For all of us who suffer with Chronic Pain, we are very familiar with health insurance carriers. We must ask them for that special blessing that seemingly only they can give. We wait and hope for the phone call that will authorize the much needed medical procedure to ease our Pain. When the phone rings, we know the mighty powers known as Health Insurance People have taken pity on us.
Through the years, I've heard people discuss on national news shows how the insurance industry has a bottom line called PROFIT. Silly me! I'd always thought they were in the business of helping patients by working with their doctors and getting them needed treatment. Never did I dream how vicious this business actually is nor did I imagine falling victim to the reject patient assembly line that runs daily through so many health insurance companies.
Yet here I am, 14 years into my daily battle with Chronic Pain. In the last two years, I've found out how hard my own fight would become to get the only treatment available that gives me RELIEF from this mind numbing Pain. I can rise to the battle each day with the Pain, fall when it is raging, rest and then get back up to fight away. But then to have this horrible misery of being refused medical treatment when I am at my lowest with Pain...well, it can take you down to the darkest of valleys.
I feel very alone.
I got the news today that a procedure that eases my throbbing back pain was denied by my health insurance carrier because THEY decided it was not medically needed. There is a question I would love to ask each person who currently works for a health insurance company:"How do you sleep at night?" Then I answered my own question. They sleep very well because all they see on a piece of paper is a NAME, no face, nothing to give them a glimmer of what true Chronic Pain is like. It's easy for them to dodge dark circles under eyes that come from so many lost nights of sleep because Pain refuses to ease. Or a body bent over in agony from Pain that is robbing a person of so much. As long as we remain simply a face, their job is easy and the pen they use to check off the NO box moves swiftly. The name on paper is tossed to the side as they take on another victim.
For those of you who are going through this experience, please hear my prayer for you and know how sorry I am that you, too, must endure this added suffering. Today I felt whipped, beaten down and so alone. But as the day wore on and I physically tried to work out my anger, that came to a fast stop because the Pain got my attention. I realized this is not a time for me to give up and allow this to happen. Instead, it is a time for me to work with my doctor, truly get to know my health insurance company personally and above all, give them a chance to actually meet the real face of the person who they only know as patient number #####.
For whatever reason, this challenge lies in front of me. My decision to stay the course and work with every ounce of strength in me to do my part in helping to teach my own insurance company just what Chronic Pain really is. It's so much more than a phrase, the name for a condition that all they can see is something that can't be fixed and is only costing them more as they pay for treatment.
This is my life, my future, and I will not allow Pain to beat me down. How did I find any Joy today in the midst of such anger? It happened as I was outside, kneeling on the ground, trying to plant a simple flower and then wondering, "Now how am I going to ever stand back up? This could get really interesting!"
That was my second of Joy as I struggled to rise up and laughed at myself while doing it. Hang in there as you fight through this battle of Pain and struggles with insurance. Know I am praying for all of you, and trust that I am also saying some prayers for me, too. God bless.
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