Count-down

Okay, I’m one week out from having my right knee carved up like a pumpkin and a foreign object permanently embedded in my body. It’s starting to get real.

I’ve got my ride to and from the hospital sorted, and can borrow a walker and cane from friends. (Reston Hospital doesn’t lend patients these things, claiming supply chain issues.) This weekend I’ll stock up on Lean Cuisines or similar—thank God for the pandemic purchase of a 17 cu ft freezer. I’ll also roll up all the area rugs to get them out of my path.

I’ve had all the scans, tests, labs and examinations. Today I talk with a pre-registration (?) nurse at the hospital. S/he’ll stick a swab up my nose and ask a bunch of questions that I feel like I must have already answered in any one of the 16,732 online forms I’ve completed. I’ll also be given carbohydrate drink(s) and instructions on when to drink them on S-Day.

My health insurance has already balk at paying for something (delta between the first name on the insurance card and the name on the radiology department’s account). And I just yesterday received word that my insurance views my PT provider as out of network "because not located in California". I spent ~45 minutes on the horn with my [company] healthcare concierge to determine that the provider is, in fact, in-network, and Max D. at Anthem was being a jackass when he told the provider that porky.

The hospital emailed me last week to say that my portion of the facility charge is $2000, but if I paid within 72 hours of the email, they’d discount it 20%. I did. (And then I got another invitation to pay in advance. They need to work on their algorithm.) Surgeon wants his co-pay two days before he pulls out his scalpel; I haven’t heard from the anesthesiologist, but I imagine s/he’ll get in line before the day, too.

Just have to borrow some Agatha Christie detective novels to see me through the first few days after the operation and I should be set.