Pulmonary Update
Had my Pulmonary Consultation at the National Jewish office at Rose Medical Center here in Denver. I don't know how organized they are paying wise. I'm totally self pay (expeeensive I tell you!). But I had to call their accounting/billing department to get estimates for prices, which is fine, except they only have 3 people and those 3 are designated certain letters of the alphabet. THREE people to handle billing stuff? That's retarded... You can either leave a message and get a call back 2-3 days later or call them every 5 minutes like I did today.
Anywho, so I walk in and fill out the normal paperwork and then the lady at the front asks how much I'm paying and I say all of it and then she asks how much the lady told me on the phone. I'm thinking...if I told you $200 instead of $500 would I only have to pay that much? I'm not even sure my consultation was actually $500! That's just the "estimate" the lady on the phone gave me a couple weeks ago! I have to go in for some actual testing instead of just the consultation so I think (since I got estimates on the phone for them today) that I'm going to tell them I'm not paying a cent until they give me an itemized bill.
The doctor was nice. I might have sleep apnea which is common in obese people. I don't have all of the symptoms, but I have a few, such as occasional headaches when I wake up, tiredness during the day...that's it actually. Those two alone seem not enough to be apnea considering the more serious symptoms are snoring, breath stopping, waking up gasping for air, etc etc. I don't have those issues. We'll see - I have to do a sleep study test where I bring home this machine and put the little monitor on my finger. My friend who did it said she woke up every 2 minutes freaking out that it was going to fall off which doesn't make for a very good study in my opinion! We'll see how I do. Along with that I have to do a breathing test and get a chest x-ray - normal things they ask for.
When I was born I had a heart murmur, which my father had before me. Past doctor visits have shown that it had gone away, but today he said it was there. So now I have to go in for an echocardiogram, which I might add is super duper freaking expensive. It's just to make sure there's no issue with it.
I set up the X-Ray and the Breathing test for Monday morning (8:10 AM!) and then I have Dr. Snyder's appointment on Wed. and the echocardiogram isn't till the 9th. I think I might ask him about the murmur just to be sure he wants one.
Next week is going to be busy. Monday tests, Tuesday work, Wednesday consults, Thurs-Sun camping!
Posted in: on Friday, June 27, 2008 at at 5:23 PM
