Pain in the Head

Eek, four weeks since I’ve posted something.  Unfortunately, the blog has been taking the back seat to life lately…

The client I’m at didn’t renew our contract through the end of the month, so I’m heading back in the office after April 24th.  I may already have another client booked but that hasn’t been finalized yet.  To be a consultant on the bench isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I’m not bringing in money and it isn’t cheap to sit around doing nothing.  I’m not too worried as I’m continually adding to my skills to be more of a selling point to potential clients.  Enough about work.

School has been crazy, as usual.  I’m looking forward to finishing at the end of this month because Tazz and I are heading to New Mexico for five days and then to San Antonio for four days.  We’re going to see Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico along with the VLA (Very Large Array) near Socorro which was featured in the film Contact.  San Antonio will be four days of unplanned activities, mostly sitting around relaxing with my Aunt and Grandfather.  Tazz has never been to SA so he’s looking forward to it!

The household work has been a blast this spring, already.  Finally got the garage door replaced and entry door removed.  The chimney was falling apart and just dropped $2200 on a new liner and repair.  Next up, our driveway is getting ripped out and replaced because of water issues we were having in the basement.  It’s the year of repairs and I’m doing my part to stimulate the local economy.  (read: sarcasm)

Starting this fall, maybe even this summer, I will be starting initial work on my iPhone application for a migraine diary.  If you have interest in being part of my focus group and potentially a beta tester, let me know via a comment or send me an e-mail through my blog.

At work and at home, I frequently get distracted by noises.  At work, it’s the cackling hens I’ve talked about and at home it would be the TV from another room for example.  I dropped $100 on a pair of noise-cancelling headphones from audio-technica and I’m in love with them.  They reduce probably half of the ambient noise around you and add a little music on top of that and you can hardly hear those distractions.  When I need to really concentrate, these guys have been my saving grace.  I’ve considered using them when I get a bad migraine too since you don’t have to be connected to a music source – you can just wear them.

If you don’t already know, I’m a software engineer consultant.  I typically am placed at a clients’ office for three or more months at a time and typically feel like a regular employee.  Being a consultant, I must accept the environment and working conditions as they are given unless of course, they are hazardous to my well-being.  I’m beginning to wonder about the hazard level at my current client.

My client built out some pretty nice offices in a foundry that went out of business many years back.  The building has some strange space configurations given this history and not every desk has the best view or alignment with bathroom facilities, break rooms, etc.  My desk happens to be located right on a main walkway between two of the buildings this office covers.  A fairly wide hallway/breezeway is about 20 feet from my desk and has a number of break room tables located in that walkway.  During lunch, there is a group of ladies who get together and have a jolly old time.

They cackle like hens and it’s maddening.

I’m all for a stress-relieving lunch, but do they realize they’re smack in the middle of a business?  The tall ceilings lend themselves to horrendous echoes and when all five of them get wound up in their air-raid siren guffaw, I nearly lose it.  Being a consultant, I have to maintain a level of acceptance of the client, even if I don’t work with them.  However, I think I will print a small sign up saying “Please be mindful – voices carry!” or something neutral of the sort.  They have plastic sign holders for announcements and it would look professional enough.  But a part of me wants to throw my desk chair at them.  It doesn’t help when I have a migraine and music hurts my ears.  I should record them sometime so you can get the full effect.

I finally got a written response from the Department of Health & Human Services, Office for Civil Rights.  They wanted to let me know that they are in the process of reviewing my complaint to decide if the OCR has authority and is able to act on my complaint.  They dutifully notified me my complaint is open to the public under the Freedom of Information Act.  Wonder what fancy FBI database I’ll end up in now.

I think it took so long because my e-mailed complaint had to be printed out in DC and then physically mailed to the Chicago office.  (I’m guessing)  The wheels of justice go slowly in the States – especially since they’re covered in adhesive cellophane of the crimson variety.

It’s about time I have another fight with my medical insurance company, Athem Blue Cross Blue Shield.  I received a letter from them at the end of December letting me know that my plan is no longer covering omeprazole (the generic of Prilosec) in 40mg doses.  I am taking the 20mg pills but had my doctor spend weeks getting them to authorize a quantity of two a day, bringing the total dose to 40mg.

I called Anthem today, finally, to discuss this change in my coverage and how it’ll affect me.  Using their handy [sarcasm - it sucks] drug coverage & pricing tool online, I won’t be covered.  Previous experience has shown me that this tool doesn’t take into account authorizations on file and relatively has a mind of its own.  It’s useless.  Anyway, I got a very pleasant customer service representative to understand my dilema.

Nexium works the best for me, but it costs $65 a month or more.  I’ve tried EVERYTHING else and nothing works except Prilosec or its generic in a higher dose.  Prilosec is chemically similar to Nexium and actually contains about 20% of the active material of Nexium.  Fun fact for the day.

The CS rep took the time to talk with a pharmacy specialist, placing me on hold for a good ten minutes.  She said that because my doctor has completed the prior authorization form and they approved it, they’ll cover the prescription.  My renewal for the pills comes up at the end of the month, so I’m crossing my fingers I won’t have WWIII to contend with.  In the end, I could ask my doctor for 90 days of samples, but since I have insurance I might as well make them pay for it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Still no word on the HIPAA complaint I filed.  I may re-file the complaint with the regional office in Chicago rather than e-mailing it to the national office.  I’ll certainly update everyone when I find out what is happening.

After reviewing my files, I realized that I had certain dates wrong in my head.  My migraines weren’t diagnosed until 2003 and I’ve been on blood pressure medications since 1999.  The doctors office kept copies every time they got a fax note from me and whenever I had a prescription refilled.  Kind of scary to see how often I called that quack.

What I’ve learned so far is that memory doesn’t serve me as well as I thought.  Keeping a timeline written down somewhere is your best plan.  You may think you will remember a significant event forever, when in fact, you start to forget when it doesn’t continue to be an ultra-relevant fact any more.

Leads me to believe that my idea for a migraine diary application for a mobile phone makes more sense every day.  I think I might actually make it my final project for my software engineering degree.