were possibly seeing an NP instead of the apparently lone physician they had on staff, but that didn't make it any less frustrating to watch.) After forty-five minutes, I got up and asked the receptionist if she could check on things for me. She did so, told me that they only had two exam rooms and there were four girls ahead of me in line (which made no sense whatsoever, but whatever). After an hour and a half, I got up and informed her that I'd been there since 1:00 (it was now nearly 4:30) and would like to see the doctor now, please. She checked the records, looked embarrassed, talked to the folks in the back, and assured me they were getting the room ready. So it was that the nurse finally took me back into the exam room, gave me the paper smock, and instructed me to put it on and sit up on the exam table. I did so, shivering even more (did I mention the frigid air conditioning?), and waited some more. I don't know how long I waited there - sitting mostly-naked in a frigid room is one of those experiences that tends to lend itself to time dilation, and my phone was in my purse across the room. But it felt like at least a good twenty minutes before the doctor finally showed.
To her credit, the doctor was friendly and apologetic, and FAST - speculum in, poky bits inserted/removed, speculum out in fewer than forty seconds. The Implanon removal was a little more of a production, but she still got it out after a few minutes of manipulation (which felt rather strange, but didn't hurt at all - yay lidocaine!) and a relatively small incision (ditto). (Her description of trying to reach in and grab it with the forceps while it was all slick from bodily fluids reminded me a lot of trying to change my VCH piercing when I had it - I couldn't see what I was doing, everything was sort of stretchy and slick, I would think I had the pointy bit in the right place but then I'd push it up and it turned out it wasn't, etc. - and she laughed and said that sounded about right.) She also re-took my blood pressure, as it'd been notably high (90 diastolic) when the first girl did it; it was 72 then, so I now have actual medical proof that health insurance bullshit makes my blood pressure skyrocket.
Anyway, I left around 5:30, four and a half hours after my appointment time, with a small hole in my arm and a prescription for pills. I didn't make another appointment to get an IUD - I realize that 4.5 hours may not be their normal time spent, but I can't say as I'm eager to try it again. Fortunately IUD insertion's somewhat less arcane than Implanon, so I'm sure I can find someone closer by who can do it. And hey - at least now I have the opportunity to try going off hormones for a while, if I want to.
On the upside, before Brian dropped me off at the clinic, we'd gone to Antigone Books and I'd snatched up their last copy of Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman, which is turning out to be a fantastic read - her call for more down-to-earth matter-of-fact unapologetic laughter-based feminism seems to me to be largely what the movement needs. "Don't screech about it or berate people when they say/do sexist things - just laugh at them!" seems to be her manifesto, and it's definitely one I can get behind. And in a sort of tribute, I want to reprint the passage here that saved me from breaking down into tears in the waiting room because I was laughing too hard:
I, personally, have a cunt. Sometimes it's "flaps" or "twat", but, most of the time, it's my cunt. Cunt is a proper, old, historic, strong word. I like that my fire escape also doubles up as the most potent swear word in the English language. Yeah. That's how powerful it is, guys. If I tell you what I've got down there, old ladies and clerics might faint. I like how shocked people are when you say "cunt." It's like I have a nuclear bomb in my underpants or a mad tiger, or a gun.
Compared to this, the most powerful swear word men have got out of their privates is "dick," which is frankly vanilla and, I believe, you're allowed to use on children's TV if something goes wrong. In a culture where everything female is still seen as squeam-inducing and/or weak - menstruation, menopause, just the sheer, simple act of calling someone "a girl" - I love that "cunt" stands on its own, as the supreme, unvanquishable word. It has almost mystic resonance. It is a cunt - we all know it's a cunt - but we can't call it a cunt. We can't say the actual word. It's too powerful. Like Jews can never utter the tetragrammaton - and must make do with "Jehovah" instead.
...yeah. Caitlin Moran's my kind of girl.
Not too long after my last entry on the subject, I'd called Planned Parenthood to see about getting my Implanon removed, and possibly replacing it with an IUD. Apparently the individual clinics don't handle their own scheduling; instead, the number you call goes to a centralized call center where they have the information for all the clinics in your area, and where they'll set you up with an appointment at one that has the services you need, as well as taking down your insurance information so they can make sure everything's covered in advance. I was actually somewhat impressed with this setup, as it seemed far more forward-thinking than the haphazard "oh well it should be covered" system that most medical offices seem to use.
Unfortunately, every system is run by people, and people are prone to failure at times. Apparently, somewhere along the chain from "person I talked to on the phone" to "information sent to the clinic", whomever was responsible for getting authorization from my insurance either misunderstood or got the wrong message. Because when I finally got to talk to an assistant, she informed me that their paperwork said I was authorized for an Implanon removal, pap smear, and replacement. I (politely) corrected her, saying I was far more interested in the Mirena IUD, but she looked confusedly at her paperwork and said she'd have to check on that.
