Medical Status

The kids have gone home, the dogs have settled down, and I've gotten a few of the medical tests and consultations out of the way, so things have slowed down a bit. The consensus of my doctors at this point is that surgery is probably not indicated now; instead we're going to investigate having a neural stimulator implanted in my spine. This works very much like the TENS unit I'm currently using, except that instead of electrodes pasted to the skin, it uses wires and a small control unit implanted next to the spine. The first step is a temporary implant, to test whether the stimulation will actually help; before committing to that I have to get a psychological exam to make sure I'm not a fruitcake who won't react properly to the current. That's scheduled for 2 weeks from now.

Now if Congress would just get off its collective thumb and pass the COBRA subsidy extension, I may get back $5 or $6000 that I've already overpaid for health insurance before I have to change my coverage from COBRA to the Oregon Health Plan, and then to whatever they're going to call the Health Reform Act post-COBRA coverage (can't tell the insurers without a score card). Then we can figure out who's going to cover the implant procedure.