On This Date

On This Date in 2001


1. The phone rang at 6am. It was my mother. Grandma Kozak had died. Should I cancel my plans? Drive home? Fly to Florida? No. Just continue with what I was doing -- there would be a memorial service in Schenectady in a few weeks, so there was no need to go to the funeral.


2. A surgeon made two small slits in my abdomen, inserting a camera in one and surgical instruments in the other. The camera identified endometriosis. When my doctor later tried to treat the symptoms with The Pill, the insurance company that does not pay for birth control (because pregnancy isn't a disease -- which is why they pay for pregnant woman to see their doctors on a regular basis) refused to pay. After many angry phone calls and much faxing, they decided to pay for The Pill. As an added bonus, they also decided to pay for Lupron, a medication that I refuse to take.


3. The surgical instruments carried out their main purpose for being in my abdomen -- severing and electro-cauterizing my fallopian tubes. The insurance company that does not pay for birth control did pay for this. In fact, they paid for all the surgical costs -- from the anaesthesia to the surgeon's fee to the cardiologist visit to ensure that my heart problem would not be a problem with elective surgery. Oh, wait, they didn't pay for having the surgeon dig the Norplant out of my arm; that's birth control (which they don't pay for).