Saturday 10-7-2006

Well, my morning was just about as exciting as my Friday afternoon as I continued the paperwork jubilee and entered every explanation of benefit (EOB) into an excel spreed sheet to sort of summarize my health care situation. Then I would try to match up the EOB with the bill with the coverage I am supposed to get and try to make sure everything meshed. I remember my first look at an EOB (about 2 months ago) and it was like a another language but by now they have become pretty straight forward. Just for you folks at Raytheon, be thankful for the health coverage you have. We will see how everything comes out in the end but so far it has been pretty incredible how good of coverage I have gotten. I have the high deductible PPO plan and everything has been just really smooth. I cannot imagine not having health insurance after going through this. Because of the current situation (people not covered, the deals hospitals have with insurance companies, etc.) the medical costs are very high. Not only do you benefit with insurance by only having to pay a percentage for most treatments, but you are only paying a percentage of the lower negotiated deal that the insurance has with the hospital. Just to put things into perspective, the total medical costs (which only someone without insurance would have to pay in their entirety) for three months of care including a PET scan, a CT scan with FNA, an endoscopic ultrasound with FNA, a splenectomy, 4 day hospital stay, and about 2.5 months of chemo is approaching the six figure mark. The insurance negotiates and will pay much less than the total medical costs, and then I pay some small percentage of that. What a system. I am so thankful that the system seems to be working well for me for now.

Now onto the fun stuff...
While I was trudging through the jungle that is our health care system, Eva was getting squared away to go windsurfing in the afternoon. I met her down at Cabrillo to support her like a good husband. The wind was a little light early, but eventually picked up nicely. She is a really good windsurfer and I am just more amazed and in love with her each and every day. She had been trying to go windsurfing for the last few weekends and we were starting to think that the shop just did not want to earn any money (they need 2 people to rent to bring the truck down to the beach). Well, she finally got onto the water and I would say by the size of the smile on her face that she had a pretty good time. Those dimples are adorable!

I watched her for a while but, as the 8-year-old that I am, I cannot really sit all that long and sort of need to be doing something. Luckily, I brought my RC sailboat to keep me entertained. It is a really fun toy and actually closer to sailing than you might think. There are yacht clubs for people with model sailboats and they do regattas just like the big boats. It was a gorgeous afternoon and I just had a blast. I could watch Eva, play with my boat, and check out the pelicans diving for fish all at the same time. I have to say, my boat can move along pretty well but, once the wind picked up Eva just flew by. As the small child that I am, I got a lot of enjoyment out of scaring the seagulls with the boat.



Well, I guess I had too much fun playing with my boat because I sort of used up all the juice in the batteries. The servos did not have enough power to bring the sails in and with the offshore breeze the boat sort of started floundering about 30 feet from shore. I could have just jumped in and recovered it but I figured I would just get Eva to come in and use her board to go get my boat. Well, she was still having a lot of fun and by this time was way over away from the beach zooming around. By the time she made her way back to the beach, the boat had drifted about 100 yards away from the shore and was a little out of reach for a paddle (as the paddle back would be into a decent wind). The boat is not all that easy to transport as it is 1 meter long, the mast is 1.5 meters tall, it has these sails which reek havoc when carrying it in the wind, and it had 8 pounds of lead in the keel. Putting it onto the windsurfer and windsurfing back was not really an option. There I was, just a sad little boy walking on the beach who did not know if he would ever get to play with his boat again. I told Eva of the situation and left on a last ditch effort, hoping that it would drift into the rocks by the marina (and not to the ones on terminal island) and that I would be able to grab it before it got too banged up.

I drove over to the marina, hesitated a bit at the no trespassing sign, came up with a good " I was only recovering my boat and by the way I am on chemo and it really provides me with a lot of enjoyment" story for the marina patrol, watched the marina patrol car drive by, and then started the walk out onto the rock jetty that protects the cabrillo marina. The jetty has a about 4 bends in it and I would get my hopes up each time I was rounding one. After scrambling for quite a ways and three let downs, I spotted my boat. It had been placed up on the rocks with the sail tucked under the mast which was taken down. Immediately I thought "Eva, you are awesome! You rock!" I gathered up my boat and awkwardly made my way back over the rocks with a smile on my face as I had been reunited with my boat.

After I got back to the beach, Eva relayed her little adventure to get the boat up onto the rocks. She had sailed down to the boat, which was a little ways off the rocks, and jumped into the water. Then, much like I imagine a navy seal would do it, she frog-kicked her way over to the rocks pulling the little boat with one hand and her windsurfing rig with the other. She ditched her rig, swam the boat in the last few meters, and then had to crawl out of the water onto algae and crap covered rocks while lifting up the awkward, and now very slippery, "little" boat. She set it down nicely on a rock, then jumped back in, swam to her rig, and sailed off. I think I am the luckiest man in the world.

We spent the evening with my folks, had a nice dinner, and just talked for a while. My mom's big news for the day was that she got a dress for the wedding. She showed us all and it really is quite exquisite. Eva's parents had taken and emailed some photos of the dress that Eva's mother had bought last weekend, as well as a few other options, which really helped my mother kind of hone in on what she wanted. Well done Miluse and George. My mother was really grateful. And by the way, Miluse looks fabulous in her dress, too. The mothers have just been really funny about the dress situation and it looks like everything is working out for both of them.

I felt pretty good today. I have been sleeping more, which is nice. I now actually get up at a more reasonable hour (though I was very productive in those early hours). I have had diarrhea the last two nights. Only one session per night, no other craps during the day, and it was not too bad so I think it is OK and just part of the chemo thing. I just need to make sure to stay hydrated and keep eating.
-TN