My Ebenezer

  We were finally seen by an orthopedic doctor Friday: one week after Seth's accident on the one wheel. What a long week spent on the phone with those On Hold Recordings ("Your healthcare is our top priority!" = a big fat syrupy lie), insurance customer service reps, orthopedic schedulers and switchboard operators... You know that scene in The Princess Bride where the Count puts Westley on that machine and then calmly reports, "I've just sucked one year of your life away." I felt just like Westley felt too.   I know now what took so long for Seth to be seen. Are you ready for it? The insurance company had Seth's birthdate wrong in their information. One little number--a 0 instead of a 9--meant the difference between an appointment early in the week and one on Friday. Yes, we still would have needed a referral and prior authorization, but No, it did not have to take so long except that things got hung up with that wrong birthdate. The authorization was se...

  So, this happened. (This will be my fifty-first explanation, but that's okay!) Seth was riding our one-wheel on Friday. He was admittedly going too fast (the machine was actually beeping at him!) and he fell off, wrecking himself on the asphalt. Besides the mean road rash you see in the picture, he also sprained his left wrist and broke his collar bone on the right side. Broke. His. Clavicle. "What's a one-wheel; is that like a unicycle?" is our most commonly asked question. And since a picture is worth a thousand words, this is a one-wheel:  We are so thankful Seth was wearing his helmet, that I was out for a walk on the same street with him at the time it happened, and that it was not worse.  What I am having a harder time being thankful for is insurance. Since when does an insurance company get to tell me that we can or cannot be seen by a doctor?  Let me back up. We went to the ER shortly after the accident. X-rays happened. The x-ray report for his upper tors...