I'm sorry, sir

In order to have UCLA start processing my bills with the uninsured cost mitigation apparatus (charities, lawyers, etc.), the woman at UCLA tells me that she needs a statement from Health Advocates that they've declined to assist me. Since my previous call with HA was pretty quick and painless, I assume this will be too. So, I google their phone number (since once again the numbers they provided me don't work), then call 'em. I get routed to the same case manager, I tell her that I need a written record of being denied there.

But according to the case manager, there is no possible way to send me a letter (or UCLA a letter) saying that I was denied. I don't have a problem with being denied—I don't meet their criteria. But it starts going pear-shaped when the case manager will only tell me that I've been denied verbally.

"You can't type up a letter that says that?"
"No. That's why I am advising you verbally that we are unable to help."
"So, you can't create any sort of written paper trail on that?"
"No, that's company information that we can't share with you."
"But you can share it verbally."
"Yes. That's why I'm telling you verbally."
"Why can't you give me a written notice?"
"I told you, sir, that we tell you verbally."
"Yeah, I heard that. That's saying that you can't do it, not why you can't do it. That's a different question."
"I am sorry sir, but we can't provide letters."
"I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. You physically can't type a letter?"
"What would it have in it?"
"That you declined to assist me. Just like you told me."
"Yes, sir, but I told you verbally."

In the end, she gives me the number for the liaison who works for Health Advocates at UCLA. So, in the end, Health Advocates seems quite less on the ball than they previously did. I mean, seriously, you can't find a bit of letterhead and send me a note?

New frontiers in Klang mobility

I drove yesterday, to the store! Which means that I can pretty much go anywhere you can fit with a crutch. Which is pretty sweet.

Now, off to swim!

The final bill

Today's mail brought me the bill from the hospital, and well, at least initial estimates were high. At the hospital, they told me that it'd probably run about $100,000; the bill is actually $70,758.56.

$30,000 here and $30,000 there, soon enough we're talking real money.

Checks and stuff

Just so y'all know, because apparently there's been some questions, if you sent me a check, the reason I haven't cashed it yet is because I need to show my broke-ass bank account to the hospital folks in order to qualify for aid. I'll have Amy start cashing the checks to her, and I'll get on the checks to me as soon as that's cleared up, but it may take another week or so.

So emo

I got a scar shaped like a heart.

Anniversary

Hey, it's been a whole month since I fell down went boom. I just had my first shower in a month and it was awesome!

New regimine

After every episode of The Wire, I do a set of reps.

Two-hand touch!

Got my splint off yesterday, good times. Now I can type two-handed, which is pretty damn revelatory. Did have some more cod-Kafka at the doctors: I called on Wednesday (like I did prior to my previous appointment) just to confirm and make sure everything was jake. I ask 'em, "So, I don't need to come in early for x-rays or anything," and they say, no, no, just come in at 12:30.

So, we get there at, like, 11:45, and when we check in, they tell me, Oh, man, before your appointment, you gotta go get x-rays. So we hustle down to the interminable first-come x-ray office on the first floor, wait with some screaming kids and an endless parade of elderly wraiths like this office is the end point of some katabasis. We're all anxious about getting x-rayed and then getting back by 12:30.

So, we do and we do, and we wait in this overcrowded office where it's so packed with wheelchairs that they're sending 'em out into the hall. At about 1:15, I go up and ask, hey, weren't we supposed to go at 12:30? ¿Que honda? ¿Que pedo?

Nope. Turns out that the real visit is scheduled for 1:30, and the x-ray "appointment" was scheduled for 12:30. That none of this was communicated was apparently all part of some elaborate game theory.

Anyway, got the staples out of my arm, and the splint off. Got to switch pain killers to something non-habit forming but not much fun. I have a heart-shaped cut on my elbow which is (I can't see it) apparently totally emo and Amy can't look at it because it's all too gross.

In other news, the giant fire that blazed two nights ago during America's Next Top Model, over at 3733 Midvale? Not a meth lab, far as we can tell. Amanda and Isaac took me over there on my daily constitutional, and it's just a gutted garage full of burned out pick-ups. I might try to sneak a camera over there just to see what I can get. Aside from the absolute toxic smell (the smoke from the fire was totally choking on the night of), it'd be a neat place to shoot nudes, but no one I know has any interest in being my nude model for scenes of urban blight, so…

It's not just me

I just found out that due to the amount of time Amy's had to take off, and the money caring for me has cost her, that we won't be able—and more to the point, she won't be able—to take the trip to Yosemite with her family that she's been planning since last summer. I knew I was going to be iffy on hiking, but I'd figured she'd still go. Major bummer. I mean, I can kind of let the consequences for me roll off my back to some extent just by focusing on my rehab, but Christ, I feel awful knowing what this has done to her.