Monday, February 20, 2012

7 Week Status.

I've made it 7 weeks since my surgery and on a whole, feel great. I started work last Monday, February 13th 2012, and let me tell you - it wasn't super fun going back. For the most part, my body feels decent for what it's endured. Because I've been (obviously) wearing a bra every day at work, the scar under my arm has been sensitive and a little sore, but manageable. I've been able to sing normally again which I'm super happy about. My incisions (cosmetically) are healing well as you can see:


Can you see the incision in my tattoo? I can't!



My second day back at work was also the day I was about to go nuts from still not receiving my first Disability payment. I received a letter in the mail stating that my claim was (FINALLY) processed as of February 1st so I was wondering why I still hadn't received anything on Valentine's Day (I was willing to forgive all my gentlemen callers for the lack of flowers and chocolate covered goodies in exchange for money in my bank account from the State of New Jersey...). A friend of mine asked if I had checked my last Disability debit card to see if they put the money on the old one. I kind of chuckled at the idea because why would I have kept a Bank of America Disability debit card with no balance on it from the last time I was on Disability? It just made no sense for them to put the money on there. By some grace of God Himself I actually kept the card and take a guess at what was on it...? Half of my money!

Where was the other half, you say? Who the hell knows! Weeks ago I received probably the fifth form from Disability requesting MORE information from my doctor that I faxed in. This was to approve the rest of my time off, I guess. I have yet to see that money. Maybe it will come after I get my first real check back from my job. Which, by the way, apparently didn't process my return date so I sat staring at a computer with no access for three days. Good times.

When filing for Disability, I also need to file for The Hartford through my job. Honestly I'm not quite sure what these people do. They don't pay me, so why do they call every third day? It makes no sense. I received a call last week stating that they approved me to be out of work up until February 6th but after that I was not approved due to not a good enough reason for staying out the extra week. Needless to say Dr. Jekyll morphed into Ms. Hyde and with as much sarcasm and snide as Erin-ly possible I fired, "I work in a professional environment interviewing complete strangers all day, every day. You're actually going to tell me the fact that I was unable to wear a bra is not good enough reason for me not returning to work?"

In reality what I wanted to tell the evil bitch on the other end of the phone was that no amount of plastic surgery could match what God gave me naturally and that they couldn't pay me to walk into my office with the characters that frequent it on a daily basis, sans brazier.

I was informed I would need to write an appeal letter once I received my rejection letter for the last week in the mail. Great! Yet another appeal I need to file. The second appeal letter that I have already written is being mailed to Medicaid due to being approved again this year, but declined against going to Sloan. You know, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center - the WHOLE reason I filed for Medicaid to begin with. Should I have gone to Law School? Perhaps.

So with all these exciting appeal letters I get to write and pretend I'm some sort of attorney, I barely have time to write any blogs. Hence the reason it took almost a month to complete this one. But have no fear, faithful readers and friends: Erin is back with a vengeance and I'll be damned sure if you don't get your bi-weekly dose of me from here on out.

As a side note: Cancer is a fucking ugly ass whore. I was recently made aware the Big C reared it's nastiness back into the body of someone else I know who is battling. She went through so much the last time around and now another long road of chemo is ahead of her yet again. It breaks my heart that the undeserving have to deal with something so terrible. Any positive thoughts, vibes, prayers, would be so appreciated.

Till we meet again...