this morning i had a doctors appt. i had a whole list of items to talk to him about. rather, i had a whole mind map. when he saw the map, he was scared. it was a good appointment though… i thought i has having some bizarre symptoms of something but everything on my list was very normal (and in fact boring to him).
the lump ive noticed in my earlobe is a cyst. only if its giving a problem do they do anything about it. he said normally earrings cause it. but i havent been wearing any. i cant even remember the last time i’ve worn some. of course then it hit me. i got new headphones for xmas.
the beauty mark/mole thing on my arms that i scratched & is now puffy & red & nasty looking is fine as long as it’s not still like that in 2-3 wks.
the constant itchiness that can spring up at any moment on any part of my body seems to be a new symptom of my allergies / hay fever. it would seem that this year in melb has been awful for seasonal allergies. AND people are having new & different symptoms than they have before. this is one of them. and since my body is already on high alert & freaking out b/c of the mass of spores & pollen & etc, i’m super sensitive to everything. the last few months when i unpack the fruit & veg from the delivery at the juice bar, i get raised red itchy eruptions on my arms. it’s def an allergy to something … ‘contact dermititus’ . this overall allergy is causing this other allergy. great. so now i have this nose spray that’s supposed to be great for allergies. takes about 3 days to take effect though.
and finally i had a weird thing happen the other nite. monday nite i was home watching tv. all of a sudden something was weird. to say the tv was fuzzy is wrong but something weird was happening w my vision. taking the contacts out didnt fix it. maybe 20 min later i got a txt msg & when i went to reply i was having problems seeing. okaaay. few min later i got up to write some emails. this is when it got bad. i was having a very hard time focusing. and when i could there seemed to be some sort of disconnect btwn my eyes & my brain. i’d have to read a word letter by letter & then put it together – it wasnt instantanous. and after i did that for like 4 words, i couldnt remember what i had read. it was scary. very scary. it didnt last long though.
turns out i had a migrane. it seems the public & the media has transformed the world ‘migrane’ from its medical meaning to the public perception of just having a headache (and yeah, i did start to get a small headache during this time). the doc said i basically told him a textbook case study of a migrane. lovely. since this is the only time this has occured & it might never again, there’s no drugs. but damn, i wish i knew what set that off.
so i’m going to live.
i was talking to a fellow nyc-er the other day about insurance so ill give today’s experience as an example. i have special private student health insurance, not the state healthcare that every AU citizen has. the pricing of my insurance is very reasonable – i think i pay something like A$350 for a year. (roughly U$500). this doesnt cover everything but so far it has covered a fair amount. today my doctor bill was A$82. thats for 1/2 an hour as opposed to when i go to the uni doctor & they’ve set aside 10 min to see me. at the pharmacy i paid A$48 for the allergy meds. then i took both receipts over to the insurance company.
i got back A$49 out of the 82 for the doctor. this doc charges over the prescribed amt (prescribed by the state healthcare sys) so i dont get it all back. there’s some other reason that she explained but i didn’t understand. i didnt think the prescription would be covered but turns out it is. i can get back up to A$150 a year in prescription costs. the weird thing is…. u can only get back what the state would pay for the same prescription. so what i paid A$48, the govt pays A$19 & change (which is what i was given).
the more i talked to the woman at the counter about this, the more i got confused. but i ended paying about 70 for 130 worth of services. about half. not bad. especially if you consider what i would have paid at home for this. (and btw, had i gone to the uni doctor i wouldnt have paid at all for the visit . but i dont think they’re that great & i would have had 10 min to discuss my mind map).
so now its 4pm & i havent done crap for the thesis. do i start writing or do i go to pilates… hmm….