I’m first going to get something off my chest: I have the worst insurance you can imagine. This is an ongoing problem and it has manifested its ugly head once again.

I have to say, my insurance company sucks and has created nearly infinite confusion. Tier 1, Tier 2. No Mr Baxter, this is Tier 1, you only pay $512 for this visit (estimate). But that is a Tier 2 estimate, I’ve already maxed out the Tier 1 and pay NOTHING.

Read my lips: I OWE NOTHING at this point.

Yet they still hand me a paper with the Tier 2 estimate on this as THE financial counselor says but you are Tier 1. So why did you give me a paper with Tier 2 pricing? Why are you saying Tier 1 with your lips and handing me an estimate for Tier 2 pricing? Why the confusion? If you’re confidant it is Tier 1, hand me a paper that estimates the correct amount of money I should owe you at this point.

Well, we submit the paperwork and we will see if it goes through as Tier 1 or Tier 2. Nancy Pelosi type operations: just do it, build it, submit it, pass it, and then we’ll see how it goes.

Then I get a phone call from the insurance company: here’s what you need to get a gap policy submitted so it will clear at Tier 1: blah blah blah (she tells me about diagnostic codes, needing tax ID numbers of every person involved (MD’s), date of start and end of the event, etc etc etc). I finally asked this lady: why are you calling and telling a sick cancer patient this information? Shouldn’t you be speaking to someone at the transplant center who deals with insurance and would know what to do with this information?

They have lit my fire for the last time. I quit the insurance company this December no matter what. I’m going elsewhere that has a normal more practical policy, something a little less convoluted.

Now that the rant is over (I still don’t know how it will pass through until I get my explanation of benefits), lets talk about chemo.

Done. No more chemo!

Friday I will go to the transplant office again. The transplant doc wants to do an autologous (my own cells) right now. He feels the time is right.

I hope he’s right. My blood sugars went wild about that time, not kidding. As high as 412. Yep. Working hard to get this steroid induced diabetes under control. As one who has never been diabetic before, I’ll officially say I do not like it, not one bit.

So anyways, this is your rambling public service announcement to say chemo is over, the transplant work up begins Friday, and we’ll move forward from there.

I guess you’ve noticed the lack of videos. I’ve tried, just not enough energy. Too tired. Plus, you want the truth? I really do not like the way I look. You know, it is what it is. I guess when I went to a funeral and almost no one recognized me except : a) I opened my mouth and they recognized my voice, or b) they knew the chemo cousin was coming and this guy with the mask and no hair almost no eye brows and no eye lashes is suspicious.

I guess I don’t like the steroid swollen dead frog in the water look to be honest. Hurts a little when people I know don’t recognize me unless I speak. Whining over.

You know, life is good. Let’s get this transplant thing going. If the calendar holds on track, I should be in the hospital in approx 3 weeks getting BEAM chemo or something like that for 7 days. Then the day after is the infusion of cells, then 14 days-ish of resting and healing in the hospital.

After that, not sure how long the recovery period is. I’m hoping I can return to work before my termination date in mid-December.

I know I will be dropping my insurance like a hot potato and going onto my wife’s insurance no matter what.

So there you go. A big rant, a little wine (I mean whine), and a thrusting into the world of stem cell transplants.

I’ll probably keep all updates to these random written blogs and just skip video for a while.