For the record, I'd like to note that at this point I had [a] arrived ten minutes early for my appointment, [b] filled out all the paperwork, and [c] waited two hours in their nearly-frigid waiting room (seriously, I get that Tucson is hot and all, but they must've had the A/C cranked down to 60 - I was shivering whenever it clicked on). I also hadn't eaten since my late breakfast, assuming (somewhat naively, as it turns out) that I'd only be there an hour, two at the most. So when the girl came back and said "We can try reauthorizing your insurance, but we'd have to schedule you for another appointment and there's several people in front of you so you'd have to wait until the end of the day", I might have gotten a little cranky with her. The possibility might also exist that I teared up a bit. Apparently the constant frustration of dealing with the general incompetency of the medical-industrial complex is something that can do that to me.
In any case, I told her I didn't really want to wait around all afternoon, so I'd just take a prescription for pills. So she took down my blood pressure and height/weight/etc. and then led me back out into the lobby, promising that I was next in line for the exam room. So I sat down, trying not to burst into tears, and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Several girls who'd come in an hour after me went in, came out, and left. (I realize they were possibly seeing an NP instead of the apparently lone physician they had on staff, but that didn't make it any less frustrating to watch.) After forty-five minutes, I got up and asked the receptionist if she could check on things for me. She did so, told me that they only had two exam rooms and there were four girls ahead of me in line (which made no sense whatsoever, but whatever). After an hour and a half, I got up and informed her that I'd been there since 1:00 (it was now nearly 4:30) and would like to see the doctor now, please. She checked the records, looked embarrassed, talked to the folks in the back, and assured me they were getting the room ready. So it was that the nurse finally took me back into the exam room, gave me the paper smock, and instructed me to put it on and sit up on the exam table. I did so, shivering even more (did I mention the frigid air conditioning?), and waited some more. I don't know how long I waited there - sitting mostly-naked in a frigid room is one of those experiences that tends to lend itself to time dilation, and my phone was in my purse across the room. But it felt like at least a good twenty minutes before the doctor finally showed.
To her credit, the doctor was friendly and apologetic, and FAST - speculum in, poky bits inserted/removed, speculum out in fewer than forty seconds. The Implanon removal was a little more of a production, but she still got it out after a few minutes of manipulation (which felt rather strange, but didn't hurt at all - yay lidocaine!) and a relatively small incision (ditto). (Her description of trying to reach in and grab it with the forceps while it was all slick from bodily fluids reminded me a lot of trying to change my VCH piercing when I had it - I couldn't see what I was doing, everything was sort of stretchy and slick, I would think I had the pointy bit in the right place but then I'd push it up and it turned out it wasn't, etc. - and she laughed and said that sounded about right.) She also re-took my blood pressure, as it'd been notably high (90 diastolic) when the first girl did it; it was 72 then, so I now have actual medical proof that health insurance bullshit makes my blood pressure skyrocket.
Anyway, I left around 5:30, four and a half hours after my appointment time, with a small hole in my arm and a prescription for pills. I didn't make another appointment to get an IUD - I realize that 4.5 hours may not be their normal time spent, but I can't say as I'm eager to try it again. Fortunately IUD insertion's somewhat less arcane than Implanon, so I'm sure I can find someone closer by who can do it. And hey - at least now I have the opportunity to try going off hormones for a while, if I want to.
On the upside, before Brian dropped me off at the clinic, we'd gone to Antigone Books and I'd snatched up their last copy of Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman, which is turning out to be a fantastic read - her call for more down-to-earth matter-of-fact unapologetic laughter-based feminism seems to me to be largely what the movement needs. "Don't screech about it or berate people when they say/do sexist things - just laugh at them!" seems to be her manifesto, and it's definitely one I can get behind. And in a sort of tribute, I want to reprint the passage here that saved me from breaking down into tears in the waiting room because I was laughing too hard:
I, personally, have a cunt. Sometimes it's "flaps" or "twat", but, most of the time, it's my cunt. Cunt is a proper, old, historic, strong word. I like that my fire escape also doubles up as the most potent swear word in the English language. Yeah. That's how powerful it is, guys. If I tell you what I've got down there, old ladies and clerics might faint. I like how shocked people are when you say "cunt." It's like I have a nuclear bomb in my underpants or a mad tiger, or a gun.
Compared to this, the most powerful swear word men have got out of their privates is "dick," which is frankly vanilla and, I believe, you're allowed to use on children's TV if something goes wrong. In a culture where everything female is still seen as squeam-inducing and/or weak - menstruation, menopause, just the sheer, simple act of calling someone "a girl" - I love that "cunt" stands on its own, as the supreme, unvanquishable word. It has almost mystic resonance. It is a cunt - we all know it's a cunt - but we can't call it a cunt. We can't say the actual word. It's too powerful. Like Jews can never utter the tetragrammaton - and must make do with "Jehovah" instead.
...yeah. Caitlin Moran's my kind of girl.
