April 8, 2008

• Averting Panic

  I was on the edge of panic from the moment I read the mail that Doug brought in and laid on the desk while I was asleep last night.  A letter from the hospital, dated April 1, gave me ten days to pay the full $6,519.23 for my stay there in December, or it will be turned over to collection.  That scares me because it could, at best, cause my credit card interest rates to go up, and might even get my cards canceled.  We live on those cards during the off season, and they enable us to purchase the stock that Greyfox sells to support us and, if business is brisk, to pay down the credit card balances during the tourist season.

  It was barely after 6 AM, too early to call the hospital’s business office.  I waited until 7:30, then tried calling Greyfox and got his voice mail. (He’s my husband, in case you’re new here, who lives most of the time where he works  The phone is my lifeline to him.)  While I was waiting, I tried to reason with myself.  Telling myself not to panic was only partially successful.  I worried myself into an asthma attack, so I sat down on the bed and used the nebulizer for a while.

  At one point, as I was getting things together to make breakfast, I got a little scared at the thought of how I was reasoning with myself:  earnestly, seriously, but silently, talking to myself as if I wasn’t me but someone else.  That’s nuts, right?  Never mind, don’t answer that.  Nutz-R-Us — I know that.  When I met my husband, he said I was the first professional crazy person (psychic) he’d ever been acquainted with.  For a fleeting crazy moment there, I was worried for my own sanity.  In my more rational moments I know, deep down, that I’m the sane one and the rest of the world is nuts, and you don’t have to tell me that THAT in itself is a sign of insanity.

  When I am troubled or tense, I tend to walk.  I used to take long walks in parks when I lived in cities, and out here I used to follow a trail along a bluff to the banks of the Susitna River, which is a mile away as the raven flies and maybe three times that far on that trail made by moose and bears.  This morning, I was pacing my kitchen floor.  That’s a foolhardy act for a convalescent asthmatic with M.E.   I caught myself, reined myself in before I had to go sit back down and nebulize, but not before I’d gotten a screaming pain in my left knee.

  While I was grilling my wheat-free, sugarless pancake to wrap around my artificially sweetened yogurt for a comfort food treat of not-cheese not-blintzes, I faced my fear. 

  
  I must not fear.
  Fear is the mind-killer.
  Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
  I will face my fear.
  I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
  And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
  Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
  Only I will remain.
  Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
  From Frank Herbert’s Dune Book Series
  © 1965 and 1984 Frank Herbert

  It strikes me now as slightly odd that, after having spent decades reading dozens of self-help books and many of the works of masters of metaphysics, most of my most useful concepts come from works of fiction.

  The hospital has a Charity Committee that reviews the financial records of patients and awards discounts based on their ability to pay.  Two separate financial counselors at the hospital and some other people in the hospital administrative office have separately assured Greyfox and me that we qualify for 100% charity relief. 

  We have spent months complying with contradictory requests and demands from the various people involved, trying to provide all the documentation that they needed, and when it finally went to the Committee, their determination somehow was based on an erroneous figure of $2,880 a month average income last year for our household of 3, which is significantly more than we had.  The Charity Committee, based on that erroneous figure, granted us 80% relief.  We got the letter this week, and were advised by an administrator to submit it for reconsideration based on the accurate monthly figures.

  As soon as the hospital’s business office was open, I called.  I had talked previously to a woman there who had called me the first of this month.  She had told me I had only “a limited time,” to pay the bill before it went to a collection agency.  When I asked her how much time I had, she evaded my question and told me we “need to keep bugging those charity people.”  The one I spoke to today said they could offer an additional discount if we pay within the deadline, by April 17, bringing the bill down to just over $1,000 (I was listening, but my brain was fried from fear, and I don’t recall the exact number.)

  I asked this one if the deadline could be extended because the committee was reconsidering our application, or if a partial payment would delay their turning it over to collection, and her answer was a flat, “no.”  I explained our situation, and that the erroneous figure that went to the committee was the work of a person whose job title is “financial counselor,” who could not distinguish between business income and personal income.  That made no difference.

  I finally got through to Greyfox a few minutes ago, and he left a voice mail for Robin, one of the administrative people he has been talking to, then called another one, Pat, who said she would send priority emails to Robin and Kim, to see what could be done.  Meanwhile, to avert my panic and feel like I’m doing all I can, I’m dragging out the begging hat again.

  I didn’t like doing this the first time, but I was gratified by the generous response of a few Xangans even though my plea came right after the year-end holidays when most people’s budgets are stretched to the limit.  You guys helped us make it through the winter and to make enough little payments to the two doctors, Xray tech, paramedics, and local clinic, to keep them satisfied.  This time, I’m doing it a week before tax time (Thanks be to poverty, we don’t owe any taxes.), so I don’t know what, if any, response there will be.  I am just doing it because I can’t think of anything else I can do.

   Spare
  change?
  This is my begging hat.  It is
  a link to PayPal.  If you haven’t read the story of why I’m
  begging, my recent ambulance ride and hospitalization, it is there to
  be found in the archives of my entries from December.  If you would like to
  contribute, but prefer not
  to use PayPal, my husband has posted his postal mailing address at ArmsMerchant.

  

  

  • 2:47 pm
  • 23 Comments