Tuesday, September 6, 2016

LENS and Life, week of 9/6/16

Two sites last week.  None 'til next week.  Perhaps this means I should change the title to Legwork and Life now.  But I dunno if we're done with changing things up, because I'm not waking up rested still. 

I've been kind of sick this last week.  But it's not a nice recognizable sickness I'm familiar with, it's exhaustion and fuzzy-headedness and a complete lack of fever.  It's not being able to sleep in, and waking up after 3-5 hours of sleep. 

Though I might have just figured out why it's doing that.  I mentioned awhile ago that apparently the pre-industrial sleep schedule included an hour of being awake every night, preceded by and succeeded by 3-5 hours of sleep.  This was apparently quite normal, except we began messing up our systems with electric lights, thus divorcing our time from the sun and its built in breaks.  Thus 8 hours of uninterrupted rest began to take precedence over the previous rhythm. 

I woke up at about 5am last night, having hallucinated sleep studies and stuff in the computer game Chris and I were playing.  Sadly quite awake, and with a song in my head.  I was still tired, though, and it was way too early in the morning, so I opted to bore my brain back to sleep by not doing anything.  Eventually it worked, and I managed to sleep another few hours. 

I feel...  rested is not the word.  But better than I did earlier. I just hope today doesn't also middle and end in a fuzzy head and general dull-wittedness.  It's just unpleasant, and not having an explanation or anything workable to do about it is really unpleasant.

Related to sleep, I got a doctor to recommend me a sleep study.  Those cost about $2,000, but it sounds like Medicaid is going to pick up some or all of it.  I'm hoping all, because this year has been hideously expensive, and I made inquiries to try and find out how much I'd be responsible for.  But the end result is: "we don't know 'til we bill it."  Which I'd call bullshit on, but unfortunately that is /exactly/ how insurance companies work at present.  I know that from personal experience when I worked at Hope Network. 

It is many kinds of stupid, but particularly stupid when you're playing with Medicaid, which is only given to near-destitute people.  Just because they're poor doesn't mean they can't need expensive tests, but unlike middle class and upper class people, getting slapped with a $2,000 bill because their doctor deemed the test necessary and Medicaid deemed it unnecessary is life ruining.  Where many other folks have a rainy day fund, poor people generally can't.  The requirements of Medicaid are stingy, not to mention food stamps and other forms of assistance.  Even if they can earn money for the rainy day fund, they can't keep it or they'll lose their benefits. 

Anyway, I'd normally call off the sleep study for a few months until Chris and I are married, but given how much trouble I've had sleeping lately, I think I'm probably just going to bite the proverbial bullet and hope Medicaid covers most of it.  If I'm not breathing properly while I'm sleeping, or overheating, or underheating, or something, knowing sooner rather than later would be good.  And unlike most people on Medicaid, I have a few resources to draw on in dire straits. 

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